I got this email the other day from Paypal. I don’t recall getting a prior email asking for this info, but it’s quite possible it got lost in the shuffle as I get lots of Paypal notices re payments, transfers etc., and I’m often moving them en-mass to archive or delete directories if they are duplicates. I went ahead and took care of the issue as soon as I got the email.
The bit I have trouble with is the “What’s the problem?” question. Honestly, I’ve been with Paypal as an eBay seller for practically as long as they have been in business, who the *fuck *do they think they are getting sassy with me? It’s just radiates raw arrogance.
Am I being overly touchy here, or was that an arrogant and inappropriate tone to take with a customer?
That is absoutely from Paypal. When i went to the Paypal site the request to deliver the IRS info was in the top header of my login page. You only get the request if you have 200 items sold or $ 20,000 in sales for the year. It’s a new rule.
It’s poorly worded, but they’re not asking you “what’s the problem?” They’re writing it as if you’re asking it, just like right below they say, “what should I do now?” as if you’re asking it. I admit that the way you read it would be rude, but this way it’s not.
What Alice said. I read it without reading your preamble, and it read like a (albeit poorly-worded, as she said) “FAQ”-style header. You could swap it out for “Why do we need this?” or something else in that vein.
This. It would be more obvious if they had more sections with interrogative headers like this, but with just two sections, it becomes a little less clear.
Agree totally with **Alice **- it’s a heading. It’s not really clear that it’s a heading, and I absolutely agree that it could be reworded to make it a little more clear (and much less accusatory, because I can see how it can be misinterpreted), but it does look as though it’s supposed to be in parallel with the “What should I do now” heading underneath.
I read the OP before the e-mail, and I first thought that it was a clumsy attempt at humour that came off really badly - but still nothing to be offended about. As someone who works for a large organisation that often has to send such e-mails, from some of the responses we get I know for a fact that some people will see offence where there really is none (though I’m not saying astro is in this category - it is poorly worded when read in that way).
But having read the actual e-mail, I saw it was exactly as Alice the Goon has said.
Pretty much the way I took it. The issue they are inquiring about is obvious in the initial question. They need the tax ID info and have not received any feedback.
I’ve never seen a professional business communication constructed quite that way. The stand alone position of the question and the fact that it came right before their claim they had not heard from me made me see it as a complaint, not a framing question.
Yes, you’re overreacting. Even with the worst possible reading of it, they’re not calling you an idiot or accusing you of a crime or anything, they’re just asking you why you haven’t done this simple necessary thing (and again, that’s the worst interpretation).
Give them the info they need, or decide to ignore the letter, or whatever, but complaining about the tone is IMO way overreacting.
I mean, really, your life is so perfect that the biggest problem with it is getting an e-mail with a slightly familiar tone? And yet your life is so meaningless that the best thing you’ve got to do with your time and emotional energy is spend it being personally offended by form letters?
At the risk of causing further indignation with the informal tone, I’ll say
This is your mistake, it’s not professional business communication. It’s customer communication, which means you write it on a third grade level, include the questions that the customer should ask, but probably aren’t, and hold their hands through the entirety of the process.