yeah.
there's the principle at stake here, the policy being implimented, and the tone of his service.
the principle is that you ordered one thing and he shipped you something else without notification, (seemingly) on purpose.
the policy is that he is not going to pay shipping to have them returned, though he will give you a full refund for the wheels if you ship them to his specifications.
the tone is the actual customer service issue, coupled with the error of not notifying you of the order change.
the principle at stake is what's most important. it seems like he
INTENDED to not notify you of the stock change. To me, this is vastly different than being negligent or forgetting to notify you. Substituting a higher spoke wheelset for what you ordered without notifying you, asking if you wanted it, or otherwise taking steps to avoid the problem strikes at his credibility as an honest businessperson. if he tried to slip this past you, what else would he try to get away with on purpose?
as a vendor, your first and utmost priority is the customer. that's paramount. making sure you're providing the customer with exactly what they want is more important than almost anything else, on principle. it would actually be less troublesome if he had sent you a 32h wheelset that was blemished or even slightly damaged in a cosmetic way when you think about it from the perspective of the principle of salesmanship that he's violating.
the policy he's implimenting isn't quite as bad. in fact, i think it's perfectly reasonable to deny to cover shipping.
it's not his fault you live in australia, and it's not his fault parcel services charge what they charge for the service this transaction requires. he never included shipping as part of his cost, he kept it separate and that's legitimate for precisely the reason that these situations occur.
seventy dollars isn't that much to ship a wheelset across an ocean... but when you buy things through the mail you have to be readily cognizant of what that transaction requires and what the policy is behind it. i don't think he has a policy to pay for shipping, or provide return shipping, or do anything like that- and you should have been okay with those policies and procedures before ordering with him. also, they should be clear to a reasonable customer- which i'm totally assuming they were. could be dead wrong on that, but i am assuming he didn't hide such policy, and had it available to those who inquired or looked. sounds to me like you didn't think that far ahead.
next time, i'd consider going to a local shop so you can say
"i want a 32h wheelset" and they have the option of looking you in the eye and saying
"36 hole won't do?"
in fact, this vendor could have policy that says
"unless the product is defective, there are no returns" and not even offer to give you your money back, and as long as that was disclosed in the ordering process, there'd be nothing wrong with the policy he's sticking to even though he didn't ship you the right product. you could have gotten a response saying
"I am sorry you are not happy with your product. our terms declare that when stock is low in an item, a similar item may be substituted. the product you received is valued higher than the price you paid and because of this, our policy is to not accept returns of non defective items. i trust that aside from the additional spokes, your item is as ordered. thank you for your business and let us know if you have any other concerns, as i would be happy to serve you in areas where i am not bound by policy to deny such requests." and had no real recourse. such a scenario would actually be better customer service than what you've posted so far. functionally, you would be in the same situation you're in now because you're unwilling to pay for shipping, so even though he's offering a refund, you won't take it... i am just trying to impart upon you that you bought from him and his policies are not really lacking... you should have thought about
'what if i don't like what i get?' before you ordered. so in terms of the policy he's implementing here, i don't think he's actually doing anything wrong. you should consider it to your advantage he's offering a refund at all- he gave you a set of wheels, and you paid him for a VERY SIMILAR set of wheels that actually would cost less than what you got.
finally there's the tone he's taking in dealing with you.
tone is probably a bad way of addressing it... but his candor and politeness are really lacking and that's the real problem of service here. this is actually the reason i'm siding with you completely... if he was kinder in dealing with this mixup, even saying
"gosh, i certainly didn't mean to send you a 36 spoke wheelset, and now i see the 32h are out of stock. i'll gladly refund you (except shipping, which is policy i am held to) and give you a discount on a future purchase if you really don't want the wheelset you have." then i'd actually call this good customer service.
even if this wasn't a mistake, treating it like one would cover up the severe principle issue at stake and though deceitful, be better customer service than what he's actually doing because of the tone of his language.
as it is, he's being condescending, rude, fickle and coming right out with his principle trespass of giving you something other than what you ordered. that makes his policy of making you sit on the shipping costs seem a lot worse than it really is... and it's making your experience suck. that's why it's bad customer service.
so to sum up: it's bad customer service for him to treat you in the way he's treating you, mainly because of how rude he's being. sending you the wrong item was wrong, but that's not actually bad customer service- that's just bad (and wrong, and unethical) business and an error. the policy behind what he's sticking to isn't really a problem in addressing this error... what
is bad customer service, is that he
1. didn't notify you of the change to your order(just notification, still an error unless he offers to cancel the order if you're not happy with the change)
2. isn't providing you with quality service as would be seen standard for this type of conflict (that is, he's being rude)
so my recommendation to you is two fold.
first, be happy that you have a wheelset that is, in my opinion, worth what you paid for it. maybe sell it and buy what you want from a physical shop you can walk into and return to if things go wrong? if you don't sell it, just ride it and learn to love the 36h. unfortunately a private sale is probably not going to recoup the total cost, especially not shipping.
and second, thanks for telling us about how this is working out. it's valuable information to the people of this community to know what's going on here. i know that i won't be buying from someone who can't fill an order properly. i would write this guy a final letter saying you're dissatisfied, and be as specific as possible. that way he won't do this to other people. or, if you really are bent up over this and you have a ton of time and money to blow, hire a lawyer to sue him. worst case scenario, you'll waste time and money and he won't pay up, and he'll simply stop doing business in australia(or abroad). best case scenario, he realizes that he's ****ed up with the wrong customer, and pays for shipping plus a little extra discount for your trouble... and all with just a strongly worded letter from the right people.
TL;DR:
