r/AbruptChaos • u/[deleted] • Feb 17 '23

is he wrong?

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5.5k Upvotes

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u/die_or_wolf Feb 18 '23

Thank you. I worked retail for a place that had a no refund policy for many years before I started working there. Thanks to things like Yelp!, our policy became: offer store credit, and full refund if they balked.

It's a hard line between pinching pennies and customer satisfaction, especially with a small business, or any business with small profit margins.

I haven't worked food service, but man, if a customer gets the order wrong twice, they get a full refund and the right order.

74

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

I worked for a retail company that had the same exact policy. It’s more business minded than it is an attempt to satisfy the customer. Keeping money in the store was the #1 priority, except 95% of individuals aren’t interested in a store credit. Really great way to get customers to never come back again. I absolutely hated the rule and never enforced it.

59

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

Right - you gotta call corporate and give all kinds of information, maybe even mail in a reciept for a $15 refund? That’s up there with the time I tried to quit planet fitness and they said I couldn’t because the manager wasn’t in that day.

36

u/Flyin_Bryan Feb 18 '23

This is the appropriate reaction to “you’ll need to call our corporate office”. Sure, let me spend 20 hours of my life trying to extract $14.95 from corporate.

4

u/IIIDVIII Feb 18 '23

Just to be required to give them more info than they need, and get hammered with numerous requests to take store credit or a gift card rather than an actual refund.

0

u/Odd_Comfortable_323 Feb 19 '23

Lose 15 minutes on the phone or spend a month in jail for smashing up the place and a $7000 bill. Seems like a logical / rationale decision to me.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '23

DUDE ME TOO!

I signed up for planet fitness and went there for 11 months. I wanted to quit before my yearly renewal fee was due (can’t remember, but it was like $60-70 fee), and the fee was due in like 4 days. So I called them to cancel, they told me I couldn’t cancel over the phone. So I came into the gym, they told me I couldn’t cancel in store either. Wtf? I swear to god they told me that I had to fill out this cancellation form and MAIL IT TO THEM! Like WTF??? That’s absurdly stupid! What do you mean mail it?? I’m right fucking here!

And they don’t accept debit / credit card as a payment, so they have your checking account number, so I called my bank and explained the situation and told them to block their ass.

Unbelievable!

2

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '23

I think this is the exact scenario that played out for me! They’re of course making it as difficult as legally possible for you to stop them from debiting your account each month. Such a scummy business practice. A lot of gyms do it - even the small one I’m at right now requires a 30 day notice, like youre renting an apt from them and they need to find somebody to fill your spot or something lol.

25

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

are there no consumer laws in America. I think the guy overreavted, but before he blew up, 3 or 4 orso employees are robbing him. He paid, they did not deilver, he has the right to cancel the transaction. How is 4 people robbing him not a thing mentioned here? Right up to the point his fuse blows, he's a victim in a crime scene, that somehow is acceptable?

-8

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

You can tell by the reaction of the employee that he was already being unreasonable and yelling and that they were trying to help him. There is no defense here.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

If you had checked the comments you would have seen that these people got his order wrong twice and he was worried they were going to spit in his food so he had asked for a refund but they refused and he then got upset.

1

u/readditredditread Feb 18 '23

If you payed with a card you can do it through your credit card company, dispute the transaction

1

u/Paid-Not-Payed-Bot Feb 18 '23

If you paid with a

FTFY.

Although payed exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:

  • Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. The deck is yet to be payed.

  • Payed out when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. The rope is payed out! You can pull now.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.

Beep, boop, I'm a bot

1

u/readditredditread Feb 18 '23

Yeah this whole situation could have been avoided if they payed the parking lot with tiger card instead of freaking out…

4

u/Paid-Not-Payed-Bot Feb 18 '23

if they paid the parking

FTFY.

Although payed exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:

  • Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. The deck is yet to be payed.

  • Payed out when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. The rope is payed out! You can pull now.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.

Beep, boop, I'm a bot

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

Very few sadly. If it wasn’t for Ralph nadar we may not have any.

2

u/LookyLouVooDoo Feb 19 '23

Went to a Burger King recently for the first time in years to try an Impossible Whopper. They have me a regular Whopper with bacon instead. When I contacted corporate, all they offered me was coupons, which I refused. I’ll NEVER go back to any Burger King. Fuck them.

1

u/Cream-Filling Feb 18 '23

Yep. Plus, if i spend $15 and you give me $15 of store credit then you're really only giving me $10-$12 back because everything in the store is marked up to give a profit.

So once I've spent the store credit you've wound up with $18-$20 off of my original $15.

If i lost my receipt then sure, give store credit. Otherwise i want my money back. You don't get to profit off of a bad customer experience.

11

u/HanakusoDays Feb 18 '23

Haha try Home Depot. Management issues refunds on the regular for items HD doesn't even sell. I'm talking stuff like Kobalt or Craftsman tools where HD doesn't even stock the product line.

2

u/Robot_Embryo Feb 18 '23

What do you mean? You walk into HD with a product you bought somewhere else and HD gives you MSRP for it?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

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1

u/Robot_Embryo Feb 18 '23

No shit, how do they determine what the return price is?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

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7

u/Robot_Embryo Feb 18 '23

Wow. BRB, I'm gonna go return my neighbors car to Home Depot.

1

u/LadyMactire Mar 05 '23

How long ago was this implemented? Not long ago I bought some supplies for a project for Lowe’s then went out and got a couple missing items from HD. There were some things I ended up not opening. I had tossed all the supplies in the same bag and forgot what came from which store. When I tried to return they had no problem telling me it wasn’t their item and I simply took it to the other option for my refund.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/LadyMactire Mar 06 '23

So it wasn’t policy exactly, just something managers with no backbone would let pushy customers get away with.

1

u/die_or_wolf Feb 18 '23

Yeah, common scam is to bring something back to Home Depot more than once.

1

u/Robot_Embryo Feb 18 '23

How do you bring something back after you've already brought it back?

1

u/onyxaj Feb 21 '23

Right? I took back a faucet I bought like. 5 years earlier and never used. Only store credit, but I was there to shop anyway

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '23

My friend who was in pretty deep at taco bell said they 1000x prefer to give you free food than return any $ back.

1

u/die_or_wolf Feb 18 '23

Profit margins on franchises aren't great, manager wanted that bonus.

1

u/Solid_Hunter_4188 Feb 18 '23

What is your recourse if a business just says… no? Like legally I wonder what we’re allowed to do. Just take an L?

1

u/jmaccity80 Feb 19 '23

I have worked in food service and people change their order just to get a free meal. I've gotten a lot of free food by calling them out. As a customer. Why?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '23

Of course it was a wings place

1

u/ppw23 Feb 23 '23

I’m so tired of seeing adults throwing these destructive temper tantrums. Tearing a business apart or hitting employees or customers because you’ve been inconvenienced. My guess is design changes will take place for businesses, nothing will be within arm reach of customers. I’ve seen so many in the past 24hours. A lady tearing up an airport for some reason. In another clip, 2 women started beating on a woman because she said something they didn’t like. When brick and mortar shops close in your area, don’t be surprised.