Yesterday I wasted my time twice, but by the third time, I wasn’t going to play along anymore—because Teacher Li Huan once said, “Don’t do business with people who drag things out.”
Yesterday, a netizen was clearly not meant to be my customer.
The first time, he placed an order for a piece of 8566 anti-cracking steel at our shop, and we arranged for shipment—which should have been a happy occasion.
Later, he contacted me again. After learning about his working conditions, I found out he was making powder metallurgy molds with 0.32-thick cores, and that DC53 tends to break easily. I recommended he use high-toughness LG mold steel.
Since LG mold steel has 8 to 9 times the toughness of DC53, with a hardness of HRC 54–58, it’s so tough that it won’t break even if you bend it with a hammer. For small cores under 1 mm that are prone to breaking, high-toughness LG steel is the solution.
He then purchased a piece of high-toughness LG steel. It was a pleasure to have a customer trust me so much.
We then arranged a refund for the 8566, intercepted the shipment, and scheduled the shipment of the LG material.
At this point, everything seemed to have been resolved satisfactorily.
But after dinner, he changed his mind again and said he didn’t want to buy the LG material after all.
That was fine; we just had to arrange the refund and intercept the shipment. Since these were standard parts—though a bit of a hassle—they weren’t custom-made, so there was no significant loss. We were happy to accommodate him.
However, after we’d taken care of all that again, he decided he wanted to buy a different size of LG hard case.
At that point, I wasn’t having it. I’d already processed two refunds and intercepted two shipments—I didn’t want to go through it a third time.
Besides, his indecisiveness and back-and-forth behavior showed he hadn’t made up his mind yet. Even if he did buy it, there would be a lot of hassle down the line.
Sticking to my principle of not doing business that involves unnecessary hassle, I turned him down this time and refused to sell to him.
With some after-sales situations, the problem isn’t with the product itself, but with the person behind it. This leads to endless entanglements that wear you out. For the sake of peace of mind, it’s better to avoid certain deals altogether.
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Wu Dejian’s tool steel, the chief of staff of the user, bought everything he had used.