A while ago I wrote a review about owner Mark Nooijen. He did not follow our special instructions, resulting in the products not arriving in good order. After 5 years of following the instructions we could reasonably have expected him to do so again. This follow-up review is about his behaviour towards us after we complained, as a warning to potential clients of what behaviour to expect.
We initially asked him to refund half of the costs but we have long since given up on that. Sending the products back is not an option because shipping costs from here are so high that it would make more sense to just reorder. We also believe that we should not have to make costs for something he did or didn't do (note that he will not refund shipping costs). As a minimum he could have apologised about the fact that he did not give us at least the option to cancel the order now he is no longer willing to follow any special instructions. If he had done that we would have let it go.
The reason why we still want to have a dialogue with him is that he has stated several times "Everytime we refunded the money", which is a lie. By making this comment he implies that we (!) are lying because in my review I mentioned that he has never refunded us. Stating "Everytime we refunded the money" while he has never done so is deceitful. He publicly tarnishes our reputation. Earlier this month we sent him 4 e-mails asking why he made this statement, but he never responded. A couple of days ago I let him know that I would review him again so that prospective customers would know that he acts unethically and deceitfully. This time he did respond:
"Go ahead. Will contact Google to block all your Gmail accounts then. Publishing fake reviews is not done with Gmail accounts. Read their terms of conditions. You look like criminals, want free products, publishing fake reviews, spanning, threathening us etc etc."
Firstly, I don't think Google will block my Gmail accounts when they are contacted by a third (vindictive) party? Secondly, a fake review is a review about something that has never happened so I don't think this is a fake review? Thirdly, calling (past) customers "criminals" is not very professional. Fourthly, we have paid for all our orders. We asked for a refund after our first order in 2014 because it did not arrive in good order, however never got it and we didn't make a point of it. We just added special instructions with our yearly orders from 2015 onwards. Fifthly, "spanning" ("spamming"?) is something he probably could say as we did send him a lot of e-mails at the end of last year because we wanted to have a dialogue so we would understand his statement "Everytime we refunded the money". Sixthly, is telling him that I will review him again the same as "threathening" ("threatening"?) him? I think I do have the right to warn prospective customers.
After his "Go ahead" response I asked him again why he stated "Everytime we refunded the money". He finally responded as follows: "Yes we did refunded even wehen your received also the products. You are bad people. Please review now and we will finish this with google.".
This means he was lying again. When I next asked for proof (like bank statements) of the refunds he responded as follows: "You can find yourself." Not sure how to find transactions that never took place! He also responded with "Never had customers like you, blackmailing, threatening about the color of the chocolate its very sad". The thing is, if you buy a black shirt and you get a white one, or you buy a set of glasses and they are chipped, you would want these replaced even though the shirt could be worn and the glasses could be used. In our case it was worse as the taste was very much affected.
For us this is no longer about the order. This is about the unprofessional, unethical and deceitful behaviour of the owner (as explained we initially asked him to refund half of the costs but if he had just apologised we would have let it go) and who decided to demean himself by lying in public. We think we really need to let potential clients know what to expect.