Ok I know this forum is not the place for legal advise but I’d like some opinions
On Saturday I went to a local appliance store and purchased an air conditioner for my room window. I was informed it only had a one year warranty so I purchased the store’s additional warranty which brought it to six years. The warranty was $130 (I believe I have to check my bill) I went ahead and put this purchase on my Visa Debit card from Commerce Bank. After running my card through their system they made me enter my Pin number. The sale went through and I signed the bill and the slip the register printeed out. I heard on the radio today that the store has gone out of business. Since the warranty was through the store I now have a worthless warranty that has never been used. Do I have ANY recourse? IE can I put a hold on the transaction because the store should have known on Saturday they would be out of business on Tuesday? This has taken place in the state of New Jersey.
I am not a lawyer or a banker, so there may be some more obscure points that I’m missing…
However, I can confirm the suspicion you seem to be holding: Since your transaction appears to have gone through as an ATM tranaction (using PIN) rather than a Visa/MC tranaction (no PIN, sign a credit slip) then you are not entitled to any extra consumer protections that Visa/MC may offer. But check the slip you signed. If it has your credit card number and the statement “I promise to pay…” etc. etc. then that’s a credit card authorization, and something fishy is going on. (I’m thinking, though, that it’s probably just some sort of merchant/customer agreement.)
However, just because they are “out of business” does not mean they are no longer responsible to uphold their end of the contract. But, I’m sure you know the story from here… if they are uncooperative, you will very likely have to hire a lawyer and file suit (or at least threaten to) in order to get them to fulfill their obligation. And unfortunately, this will probably cost you more than a new air conditioner.
If the store is going bankrupt, it may become acquired by another company. In that case, the new company is usually responsible for honoring old contracts.
If it’s just going kaput, I dunno if there’s anything you can do.
Ok here is more information that may help someone. I checked my bank records online when I got home and it is listed as a POS DEBIT. My visa number is not on the reciept anywhere and the reciept that came out of the machine they swiped my card in says ATM Purchase. BUT on the actual signed reciept they have the amount listed as 129.99
This company has many stores and I don’t know if they are indeed closed or just this store is closed. I drove past it on the way home from work today and saw a hand written note taped saying they would be closed today because the computers are down. They do have a website at http://www.americanappliance.com and there is nothing there about them being closed. According to the terms on my reciept I do have 60 days to cancel for a full refund. I also found another discrepency. The sales man said I could transfer the warranty to anyone but their terms state they (american appliance) has to approve the transfer. The warranty is $130 so I know I could do it in small claims court.
just return it and get all of your money back and go buy an a/c somewhere else.
Never buy extended warranties, and never shop at mom and pop stores (i know, i know… big business is evil and destroys mom and pop stores, along with this advice… oh well - worry about you and not them as that is the american way).
Kalt you have some good points. I would return it if I could but they only have a 48 hour return policy on air conditioners, the unit has been installed and used. I don’t consider them a mom and pop place since they have 30 locations.
There are two ways for a merchant to run a debit card transaction with a Visa or MasterCard logo. One is as a debit transaction, in which case you have no protection. The other is as a credit transaction, in which you have whatever purchase protection the logo issuer provides.
Merchants pay a slightly lower fee for debit transactions. This is why many train cashiers to ask whether a Visa card is debit or credit. Your purchase protection is one good reason to have your purchases run as credit transactions whenever possible.
Entering your PIN number is a strong indication that the purchase was run as a debit. However, the cashier might have had trouble completing the transaction as debit and re-run it as a credit purchase in order to save time and help the next customer.
For $130 it’s worth investigating. Call up Visa and your bank.
This is one more reason not to use debit transactions. Your bank may also charge a fee for transactions that go through the ATM/debit network instead of Visa - mine did when I used it at Costco (where they don’t take Visa).