Complaint Department: How to Respond to Hate Mail

Photo by Robin Thom.

From the Complaint Department:

You have a useless, worthless web site...I tried for ten minutes to order some soap and never could get the order accepted. You losers, why have a web site and a lousy, unusable program...fire your programmers, they are fools, Carl

My reply:

Carl,

Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback. I will make sure my web guy knows about the issues. If you still want to order soap, please simply reply to this email with a list of your choices, and I will let you know where you can send a check. Will that work for you?

In the 5 years that I have had my soap website, this is the FIRST email of its kind. Furthermore, I tested the site and it works fine. This makes me realize that Carl does not understand how to use Paypal. Dear Paypal--please fire all of your programmers, as per Carl.

UPDATE!

Carl emailed me back! It turns out that I was right--he couldn't get Paypal to accept his card, for some reason. So, the edict above stands. Paypal, fire all your fool programmers, please. Also, Carl DID place an order, and said he would send a check. Have you ever?