I think I'm getting screwed, maybe, maybe not, Long

I did call Amex and asked what their merchant agreement said about refunds and she (in an indian accent) told me that she doesn’t have their merchant agreement on hand to look it up. But she said it as if she had to see THIER merchant agreement. I can tell you that ours (IIRC) was just a standard form letter. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ll have to look at it (I’m sure I can find it online) and see what it says about refunds. So then I changed the question and asked if they CAN wait that long and she said she doesn’t know what their company policy is. Now, I can understand that huge companies (Walmart, Home Depot etc) may have somewhat customized policies, but from what I can tell, this ain’t no huge business, and I’m sure they have a standard merchant agreement. If I don’t get the refund by the 20th (or the AMEX merchant agreement says that’s not allowed) I may see if I can turn this into a fraud case.

Have you paid yet? This sort of thing is not rare with furniture stores. Never pay until you get everything and it’s been inspected.

You HAVE been keeping a log of these calls, right?
That is, writing down the name of the persons with whom you spoke, the highlights of the conversation, time of the call, etc.

I have been keeping logs of the calls I’ve made (at least since after the second delivery cancellation - at the time they thought it was just a computer issue in the warehouse that meant the delivery request wasn’t being put through).

And we’ve sort of paid. We got a financing plan, 15 months of equal payments, no interest. So technically the store has been paid, but we owe the bank. If I thought it would solve the problem, I’d stop payment and pay a lump sum at the end of the 15 months, but that involves getting the bank to change the contract too, not just the furniture store. I think - I haven’t gone there yet. We haven’t paid a lot yet, just one payment I think (my husband is taking care of it - I don’t know if the second was due or not).

No message on the phone when I came home today. Since we were last told we’d get the chairs “early this week”, I’m giving them until tomorrow to call us, and then back on the phone I go! I’m tempted to call now, but frankly, I’d just get too pissed off, and that’s not constructive.

Someone help me count days here, I keep getting a different number. If it was 'released to the accounting department" on January 5th. When is 30 business days? Being a benefit of the doubt kinda person, let’s not count January 5th as one of the days.

Today (02/16/07) is 30 business days after 01/05/07.

Unless they try to claim that MLK Day and President’s Day aren’t business days in which case it would be next Tuesday, 02/20/07.

Was there mail on those days, February 20, is the day they told me it would be, but I’m trying to figure out of they miscounted or not.

Even the banks have stopped giving Presidents Day off around here.
Only government employees get MLK and PD off.

So, Joey P…today’s the 22nd (23rd, depending on where you are) – any update?

Buncha bullshit. I called that day and they told me that since I was I started a chargeback, they where just going to handle it through that.

To anyone that doesn’t know how that works…
Customer calls CC and disputes a charge.
Merchant get’s a letter explaining why it’s being disputed and have a few options
1)Ignore letter and chargeback will go through
2)Reply to letter by date given to with evidence showing why the charge was valid.

My guess is that their either waiting for the due date to come and letting AMEX refund it via the chargeback. This will give them a few more weeks. What I’m hoping they’re NOT doing is waiting until the last minute and then disputing the dispute.
So it’s still a waiting game.

Doing some internet searches I’m finding other people are having similar issues as well. (ie having to wait several months for refunds, getting the runaround about when their check will get mailed) I’m guessing they don’t have any money and they’re trying to strectch it out as far as possible.

So…what’s the product?

It was a Phazer II Radar Jammer.

Don’t blame me, I didn’t buy it.

Yeah, they’re going to dispute the chargeback. I really don’t see how you can believe anything else at this point. They are not going to refund you a dime until they have to, and even then, you might get cents on the dollar when they go into receivership. Sorry about this whole messy pantsload.

I have a friend who has been taking Business Management and Accounting in Uni and he says it’s SOP to recognize a recievable as early as possible, and a payable as late as possible.

While it’s generally preferable to have income occur immediately and payments delayed, it’s very simplistic to claim this sort of situation is standard practice. “As late as possible” for a proper retail business is going to be very fast.

When you’re not a scam based business, it’s important for customers to be happy doing business with you. Tell your customers that they’ll have to wait 6-8 weeks for a refund they should have immediately, they won’t ever come back. This is why big retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, etc. don’t generally hassle people who return goods, because they want you to be happy and come back next week.

These guys are dragging their feet because they don’t expect to be getting any repeat business. When your business model is “sucker them in with false claims then hope they don’t bother asking for a refund” being quick with a refund is going to sink you.

I worked with one company that had a standard practice of not paying anything until someone called asking for the cheque (don’t try this at home - if you aren’t a large, international company, it will put you out of business). What your friend’s saying is basically correct, but it’s not that simple. When it comes to refunds in the business world, you simply don’t pay the invoice, rather than paying it and waiting for the other company to get around to doing your refund (this is where they REEEALLY drag their feet). Then they call you and ask where their cheque is, and you say they’re not getting a cheque until you get a credit note, and it goes round and round from there. It’s quite an interesting system, really.