This whole thing is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Remember my rant about an Indian company selling wooden needles and hooks who wouldn't even grace me with a proper reply? Well, I'd written back to complain about (a) their rudeness (b) their illiteracy on June 5. After due consideration (of 17 days!!) I've got them to comment on my blog here, which more or less said the same as in this mail (which they sent me 3 copies of, kindly):
Hello MrsFife,
As per the comment on word express .com supplied on 5th June 06.
Regarding DHL India Exports Our reason for writing in such a way is that last year an Indian had cheated on us and tried to spoil our business. A man from Delhi contacted us and asked for the details of our company product and samples, which we gave him. He took all the information from us and started contacting our buyers with the samples that we provided him at a cheaper rate.
And he also started spoiling our buyers market even. This is the reason why we don’t respond to Indian e-mail. And you also did the same thing to spoil our business you wrote a comment about us.
Best Regards
I am beyond grrrr now. It depressed me last night and still depresses me now. Constructive suggestions welcome (including and not limited to bloodshed).
swakrta.com 
5 comments
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June 23, 2006 at 6:19 pm
yasminiajaz
This is so ridiculous!!! Honestly , I dont know who is is spoiling their business more than themselves….does that make sense?? They have bad business attitude and not to mention weird manners ( maybe afraid of something…?????) and shockingly it surprises them that one would ‘mention’ about it! I’d tell them that -You are out for business so better equip yourself with some business ethics and customer services that are pleasing if you want to sell your products.
Surprising how rude and totally senseless some replies seem. You are right about being ‘beyong grrr’.
June 24, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Rose
We don’t think that we have been rude to any one.
As we are not interested in doing business within India and replied to your e-mail very courteously “PLEASE” don’t sent this e-mail again. And don’t think that we had responded rudely.
In fact you had been rude to us by blasting our product description on this blog and commenting on our business attitudes.
Regards
June 24, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Woolly Wormhead
Jeez! How ridiculous? For starters, in your first post about this, you said postive things about their product, and only responded – fairly – to their poor business attitude. If they don’t want to do business in India they could have explained that, as just adding ‘PLEASE’ doesn’t make up for rudeness. An explanantion in the first insnace would have gone a long way to avoid all this.
If they are reading, yes, your business attitude sucks. And just because you have had one bad experience with an indian customer, doesn’t mean it will happen again. You are just as likely to get ripped off by an American, an Englishman, in fact, anyone. Your attitude is extremely unpatriotic, and almost racist.
June 24, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Debbie
My husband took part in a workshop in which the statistic was presented that for every instance of bad service, at least 7 people would hear about it. The message for the employees was to do everything possible to give customers, or even potential customers, a positive experience, because negative reactions cost more than the loss of one disappointed customer. That’s just the way it is.
Last I heard, there is a potentially very thriving market in India. Why on earth would a company go to all the trouble to avoid it?!?
June 26, 2006 at 12:38 am
Lori
I feel for you and your frustrations!
I agree with Woolly Wormhead, that instead of replying with a terse e-mail that offered no explanation, it would have been the polite and courteous thing to explain why they refuse to have local business customers.
Furthermore, instead of having “attitude” about you posting on your blog negative comments, most companies would strive to correct any negative impressions a potential customer would have about them. (At least they used to. It seems there is a trend for rudeness to overrule kindness when doing business.)
Simply put, if a business doesn’t want a customer or potential customer saying bad things about their business or business practices, then don’t behave in such a way that would merit that kind of feedback. And when they do receive that kind of feedback, do whatever it takes to correct the situation, not make it worse.