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Post by nddave on Nov 22, 2015 2:46:20 GMT
Guys I'm starting to feel bad here. I didn't intend to bash ST-Nihonto. I simply wanted to review and document what I requested, what I received and the details of the transaction. For your benefit, not mine. Let me be clear I have ZERO problem with him offering me a partial refund. I accepted his offer, my feet were not held to the fire on this. He agreed that all of my gripes were valid and he apologized. He agreed to the return/full refund but asked me to consider the partial refund. I agreed to accept the partial refund. Although I do agree with what a few others have stated here that what I received might not be worth what I paid, I personally feel ok with it. My biggest gripe is the partial refund being held hostage for positive feedback. Especially now with a few others coming forward siting similar shady requests from ST. That is what left the worst taste in my mouth. In the end I refused to leave him positive feedback BEFORE he sent me my refund. He has now sent my $75 refund via Paypal and I will not be leaving him positive feedback. Not negative either just none at all. I'm not recommending for anyone to avoid this seller. You might get a good sword, you might get a great sword. You might get a great sword that you are disappointed with and you might get a crappy sword that you are completely happy with. Everyone is different and everyone has different standards and expectations. Just know that when you are viewing his or ANY other seller's feedback on EBay it may or may not be indicative of the degree or quality of service. Especially Chinese sellers. Sorry to say this but they seem the most prone to shady selling behaviors on there. Stick to forums like this, read the reviews, positive and negative and decide for yourself. That's what I did. I would have NEVER risked an EBay katana until finding this forum. After all the stuff I read on here I chose ST-Nihonto and Huawei to take a chance on. I appreciate this forum and it's reviews and reviewers and am glad I found it. Thank you for understanding how I felt initially felt when I first read your review, admittedly at a glance and I do apologise again. I run a family business myself and I sympathise when mistakes do happen. I'm sure he didn't intentionally send you the wrong ito on purpose poor low quality fittings can't be blamed entirely on the vendor because they buy them from the suppliers. I think Nddave cited something about a restaurant making a mistake is poor business and they should be shamed all over the internet. I don't completely agree with this statement as St-Nihonto made amends to try and rectify his mistakes. If on the other hand, if they simply ignored you after and wouldn't bother to help you afterwards then definitely name and shame said company. Hope this clears any misunderstandings up. Thanks. Did I say shamed or did I say critiqued? Pretty sure I said critiqued. My restaurant example was simply a point of view as to why such negative feedback is both beneficial to not only the business but to the consumer as well. You say you have your own family business. Do you take all criticism personal and consider it shaming or bashing? If you do I hope you realize that any business that takes criticism in such a manner isn't going to stay in business for long or will loose their market share to competitors who do take criticism constructively. I've been in both sales and marketing as well as hospitality my whole career spanning over 15 years. Sometimes things are wrong and sometimes yes there's just insatiable customers who are never happy. Being able to professionally judge the difference is a absolute necessity in business management. Fact is this customer (the OP) wasn't given what he ordered. He is in the right to complain about his experience because he is a paying customer and was wronged by poor customer service and errors in the build of his paid product. It is not his fault that he is unsatisfied with his purchase. There is no compromises when a order is wrong. It's either wrong or right. On top of that not only was his order wrong his reimbursement was held hostage on account of a positive rating on the seller's page. That's two major strikes against this vendor in the two fields he should be excelling at if he is to offer good customer service and a quality product. If he can't guarantee customizations are going to be right 99.9% of the time he shouldn't offer them. In the situation of a error, he should have policies and or restitutions set in place to rectify the situation. Not only does that benefit the customer but also his reputation and business. Again a real business person would take criticism and reflect back on what he/she could have done to prevent the issues or what can be done to rectify the situation. In regards to my restaurant example, Guy walks into restaurant. Orders a double burger, no onion pickle or lettuce with cheese and a large fry and a cola for $6.75. Order comes out as a single patty burger, lettuce tomato and onion with cheese, a large tater tot and root beer. Does this customer have the right to complain? Answer is yes, absolutely. Why? Because he wasn't given what he ordered. If the customer compromises and just eats it because he's hungry and doesn't want to wait for another to be made does that magically rectify the error? Absolutely not because there still was an error on the business side that needs to be corrected so it doesn't happen again. Will that make it so there's never an error again? No because errors will happen, it just the way it is. Though with proper management steps taken to offer better preventive measures errors will happen less frequently and in turn customers will have a better experience when at that restaurant. Now what if the customer isn't willing to compromise? Well then it is on the business to offer quality customer service to rectify the situation. The easiest solution is to take back the wrong order and make a new order with possibly a little something extra to compensate for the error and the customer's time. This in most hospitality or business customer service manuals is know as a "cookie incentive". In this situation though the customer wasn't given quality customer service, no he was told that if he just ate the burger he'd be given 5% refund (.35 cents of his 6.75) but only if he fills out this rating card highly. Customer requests an additional 14% be given, making the total refund $1.28 but still with the promise of a high rating filled out. Seriously does any of this sound like quality customer service or a sound business operation? I'd hope not.
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Post by nddave on Nov 22, 2015 3:16:14 GMT
Guys I'm starting to feel bad here. I didn't intend to bash ST-Nihonto. I simply wanted to review and document what I requested, what I received and the details of the transaction. For your benefit, not mine. Let me be clear I have ZERO problem with him offering me a partial refund. I accepted his offer, my feet were not held to the fire on this. He agreed that all of my gripes were valid and he apologized. He agreed to the return/full refund but asked me to consider the partial refund. I agreed to accept the partial refund. Although I do agree with what a few others have stated here that what I received might not be worth what I paid, I personally feel ok with it. My biggest gripe is the partial refund being held hostage for positive feedback. Especially now with a few others coming forward siting similar shady requests from ST. That is what left the worst taste in my mouth. In the end I refused to leave him positive feedback BEFORE he sent me my refund. He has now sent my $75 refund via Paypal and I will not be leaving him positive feedback. Not negative either just none at all. I'm not recommending for anyone to avoid this seller. You might get a good sword, you might get a great sword. You might get a great sword that you are disappointed with and you might get a crappy sword that you are completely happy with. Everyone is different and everyone has different standards and expectations. Just know that when you are viewing his or ANY other seller's feedback on EBay it may or may not be indicative of the degree or quality of service. Especially Chinese sellers. Sorry to say this but they seem the most prone to shady selling behaviors on there. Stick to forums like this, read the reviews, positive and negative and decide for yourself. That's what I did. I would have NEVER risked an EBay katana until finding this forum. After all the stuff I read on here I chose ST-Nihonto and Huawei to take a chance on. I appreciate this forum and it's reviews and reviewers and am glad I found it. Like Adrian said, you shouldn't feel bad at all or feel like you're bashing. Bashing would be negatively attacking every aspect of the transaction and product non-objectively. You have done no such thing, nor should you be made to feel that way. Bottom line your order was wrong and the customer service you were given was beyond simply poor. You have every right to be upset or to complain. If this was my transaction and you my customer you'd have been given either a pre-paid shipping voucher to return the product and full refund, upon receiving of the product or shipping confirmation. Or a new sword built to proper specifications shipped out with return shipping voucher for the other sword. If my business was smaller and couldn't afford return I may hold your card or the new sword until the old sword was returned (still with pre-paid voucher) as a security procedure for me and my business. And if I couldn't even afford that I'd be taking even further steps to make sure that orders weren't shipped out with errors rather than con and barter the customer because as most business I'm in it to make money and earn return business as well as new business through word of mouth and positive feedback. Not fake positive feedback that only holds short term business. That is how proper customer service is handled by every other top rated sword vendor on the market and for me to stay competitive I would need to at least at the minimum keep their standards in line with mine or better go above and beyond.
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Post by greatsaiyaman888 on Nov 22, 2015 3:47:51 GMT
Thank you for understanding how I felt initially felt when I first read your review, admittedly at a glance and I do apologise again. I run a family business myself and I sympathise when mistakes do happen. I'm sure he didn't intentionally send you the wrong ito on purpose poor low quality fittings can't be blamed entirely on the vendor because they buy them from the suppliers. I think Nddave cited something about a restaurant making a mistake is poor business and they should be shamed all over the internet. I don't completely agree with this statement as St-Nihonto made amends to try and rectify his mistakes. If on the other hand, if they simply ignored you after and wouldn't bother to help you afterwards then definitely name and shame said company. Hope this clears any misunderstandings up. Thanks. Did I say shamed or did I say critiqued? Pretty sure I said critiqued. My restaurant example was simply a point of view as to why such negative feedback is both beneficial to not only the business but to the consumer as well. You say you have your own family business. Do you take all criticism personal and consider it shaming or bashing? If you do I hope you realize that any business that takes criticism in such a manner isn't going to stay in business for long or will loose their market share to competitors who do take criticism constructively. I've been in both sales and marketing as well as hospitality my whole career spanning over 15 years. Sometimes things are wrong and sometimes yes there's just insatiable customers who are never happy. Being able to professionally judge the difference is a absolute necessity in business management. Fact is this customer (the OP) wasn't given what he ordered. He is in the right to complain about his experience because he is a paying customer and was wronged by poor customer service and errors in the build of his paid product. It is not his fault that he is unsatisfied with his purchase. There is no compromises when a order is wrong. It's either wrong or right. On top of that not only was his order wrong his reimbursement was held hostage on account of a positive rating on the seller's page. That's two major strikes against this vendor in the two fields he should be excelling at if he is to offer good customer service and a quality product. If he can't guarantee customizations are going to be right 99.9% of the time he shouldn't offer them. In the situation of a error, he should have policies and or restitutions set in place to rectify the situation. Not only does that benefit the customer but also his reputation and business. Again the fact that you don't see this or don't properly understand this either means you're not in business like you claim or are just as shady in your business transactions to justify them as such. Again a real business person would take criticism and reflect back on what he/she could have done to prevent the issues or what can be done to rectify the situation. In regards to my restaurant example, Guy walks into restaurant. Orders a double burger, no onion pickle or lettuce with cheese and a large fry and a cola for $6.75. Order comes out as a single patty burger, lettuce tomato and onion with cheese, a large tater tot and root beer. Does this customer have the right to complain? Answer is yes, absolutely. Why? Because he wasn't given what he ordered. If the customer compromises and just eats it because he's hungry and doesn't want to wait for another to be made does that magically rectify the error? Absolutely not because there still was an error on the business side that needs to be corrected so it doesn't happen again. Will that make it so there's never an error again? No because errors will happen, it just the way it is. Though with proper management steps taken to offer better preventive measures errors will happen less frequently and in turn customers will have a better experience when at that restaurant. Now what if the customer isn't willing to compromise? Well then it is on the business to offer quality customer service to rectify the situation. The easiest solution is to take back the wrong order and make a new order with possibly a little something extra to compensate for the error and the customer's time. This in most hospitality or business customer service manuals is know as a "cookie incentive". In this situation though the customer wasn't given quality customer service, no he was told that if he just ate the burger he'd be given 5% refund (.35 cents of his 6.75) but only if he fills out this rating card highly. Customer requests an additional 14% be given, making the total refund $1.28 but still with the promise of a high rating filled out. Seriously does any of this sound like quality customer service or a sound business operation? I'd hope not. Making personal judgements against me doesn't affect me at all as your assumptions are barely superficial at best. Lets just say that coming from a outside perspective in the situation, I've said my piece and made amends with my statement. I have more important issues to attend to than engage in a lengthy and baseless arguement with you. Perhaps take Kiyoshi's advice and learn to take some psyche classes before coming across as a troll on the internet.
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Post by nddave on Nov 22, 2015 4:04:55 GMT
Did I say shamed or did I say critiqued? Pretty sure I said critiqued. My restaurant example was simply a point of view as to why such negative feedback is both beneficial to not only the business but to the consumer as well. You say you have your own family business. Do you take all criticism personal and consider it shaming or bashing? If you do I hope you realize that any business that takes criticism in such a manner isn't going to stay in business for long or will loose their market share to competitors who do take criticism constructively. I've been in both sales and marketing as well as hospitality my whole career spanning over 15 years. Sometimes things are wrong and sometimes yes there's just insatiable customers who are never happy. Being able to professionally judge the difference is a absolute necessity in business management. Fact is this customer (the OP) wasn't given what he ordered. He is in the right to complain about his experience because he is a paying customer and was wronged by poor customer service and errors in the build of his paid product. It is not his fault that he is unsatisfied with his purchase. There is no compromises when a order is wrong. It's either wrong or right. On top of that not only was his order wrong his reimbursement was held hostage on account of a positive rating on the seller's page. That's two major strikes against this vendor in the two fields he should be excelling at if he is to offer good customer service and a quality product. If he can't guarantee customizations are going to be right 99.9% of the time he shouldn't offer them. In the situation of a error, he should have policies and or restitutions set in place to rectify the situation. Not only does that benefit the customer but also his reputation and business. Again the fact that you don't see this or don't properly understand this either means you're not in business like you claim or are just as shady in your business transactions to justify them as such. Again a real business person would take criticism and reflect back on what he/she could have done to prevent the issues or what can be done to rectify the situation. In regards to my restaurant example, Guy walks into restaurant. Orders a double burger, no onion pickle or lettuce with cheese and a large fry and a cola for $6.75. Order comes out as a single patty burger, lettuce tomato and onion with cheese, a large tater tot and root beer. Does this customer have the right to complain? Answer is yes, absolutely. Why? Because he wasn't given what he ordered. If the customer compromises and just eats it because he's hungry and doesn't want to wait for another to be made does that magically rectify the error? Absolutely not because there still was an error on the business side that needs to be corrected so it doesn't happen again. Will that make it so there's never an error again? No because errors will happen, it just the way it is. Though with proper management steps taken to offer better preventive measures errors will happen less frequently and in turn customers will have a better experience when at that restaurant. Now what if the customer isn't willing to compromise? Well then it is on the business to offer quality customer service to rectify the situation. The easiest solution is to take back the wrong order and make a new order with possibly a little something extra to compensate for the error and the customer's time. This in most hospitality or business customer service manuals is know as a "cookie incentive". In this situation though the customer wasn't given quality customer service, no he was told that if he just ate the burger he'd be given 5% refund (.35 cents of his 6.75) but only if he fills out this rating card highly. Customer requests an additional 14% be given, making the total refund $1.28 but still with the promise of a high rating filled out. Seriously does any of this sound like quality customer service or a sound business operation? I'd hope not. Making personal judgements against me doesn't affect me at all as your assumptions are barely superficial at best. Lets just say that coming from a outside perspective in the situation, I've said my piece and made amends with my statement. I have more important issues to attend to than engage in a lengthy and baseless arguement with you. Perhaps take Kiyoshi's advice and learn to take some psyche classes before coming across as a troll on the internet. Expected response, sorry it all went over your head. Whatever amends you made were based on the attention you received from the moderator, not for truly understanding the error in your response to the issues OP had with the vendor or your still present attitude toward the situation, as your most recent posts express. I'm sure you do and don't worry have the psychology classes covered with extensive time in ethics, human resources and behavioral sciences with my degree in business management as well as numerous seminars and meetings regarding those key factors in proper business management. Which is why I'm able to understand and express such in the post you quoted. If you took anything I posted as trolling I believe you need to look at the definition of trolling again. www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trolling
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Post by greatsaiyaman888 on Nov 22, 2015 4:12:31 GMT
Making personal judgements against me doesn't affect me at all as your assumptions are barely superficial at best. Lets just say that coming from a outside perspective in the situation, I've said my piece and made amends with my statement. I have more important issues to attend to than engage in a lengthy and baseless arguement with you. Perhaps take Kiyoshi's advice and learn to take some psyche classes before coming across as a troll on the internet. Expected response, sorry it all went over your head. Whatever amends you made were based on the attention you received from the moderator, not for truly understanding the error in your response to the issues OP had with the vendor or your still present attitude toward the situation, as your most recent posts express. I'm sure you do and don't worry have the psychology classes covered with extensive time in ethics, human resources and behavioral sciences with my degree in business management as well as numerous seminars and meetings regarding those key factors in proper business management. Which is why I'm able to understand and express such in the post you quoted. If you took anything I posted as trolling I believe you need to look at the definition of trolling again. www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trollingThe moderator issuing the warning is the only reason why I'm holding back and not telling you what I really think.
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Post by nddave on Nov 22, 2015 4:14:24 GMT
Expected response, sorry it all went over your head. Whatever amends you made were based on the attention you received from the moderator, not for truly understanding the error in your response to the issues OP had with the vendor or your still present attitude toward the situation, as your most recent posts express. I'm sure you do and don't worry have the psychology classes covered with extensive time in ethics, human resources and behavioral sciences with my degree in business management as well as numerous seminars and meetings regarding those key factors in proper business management. Which is why I'm able to understand and express such in the post you quoted. If you took anything I posted as trolling I believe you need to look at the definition of trolling again. www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trollingThe moderator issuing the warning is the only reason why I'm holding back and not telling you what I really think. That's what PMs are for, feel free.
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Post by Kiyoshi on Nov 22, 2015 5:34:04 GMT
Making personal judgements against me doesn't affect me at all as your assumptions are barely superficial at best. Lets just say that coming from a outside perspective in the situation, I've said my piece and made amends with my statement. I have more important issues to attend to than engage in a lengthy and baseless arguement with you. Perhaps take Kiyoshi's advice and learn to take some psyche classes before coming across as a troll on the internet. Please don't use me for argumentative purposes. For the record, I agree with the overall message nddave said on customer service (the cookie incentive, making amends for mistakes, and listening to critiques) but I do not agree with his assumptions on you or your families business. If I look at his argument, throwing out the personal assumptions, it makes sense. I currently work in sales and my customer service is some of the best. I'm the guy they call on when we have the dudes who scream and yell at people. Offering kindness or some kind of incentive for their trouble along with taking nothing they say personal and admitting the things we do wrong and telling them I'll make sure it doesn't happen again (and making an effort for it not to) is my go to method of dealing with them. I would never tell a customer they can't get a refund or exchange if they don't respond to our customer service survey so our rating goes up and we can get bonuses easier. I think that sheng does use some shady methods. I've experienced them. His lack of good customer service and the ever so common errors (it isn't a 1 in 100 chance, it is almost every order I've seen with him) that make me not want to buy anything of his again, not his swords. I actually like the swords I've gotten. I just don't like they way he does business. I had a bad experience with the sword I got from KoA but, in the end, their nice customer service means I'll probably go back to them if they have a product I want.
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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Nov 22, 2015 6:04:31 GMT
Oh boy, not another argument... *sighs*
Let's just try to remain civil, alright?
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Post by nddave on Nov 22, 2015 6:12:19 GMT
Making personal judgements against me doesn't affect me at all as your assumptions are barely superficial at best. Lets just say that coming from a outside perspective in the situation, I've said my piece and made amends with my statement. I have more important issues to attend to than engage in a lengthy and baseless arguement with you. Perhaps take Kiyoshi's advice and learn to take some psyche classes before coming across as a troll on the internet. Please don't use me for argumentative purposes. For the record, I agree with the overall message nddave said on customer service (the cookie incentive, making amends for mistakes, and listening to critiques) but I do not agree with his assumptions on you or your families business. If I look at his argument, throwing out the personal assumptions, it makes sense. I currently work in sales and my customer service is some of the best. I'm the guy they call on when we have the dudes who scream and yell at people. Offering kindness or some kind of incentive for their trouble along with taking nothing they say personal and admitting the things we do wrong and telling them I'll make sure it doesn't happen again (and making an effort for it not to) is my go to method of dealing with them. I would never tell a customer they can't get a refund or exchange if they don't respond to our customer service survey so our rating goes up and we can get bonuses easier. I think that sheng does use some shady methods. I've experienced them. His lack of good customer service and the ever so common errors (it isn't a 1 in 100 chance, it is almost every order I've seen with him) that make me not want to buy anything of his again, not his swords. I actually like the swords I've gotten. I just don't like they way he does business. I had a bad experience with the sword I got from KoA but, in the end, their nice customer service means I'll probably go back to them if they have a product I want. Thanks, Kiyoshi Yea I probably shouldn't have called out his own personal business logic but it was hard not to with how he is treating the subject at hand after his claims of business experience. Perhaps his business doesn't necessarily involve interaction with customers? Either way I agree it was wrong and have edited it out of that specific post. Regarding you being the go to guy for the "disgruntled", I know what you mean because I've been that guy for years, lol. Especially at the hotels I've worked at. I actually have nickname among my peers which is "perma-grin) because no matter the situation with customers I always am smiling. Good customer service stems from not simply yeses and or apologies but actual solutions to the customers needs and issues. It appears you have those same fundamentals through either training or personal growth as a customer service representative, kudos to you man!
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Post by nddave on Nov 22, 2015 6:29:01 GMT
Oh boy, not another argument... *sighs* Let's just try to remain civil, alright?
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Post by Kiyoshi on Nov 22, 2015 6:35:47 GMT
Thanks, Kiyoshi Yea I probably shouldn't have called out his own personal business logic but it was hard not to with how he is treating the subject at hand after his claims of business experience. Perhaps his business doesn't necessarily involve interaction with customers? Either way I agree it was wrong and have edited it out of that specific post. Regarding you being the go to guy for the "disgruntled", I know what you mean because I've been that guy for years, lol. Especially at the hotels I've worked at. I actually have nickname among my peers which is "perma-grin) because no matter the situation with customers I always am smiling. Good customer service stems from not simply yeses and or apologies but actual solutions to the customers needs and issues. It appears you have those same fundamentals through either training or personal growth as a customer service representative, kudos to you man! I've dealt with people a lot worse than a customer cursing someone out because they don't see the bag of bbq chips they want (they were there though) or yelling at an employee because they (the customer) lost their keys and the employee didn't know where they were or kicking down displays of tables and chair because... reasons (I have sooo many stories of weird stuff like a dude walking through the store with a nice suit top on, high dollar dress shoes, aviator glasses and no pants) that it doesn't bother me so much. I'm actually getting out of sales and into medical (those skills transfer) because of how poorly the higher level of management treats the customers and employees (and I like poking people with stuff). Either way, back to the topic at hand, so long as your criticisms are objective, well worded, and accurate, it will help inform people on the choices in buying swords. Like others have said, bashing is more like the above table guy, flipping out for no reason at all and claiming they are terrible. Saying they have done something wrong when they actually have can be helpful for everyone involved. If you never say anything, the other person may never have noticed. If they make no effort to fix things, they probably don't care enough (or care too much). So don't feel bad.
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Post by Kiyoshi on Nov 22, 2015 16:21:12 GMT
Uh... So... About that sword though... >>
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Post by Robert in California on Nov 22, 2015 18:22:53 GMT
Well, if one orders having given specific specifications...and the seller does not up front say "Can't do what you asked." Then the customer would have the right to be unhappy if the order was not per requested specs.
i.e. Steve Segall orders a new Hummer in Fire Red. Gets in Pink.....Salesman tells him to "get over it".....
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Post by Robert in California on Nov 22, 2015 19:17:30 GMT
Hi Josh, No proof. Hints. I should pick the right time and just ask. Robert
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Post by thamdo on Feb 12, 2016 20:38:51 GMT
Hi there , this was my design back in july-August 2015 with st nihonto. With kamasu kissaki , I'm sorry that you are not happy with it. After my design st. Made 4-5 Xtra of the same katana. to tell you the truth that I was very happy with the katana , by the way the clay temper line is real ,it is not acid edging !
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