I probably should state at this point that that is the entirety of the correspondence between them and I.
As for my initial response, I take your point, however in my defence, he'd not only been unhelpful, but in the process, he'd said something that was completely false - that Popculcha would respond by being unhelpful. Yes I realise that overpromising and underdelivering is refusal's close cousin, but there is a difference there. Also at that point, he'd made no mention that he was making an assumption based on a couple of horror stories where people had experienced over-promising and under-delivering - simply made a vague statement that they would refuse to source a replacement part.
Bear in mind that all I had to go on at that point was him saying that Popculcha would refuse to source a replacement part on one hand, and a phone call I made to Popculcha this morning before sending that response - where their customer service agent was telling me the complete opposite of what he had said to me and making his statement come across as, at best, misinformation.
I honestly don't see how it's possible to handle it any better while covering the facts without stating that what I had been told was false, but then giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Heck I didn't even accuse him of giving me false information - I simply asked why he had made that claim when Popculcha had told me the complete opposite over the phone.Short of saying nothing at all and simply capitulating, I honestly don't see how it's possible to handle that situation without that inference being there.
Having worked in retail myself, I agree that customer interactions are certainly a 2 way street, but I'd also say that as a customer, it's also entirely reasonable that a business will genuinely meet a customer half way when their is a problem. Now maybe it's just me, but when you're being fobbed off and given vague statements which reasonably come across as blatant misinformation, not only is that anything but genuinely meeting the customer half way, but the person making those statements can't be surprised when the nature of them comes back to bite them.
Noted, but by the same token, in that situation, I was the customer and I'd been completely fobbed off and given false information at that point in response to a completely polite and courteous request.
IMHO, if you're in business and you pull stunts like that to reasonable customer requests when there's a problem with something a client has purchased, then you're in no position to be offended when a customer starts getting assertive and standing their ground- not to mention implies that they are less than impressed by being treated with utter contempt by being fobbed off with misinformation.
There's a reason that the old saying is "the customer is always right"....