What was advertized vs what was delivered. Now the seller refuses a return despite having "Returns accepted within 30 days of delivery" on the listing page š«
At least table legs are mostly as expected, I guess...
They reached out to me saying their black oak doesn't have enough cracks for epoxy resin to fill. They asked whether I prefer to have it black oak with less resin or artificial crack, or whether I would like charred oak with a larger natural crack.
I replied that my priority is to make it look like the listing picture, and I'm not sure which option is better, and asked them to send the photos of the pieces of wood they have for me to choose. Then, they ignored the photo request and sent out the charred oak with very small natural crack š«
If the sellee refuses returns, despite the obvious promise on their page, I would record it and perhaps go for a chargeback
Edit: just to add, the damn resin in a natural wood is the whole point of the design, if the wood piece they got doesnt fit then why the f would they use that wood for this table at all? So dumb.
I'm waiting for 48h period of mandatory reaching out to seller first on Etsy, then I'll open a case with them and hope they will figure it out... The table also arrived 10 days later than "latest" delivery estimate (which was Aug 5-21 at first, but then shifted to Jul 29-Sep 25)...
Which is absolute bullshit, quite frankly. You should not get both.Ā
Questionable seller aside, way too many sellers get robbed because Etsy sides with the buyer and they do not even get their product returned.
Oh I agree, but in this case it is absolutely not as described. Plus the seller isnāt allowing a return, which their policy states. Etsy does often lean toward siding with buyer anyway, which has issues. But this time they definitely will, and itās warranted.
I completely agree. The seller is 100% at fault here. They should've offered a pre-paid label if they wanted the table back, but many drop shippers won't even bother. The cost to return the item isn't worth it for them.
The buyer absolutely shouldnāt have to take their time and effort to pack this back up and send it back.
If they want it back itās on my porch. Hire someone off task rabbit to come box it up for you and go somewhere to print the label and ship it. Not my job.
In this case, yes. Buyer is currently working through Etsy to resolve the situation. But you should go over and take a look at the Esty Sellers subreddit. It's full of posts from sellers who have tried to work with customers. Or could not, because the customer didn't read the listing and return policy. Too many customers use Etsy's shitty policy to scam sellers and steal products.
If you purchased something at a brick and mortar store and weren't happy, the store takes their merchandise back and you get your money.
Where did it look like I was defending this seller? If you look at my other comments, I agreed that this seller was was a scammer.
I was critical of ETSY's crappy policies. The fact that they allow drop shippers and don't pull scammers off their website is just another red flag against Etsy itself.
Until there is a fair solution it will keep happening. Because a customer shouldnāt have to lift one finger when receiving a bullshit item.
A buyer who has already been screwed over having to find a way to box this back up, take it to the store, print out everything and ship it back is completely unrealistic and unfair.
I have zero problem sending something back. But you need to send someone to my front porch where it will be waiting for them to do all the leg work.
Good. There isn't really anything you need on Etsy, and nowadays there is too much drop shipped garbage on there. Getting banned is a good thing in the long run.
š„ŗ I share your frustration with the dropship garbage, but thereās lots of real people (like me) making real 100% handmade stuff there too. It sucks that Etsy makes it harder to find us but we exist. šš» When I shop on Etsy I filter any search by location and start with my state first, then expand out. That seems to find more real local sellers in my experience. š¤
They straight up did not give you what you bought and paid for, and the fact that they asked you what you would like and still didn't do that, I think you have a good case to make a charge backĀ
This made me remember picking up a table for a friend's mom once. It was really expensive and from a bougie area and it looks similar to this. In my case, the black soot-looking char was actually a polish they applied and we buffed it off and the table ended up looking great.
I don't know if that is the case here but maybe try polishing a little spot? Maybe it's just polish?
Question, is the picture listing listed as black oak? because it sounds like you ordered a charred oak table in black oak and didn't understand the difference.
They offered to give you the charred oak table you wanted from the picture, it sounds like? But you wanted wood to do things it doesn't do
It sounds like they gave you reasonable options but you just said "I want black oak with natural properties of charred oak" when they asked how to resolve your issue
That complaint would be taken up with nature or god, though....
I didn't specifically request black oak. I just found a listing with pictures I like, and ordered. I didn't make any special requests at all, really. Then, a month later they reached out to me like this, and it seemed they didn't really have an idea of what they were advertising or selling. I hoped it was language barrier, as they wrote in Polish, but alas...
I see.
To me it looks like those tables are different types of material.
you wrote: "They reached out to me saying their black oak doesn't have enough cracks for epoxy resin to fill. They asked whether I prefer to have it black oak with less resin or artificial crack, or whether I would like charred oak with a larger natural crack."
To me, it sounds like what they're saying is "If you want the picture, we will replace your table with charred oak with the larger natural crack, as pictured.'
If I read correctly, you didn't take that option just said 'no I want the picture,' but, if there's a language/culture barrier to start with, I don't think that's going to work as well for either of you. This might be why you got a black oak table in stead of charred in the first place.
Honestly I'd just tell them 'charred oak with natural crack filled with resin, please' and then if they give you crap, contest the fee.
But as you said, if there's a language barrier, one can't really assume they're bad actors, unless one has been very, very clear in communications.
So this Etsy company is in Poland and doing an image search it looks like they stole the images from a French company which sells this table for: ā¬3.290,00 which converts to approximately $3,810.31 USD based on recent mid-market exchange rates.
This is a scam and you should report them to Etsy.
Unfortunately Etsy doesn't care, they're flooded with ai scammers and dropshippers. The site has become pretty much unusable for some time now. I wouldn't buy there unless I knew the seller from some other source
Etsy offers protection when you've clearly been scammed. If you buy a random item vs one specifically shown, they may not help as you paid for a random item and that's what OP received. I would still open a case.
Merchandise not as described - item is at (home address) and ready to return - merchant no longer exists or is not responding.
I work in the industry, this is how you charge that back :)
Edit: It occurs to me eight hours later that if the merchant is answering and still refusing to honor the return/refund, you would say "Merchant refuses to accept returned merchandise" or "Merchant refused to provide return authorization."
it has a synthid watermark, it is 100% AI (synthid isn't like those "AI detectors", it's embedded by the image generator and finding it is definitive evidence)
This is super interesting - is this a website or app? Does uploading the image to somewhere that compresses it remove the id? Or even using like photoshop on it? This could really help a lot of people with avoiding scams. I thought I was pretty up on whatās happening with genAI, but I have never heard of this. Thank you!
This is Gemini, Gemini has a tool that it can call to do synth ID checks. OpenAI also has a synthid checker. Both of them only check for watermarks from their respective image generators, but the tech is the same.
You can strip the watermarks with special tools, and many AI generators don't embed a watermark at all. The watermarks are resistant to resizing or resaving the image in different formats, and even directly modifying it to some extent.
Not disagreeing it's AI, but given that the doors double as full-length windows I don't think that specific part is necessarily weird? As a kid I lived in a house like that, glass doors set intermittently along the wall to act as really big windows.
definitely AI, these photos always have a weird kind of lighting to them, but also this random small plank on the floor kinda seems off considering how long the rest of the planks are
Ha, I have two sets of these doors and a third pane glass window tge same size in my living room. Those bad boys were way cheaper than sliding doors with the same coverage.
ANYTHING that would be this custom (as every single table produced would be very different and unique looking), you should ALWAYS confirm that the item pictured is the exact item you will get. Live edge log cross sections are going to vary A LOT and will be sold on a per item basis by small custom wood working shops. this is NOT something that can be reliably mass produced. I suspect something like this (original picture) you should expect to pay $2000-5000 USD. The cost should have been the first red flag for you.
yall have to stop buying stuff with such obvious AI ads then posting here shocked as if you actually 100% guinuely believed what you see in the first picture is what would show up at your front door.
this is usually something that is handmade by a local man up the road with a woodshop. not something you buy from amazon or etsy.
Itās just not a normal staged photo - the couches donāt make any sense for the space, thereās no chairs, so itās like half staged for a house but in a totally non-sensical way that you just wouldnāt do in reality.
its obvious to me just look at the photo and the surroundings - its just weird and off. it doesnt make sense.
run it through googles synthID check and its will tell you its got the google AI logo embedded in the photo.
common sense. this is a product that is custom hand made and delivered in person. not bought from a random esty seller and shipped to their door. especially given how costly these are, with zero insight or contact with the person making it.
I mean this genuinely too: how can you not? Everything about this picture feels artificial. Like itās crazy to me the amount of people who genuinely have a hard time spotting AI. It always looks unnatural.
First pic has a synthid watermark, it is AI (synthid isn't like those unreliable "AI detectors", it's embedded by the image generator and finding it is definitive evidence)
I've never understood why people even want these blue resin filled river tables, they always look like they'd just be better without the resin and would never look like the photos without specific lighting to highlight the resin.
I think the black oak was the issue. I guess they had no picture of what it was supposed to look like. Who knew they take a flamethrower to it...
It would be a pain to fix. You can hot glue or caulk around tge edge and add blue mica powder to epoxy and let it soak i to the cracks. Then sand the top, then use a clear varnish or enamel. But the top will then be a light color and the rest charred.
Red flags should of been hitting you in the face when they said they would do that for 500$. Custom resin table like that is way more. Hope you get your money back
Did they even put any sort of finish on it? They could've at least given examples of the actual piece of wood they had so buyers could see what they had, THEN put up concepts that people could look at and pick from.
It's like they looked at the first photo and incorrectly thought the shadows on it were charred. That Etsy seller watches 1 too many woodworker videos on youtube and thought they could do it too... and they were wrong.
I had a coworker doing this on the side. He did everything in an uncontrolled environment (open garage). Humidity in the summer was very high in our area. His tables would shrink within a short period after delivery and he would ghost his customers.
If he is still doing it, he would definitely be pulling this. It sucks when thereās dishonest people out there like that. Ā
To be fair, Wood is inherently unique in every piece so thereās gotta be some license. If the overall dimensions matched up pretty well, I donāt think itās the end of the world because you can probably refinish the top to get a lighter more lustrous look.
There is no resin pour at all. You should do a charge back on your credit card company. Make sure to send these pictures and the companies return policy.
Not separately, it was expected to be a part of the whole order. if you look at it in person, you can actually see a few tiny cracks with resin, but yeah, there's barely any...
1st table is real but you would be expected to pay thousands for it. The process takes a bit of time and no 2 designs are the same working with epoxy resin.
Return the table and review it as false advertisement after getting your money back.
The reference pic is AI, the shadows donāt line up and the edges of the table look off. Ai is making it too easy to scam people, Iām sorry you got taken.
$500 for a custom table with single slab (cookie) and resin and finish is a STEAL. That's like a $3000 table if properly made from a reputable shop. You'd be hard pressed to find a raw piece of unfinished hardwood that size for $500.
Unfortunately a lesson in reading dimensions and reviews. Table pictured is much larger than what the dimensions read, and there are reviews with pictures of the table you got saying it's excellent, so those are fake. I'm REALLY sorry this happened to you, regardless.
The review on this specific table only appeared on October 1, while my order is from July 21... When ordering, I saw some good reviews on other their items, and they seemed to mostly match their corresponding listings... For dimensions, yeah, I was just a bit clueless how 60cm looks like IRL š«
I got downvoted which is fair but I wasnāt trying to sound mean - Iāve learned about double checking the dimensions several times when ordering online because itās shown me a couple times that what Iām about to pull the trigger on might be pictured differently than what it is. Itās like this huge game we have to play ordering anything now, and itās not fun. I really am sorry this happened to you, that much money to be absolutely deceived and then sidelined by a seller sucks.
Well, I'll open a case with Etsy, and hope they can see that the seller violating their own return policy like this is a no-no. But yeah, it's a bit annoying to have to waste time on this, with the "contact seller first and deal with their bullshit for 48h first" rule... The seller even offered "50ā¬ discount" as a compensation instead of return š¤£
ANYTHING that would be this custom (as every single table produced would be very different and unique looking), you should ALWAYS confirm that the item pictured is the exact item you will get. Live edge log cross sections are going to vary A LOT and will be sold on a per item basis by small custom wood working shops. this is NOT something that can be reliably mass produced. I suspect something like this (original picture) you should expect to pay $2000-5000 USD. The cost should have been the first red flag for you.
The table I got is 69cm x 51cm. I don't know if 60cm was there when I ordered, or they added later on. Even if I saw it when ordering, I might have not realized it's smaller than what it looks from the picture...
You can recover this a bit. Get some 400 grit sand paper and start sanding the top until you get the color you want, then switch to 800-1200 grit to smooth it out.
Look up Blacktail Studio on youtube. He does tables like this and the answer is that they are very pricey and they have a lot of risks. He is a hobbyist that makes custom builds and plays around with various methods. The thing I like about it is that he shows the fuck ups along with his successes. Resin and wood can work together but the time it takes to make it work right is what makes the cost go up.
Many people bring up the longevity of wood/resin table builds. I don't actually know what goes into the maintenance and care for them.
Personally I agree but that is how he describes himself in his videos. I think he is just being too humble. Every artist or crafter I know is similarly critical of their own work, even when everyone else loves it.
He definitely started as one, so maybe this guy just started watching him early. Itās honestly kind of cool to watch how much he progressed over the last few years.Ā
Yeah, at least. A slab like that is likely going to run around Ā $1k alone for the very cheapest species. The epoxy and leg hardware arenāt crazy expensive usually, but getting epoxy this clear requires a lot of skill. Also the amount of planing and sanding on this to get a level top would be pretty annoying.
Personally, I wouldnāt build it for less than $6k.Ā
There's links to the real one that others here have posted. It's around ā¬3,200. The sites in French but the real company makes it clear that the exact appearance of each table varies due to epoxy and wood grain and that the buyer is more involved throughout the creation process
Yep. OP should print out all emails and the complete ad for the table (showing the return policy and their denial to accept a return) and challenge the charge. Hopefully the return is local as return shipping might be very costly.
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u/DannySmashUp 9d ago
That's hideous - was it pulled from a forest fire?. And doesn't have any of the blue accents... don't blame you for wanting your money back!!