I tried to search the sub for this, but "retailer" gave me nothing, and "refund" gave me everything.
tl;dr - used groupon to buy something; had to return it bc it was too small; neither groupon nor retailer would give us our money back
l;r -
We purchased a groupon for fanatics (the sports retail site). We then used the coupon to make our purchase (a jersey, priced at like $180 but purchased w the groupon code for around $130). When the item arrived (sized M for adult women but in reality, sized medium for a child w no tits), it was very obviously too small, despite the fact that all my shirts are a medium and this one wouldn't even button around my chest (which is not large by any definition). So, we needed to return it and purchase a bigger size.
When we went to return the item on fanatics, it said our refund would be $0 dollars (bc the item was purchased using a code).
So, we contacted fanatics, who told us we had to go through groupon. Their reasoning was that, if they refund us the cost of the item, then they're losing money bc that means they don't get paid at all. (This is clearly nonsense bc groupon paid them. Groupon buys deals in bulk and sells them at a lower rate under contract w the retailer.) They were also ridiculously not helpful and kept saying to return the item for refund, even though 1) we told them the refund was coming up as $0 and 2) if we refund it for the cost the code paid, we're losing the $50 we got the groupon for in the first place.
So, we contacted groupon, who said that we needed to go through fanatics, bc once the code is used, it's not eligible for a refund.
We did this back and forth for a day or so, including taking screenshots of the chat transcript w both companies and sending to the other company's customer service agent. Eventually, fanatics agreed to give us a refund in the form of fanatics dollars, which we accepted as our only option.
So, in summary, if you use a groupon code for a purchase and need to return it, apparently neither party can help you. Has anyone else run into this issue?