Since I’m not here to debate the merit of the product or the company, I’m leaving those items out, anyways…
For Christmas the big present to me from my wife was _____. She said that if I didn’t like it, the company offers a full refund for any reason. After about 10 minutes of reseach on said product, I quickly learned it was junk (10 minutes worth of reseach I really wish she had done, but that’s besides the point). Anyways, I told her that I’d like to send it back, she handed me the receipt and the phone number and I went about my day. The next day, I called the company, told them I’d like to return it. They asked why and to avoid an argument, I told them the person we where giving it to already has one, so we’d like to return this one. No problem, here’s your RMA# you’ll have your refund in 3-4 days. Great, that was easy. After about a week, I called back to see why I hadn’t received the refund. She immidiatly asked for a tracking number for the package (and I got the feeling that if I didn’t have a tracking number, she would have claimed the package never arrived. I gave her the number and she confirmed that they had received it and told me the refund would be in 3 to 4 WEEKS from when they received the package. When I told her that last time she told me 3-4 days she said I was wrong. She said she told me it was 4 weeks at the most but usually by 3 weeks. Okay, whatever, maybe I misheard 3-4 days or 3-4 weeks, I guess it’s an easy mistake on my part (this is important BTW, you’ll see why later). After 4 weeks go by (plus a few more days to allow for the refund to hit my credit card) I call up again and ask what’s going on. She is now telling me it’s 30 business days from the date it gets released to the accounting department, which was January 5. (The fact that I may have misheard the 3-4 days/weeks is important becuase that’s how I know she NEVER said anything about 30 business days until now). Okay, 30 business days seems rather excessive for a simple refund. So I call back today and ask where the refund is, she tells me it’ll take 30 business days for me to get it. “That’s today” I said back to her and she replied “No it isn’t,” “So when is it then” and I heard her saying under her breath “1,2,3…29,30 It’s February 20” Again this seemed odd. It was odd that she instantly knew that the 30 business days hadn’t elapsed yet, but had no idea when that day would come. Almost like it was a automatic reply, much like the tracking number thing.
Well I’m getting the feeling I won’t be seeing that money after the 30 business days, but maybe I’ll get lucky.
In the mean time, I’m disputing it with my CC company, I’ve filed a report with the BBB and I’ve written a letter to their state’s attorney general.
Well, you’ve taken all the proper steps, so your chances are better than some fraud victims who keep letting themselves be strung along.
The only other avenue for help that I can think of would be your local news program’s consumer action reporter. (If your local affiliate has one.) My local one has seemed to have a lot of success with the projects they’ve taken on. (Or, they only air the success stoies-- take your pick.)
Didn’t even think about that, but I’m not one to be on TV and they always do interviews with the people they’re helping. The only think I’m worried about at the moment is that with them getting calls from AMEX, BBB and the attorney general on my behalf, they’re probably going to get defensive and pretty annoyed with me. But we’ll see. Come February 20 (the offical 30 business days after it was released to the accounting department, then I’ll have to decide what to do next. I’ll be looking for any other consumer protection agencies in my state, or theirs.
I think I’ve relayed this story on the Dope once before, but I was once involved in a lawsuit (as an investigator) where the accused company had a written (idiots) policy of not even beginning the process of refunding an unhappy customer until they’d become a “Hot Screamer,” which meant they’d made their third complaint call. I don’t remember what the first call made them, but the second call made them a Screamer, and then they were a Hot Screamer.
Maybe, maybe not. It could be that they just wouldn’t want the hassle of fighting you any more and they’ll tell their accounting department just to cut you a refund so you’ll shut up and go away. They might not want the BBB or AG sniffing around too much and might think that if the issue is quickly resolved by giving you what you want, they won’t be in any trouble.
Just speculation, of course. You can never know how one of these things will go.
I got a new router from Linksys becuase of the BBB a few years ago. Frankly, in this case I’m not expecting the BBB to do much, in fact out of the seven (I think) complaints, like three or four of them are unresolved and one or two are resolved but not to the customers satisfaction. (I’d have to check the exact numbers on them).
BTW I did tell the wife that when buying things like this she REALLY needs to do a little reseach first. Honestly, if she had simply typed the name of the product into a seach engine followed by the word ‘reviews’ she wouldn’t have bought it.
I don’t think you’ll have a problem with this. If you have refused the charge with the credit card company, and you’ve returned the product, you shouldn’t be charged anything on your credit card - it should be as if the transaction had never occurred, with no refund required from the company. Your credit card company will simply not pay the company on your behalf, if I understand how these things go. Buying stuff like this on credit cards is a good idea for just this reason.
I went through a similar situation - and, rather than being a scam - the company was just brilliantly incompetent. I mean, about as incompetent as you can get. They really worked at it.
I ended up calling them every single day for about a week. I would talk to different employees, different operators, different bosses. Pain in the ass? You betcha. Did I get my money? You betcha.
Hang in there.
No, no. Don’t ask - we have to guess. I’m going with an Esteban guitar. That’s it, isn’t it?
It doesn’t sound like a scam. It could just be incompetence or SOP to “delay” a refund as long as possible. In my family we’ve encountered some organizations like this. They just continue to delay and delay hoping the customer will give up. I’d just phone back everyday, and everyday ask for a manager.
Is it a computer part? A graphics card, I’m thinking.
My dad gave me sage advice about this sort of thing when I was a kid, that has stood me in good stead ever since: call every day. Always be polite, never lose your temper, but become “that guy who calls every day”. Eventually they’ll get so bored or pissed off that they’ll get off their lazy/fraudulent asses and do the paperwork.
That’s what I think as well. Well that’s what I’m telling myself. The only reason I’m worried is becuase first it was 3 to 4 days, then 3 to 4 weeks and now 30 business days from the date it was released to the accounting department. As of February 20 I will be the guy who calls every single day. And it’s the same person who answers the phone each time, she’ll get to know my voice real well.
The problem is, she bought this for me back in October I think, the charge has long since gone through. So instead of just reversing it, they’re investigating it, which can take a bit longer. Unfortunatly I got a letter from AMEX asking for the receipt, which I don’t have anymore since (not anticipating this problem) I sent back with the item (d’oh, I know) but I called them up, told them I don’t have it and they said they would make a not of it. Luckily, the company has acknowledged receiving the product, so that should’t be an issue. Oh well, we’ll just see how this plays out. Like the thread title says, I really can’t tell if I’m getting screwed or not.
Another thing I’m concered about, is that if they’re holding the money this long, maybe they’re strapped for cash and I’m worried about them going under or running out of money before I get the refund.
One time, my older brother had a really hard time getting a refund from a major online travel company after a canceled trip. They kept saying they’d refunded it, but when my brother checked, it never came through. Luckily, he had subscription to Hoovers Online so he looked up the company and personally left a voicemail with the executive vice president of the company with all of the details including his name, the dates he’s called, etc.
Oh, okay. That’s a little different, yeah. I used to work in accounts payable, and we would occasionally need a credit memo done from a supplier (we returned product to them). One thing that is almost universal is that when you need a refund from them, it goes to the bottom of the “to do” pile, and it can take a really, really long time to get that charge reversal.
I wouldn’t wait till February 20 to be the guy who calls every day - I would be that guy starting now. It doesn’t take 3 weeks or 30 business days to do a credit charge reversal - that should have been done the day they received the product back from you. You shouldn’t need to wait on a cheque run or anything like that. Call her up, make sure they got the product back, ask if there was any problem with it that is preventing the refund, ask her if she has the credit card number to put the charge reversal on, then ask her what the hold up is in getting that charge reversed for you. And feel free to escalate if she can’t answer your question for you.
I feel your pain. I’m in an ongoing battle with a furniture store to have chairs delivered to me (we have the table and 4 chairs, but the two captain’s chairs are perpetually out of stock). It’s been two and a half months, they have promised us delivery 3 times, cancelled 3 times, told us “for sure” that the merchandise would be in the warehouses… lets see… December 12… late December… mid January (10-16)… late January… mid February… I asked if I could have the demo’s from the showroom instead, and they won’t sell them to me (they need them to sell to other customers, despite the fact that they don’t HAVE the chairs to sell to the customers!). I asked if I could return the whole set as I wasn’t satisfied with it, and the answer was “no” because it had been more than 7 days since delivery (my counter-argument was that I didn’t receive the full product, so the 7 days hasn’t really started ticking!)
I will be filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (regardless of effectiveness) and I am drafting a letter to the company CEO. Even if I do get these chairs, I will be the pain-in-the-ass calling everyday customer insisting that after all the fuckups and false delivery dates, I shouldn’t have to pay a bloody cent for them.
This is a large furniture store, part of a national chain. I find it hard to believe that nowhere, in all of Canada, is there 2 captain’s chairs that they could get to us. It’s been a nightmare.
They seem to be telling me that the SOP is 30 business days, and have assured me that it will happen then. Well, not BY then, on that day. Apperently that is how long the legally have and they are using everyday of it. I WILL be the person who pesters them EVERY day, but in the mean I’ll play their game (along with the help of the BBB, AMEX and the A.G., and on Monday I’ll contact the Wisconsin Attorney Gernerals office as well, I’ll send them the same letter I sent CT’s office.
The problem with calling every day is that it doesn’t go to a call center, it’s not that some random operator puts a note in my file each time I call. It’s the same asshole bitch that answers the phone each time and changing her words around, and like I said before, I’m really afraid that if I piss her off suddenly they’ll come up with some excuse to not give me the refund “Uhh, the product came in damaged” or “You just sent us back an empty box.” The reason I got these agencies invovled NOW is so they could all pounce on this company at the same time and they wouldn’t know what hit them, much less be able to think of an excuse to not give me the refund. What I’m hoping happens is either they just give me the refund (at which point I will happily call off the dogs) or they [the company] tell them [the agencies] that this is SOP so they’ll look REALLY bad if they change the date on me again. And to top it off, I can’t imagine the attorney generals office will be very happy with this SOP. Even if it is legal to wait 30 business days, I think that’s more designed for heavy volume (as in heavy enough that you need more then one person to answer the phone) or extenuating circumstances. I’m guessing that what they are doing is the legal/cc version of floating checks.
I don’t know what the legal requirement is on doing credit card reversals of charges (refunds). I do know that an ethical company will process it the day they get it. They don’t wait 30 days to put your charge through on the credit card, do they?
I’m still calling bullshit on this policy. Maybe you could ask your credit card company what the policy is on a company reversing charges. I have a strong suspicion that the company you returned merchandise to is required to do them in a timely fashion by their agreement with the credit card company.