Friday evening, I was working on the retail chain gang when a well-dressed older women walked in, straight up to the counter, and began an irate tirade. She slapped down a receipt from 11/28/05 with two $3.95 items among the purchases. She strormily told us that she had been charged twice for the same item and that she wanted her money back. She also raged about how horrible the "girl" was that served her, because she hadn't gift wrapped the item prettily enough (note" we are not supposed to gift wrap, so she was already going above and beyond for this woman). "I hope she's not still working here anymore."
Well, to begin with, I was amazed that someone would start out so angry about this matter. Generally, people explain politely and only get upset if things don't go their way. For another thing, the purchase had been made almost two weeks before, but the woman hadn't so much as called us about it. This put me on alert.
We politely apologized for the error and explained to the woman that we could not give cash refunds. We could give her $3.95 in store credit, or she could come back any weekday before 5PM and talk to our manager about the situation. "That's illegal!! I want my money back" the woman trumpetted.
"Ma'am," I told her pleasantly, "If you will wait a moment, I can call my manager right now." Ordinarily I wouldn't call her cell phone for a customer complaint, but this looked like it would get out of hand. While I was on the phone, the women continued to loudly and rudely complain to my co-workers and the store in general. She repeated her story to both M and R, and then insisted that R write her a check for the money. She also saw another customer making a purchase and pointed out that that was the item for which she had been double billed.
Now this really rang false. Not only was there no way in hell she could have gotten that particular item for $3.95, but it was classified as an entirely different catagory as the one on her receipt. (She had two non-taxable $3.95 items, while this more expensive item was also definitely taxable.)
As she haranged the other employees, my manager agreed with the two options I had presented: store credit or return while the manager was on duty. The woman went ballistic when I informed her of this. She couldn't get back in here! The manager should be on duty right now since it was the holidays! This was illegal! She then told me that I should give her four dollars of my own money and get the manager to reimburse me. I restated my position as politely and pleasantly as I could, in a tone that indicated that this was final.
She charged out of the store making threats about illegality and complaining to higher authority. A few minutes later, the mall customer service called and explained to me that the woman had told them what had happened, and that we needed to deal with it. She said she was sending the woman back over. We stealed ourselves to politely face another blast and draw a line in the sand, but the harridan did not return. The mall CSR called back and apologized to us for being so harsh. "I'm sorry about that, but she was standing right there and I had to do something to get her to go away."
I agree that the lady should not have been so rude, but I also think that she should be able to get cash back.
Returning an item and only being able to get store credit is OK, but if the store made an error and overcharged her, why should she be forced to purchase another item in the store?
I WANT MY FOUR DOLLARS!!!
Well, "me", besides the fact that nothing she said rang true, and the fact that we are not set up to give out cash refunds, we did give her the option of coming in when the manager was on duty.
Remember that:
1. The item she said she was double charged for was not an item that could have been purchased for that price, nor would it have been sold as a non-taxable item.
2. She came in (without the item) two weeks after the purchase without having previously called. Most people, upon discovering such an error, would have called the store right away even if they couldn't come back in.
3. The total amount of her purchase was such that a double charge should have been obvious as soon as the total was given. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
These facts and her behavior from the moment she walked into the store all point to her being a liar. Now, we were diplomatic enough not to call her a liar. We offered her the best options we could, including offering her $3.95 of store credit that it was certain that she did not deserve. However, the customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is unhinged and lying.
And that is all I am going to say to someone who's hiding behind an email address and URL that goes, quite literally, nowhere. Feel free to adress the topic again if you are willing to come out from behing the fake addresses.
I agree that the lady should not have been so rude, but I also think that she should be able to get cash back.
To put it more susinctly, the policy of no cash refunds is in place to protect the store and it's employees. Had she paid credit, we could have refunded her card. Had she been willing to come in and/or call the store when the manager was available, she might have been able to work out a refund. However, if we gave a cash refund to anyone who walked in with an old receipt and said, "You overcharged me." we would soon go out of business. Many of our items are the same price and many people also do buy two of the same thing, so it is not unusual to see the same price listed twice on a receipt. The world is full of dodgy people.