OTC Bikes

There was a woman who wanted to return two bikes she'd bought for her kids, because her mother had bought bikes too. Well, the woman didn't have a receipt, and she'd also ripped half of the barcodes off each of the bikes. The customer service employee, upon thinking what is normally done when there is no working barcode, asked the woman to go get the same bikes with barcodes. Yes, a bike is bigger than say a coffee maker without a box, but at the same time, nobody was forcing this woman to return the bikes. Incidentally, at least three times the woman said she wanted the bikes back, because she wasn't going to return them after all. So, they were repeatedly handed back to her over the counter. So, they quickly became OTC bikes, instead of BMX bikes. When she came back up to customer service, she'd ripped a barcode off of a bike in the store, not considering at all what problems this would cause anyone wanting to purchase that bike. For the second bike, she ripped off a sign that did not have a barcode that would scan. The customer seemed to conclude that the employee was incompetent, because he couldn't get the sign to scan, though he knew it wouldn't work just by looking at the sign. The employee called management, who called him back, and pretty much indicated that the bikes couldn't be returned without a receipt, but the manager also said she was sending another manager over to explain this to the customer. The manager that came over said the woman could get store credit. The woman repeatedly criticized the employee who'd previously tried to help her, saying he was the one who told her to go get a barcode way in the back of the store. By the way, he had worked up a sweat, and was very glad management was taking care of the OTC Bikes, so that he could help customers who were more considerate and wouldn't keep waffling about whether or not to even make a return.

People Who Call Customer Service

Some people who call Customer Service on the phone do not seem to care if there is a very long line of people that need to be helped by the person answering the phone.

Holiday Spirit

Did you hear about the woman who went into a store and said she'd purchased a live Christmas tree there the previous week? She claimed it was completely dead, and that she didn't have the receipt. She wanted to exchange for another tree or get store credit. She asked the customer service employees if she'd need to bring in the dead tree in order to get credit for it. One person told her she absolutely would if she couldn't find the receipt. Well, to that she said, "You mean I have to take off all of the ornaments?" After she walked away, a person listening to the conversation pointed out that if it was a completely dead tree and she wanted a new one, she'd have to remove the ornaments from the first one anyway. What a good point!

Not From Our Store!

Why, when I tell someone something isn't from our store,does she feel the need to lie and say she only shops at our store? I don't even only shop at the store where I work! Plus, I think she found those Xmas lights in her attic, because I'd never seen any brand like it!

Sneaky Returns

Sometimes, it's not the merchandise that turns up time and again at the Customer Service Counter, it's those sneaky individuals who return. When someone tells such a person he can't get even store credit, he waits until that person has gone to lunch or something. Plus, while the guy is at it, he might as well completely change his story and tell another lie about why he's returning an expensive item he could have easily stolen. I told someone today that I really didn't want to give him store credit since he didn't have a receipt. I told him some others wouldn't have done anything for him. After he left, I found out a manager had told him "no," because she has seen him returning these same kind of high value, high theft items without receipts. Believe me, I've seen him in the store before, and that weird thing he has on his ballcap is imbedded in my memory, so I will not give him a refund without a receipt in the future!

A Time When I was the Customer

Okay, as I mentioned in another story, sometimes I am the unsatisfied customer. Like back in 2007, I worked at a shoe store, and I knew how my boss would "damage out" shoes that people had returned for an exchange or a refund, and this eventually led me to an exchange I did as a customer at another store. Incidentally, I'd never missed a day of work at that shoe store, but one time I had to have my boss cover for me while I met with a school social worker, a prinicipal, and the girl for whom I was the primary caregiver for approximately four months of my life. Anyway, one day that girl needed help with her coat zipper, and she was whining that it was stuck. I tried to fix it, but then the girl yelled at me that I'd broken it. Well, I knew that the coat and some new school clothes were some of the few things the girl's mother had actually paid for before school started that year. Otherwise, her hand seemed to get stuck in her jeans pocket, if she even attempted to look like she might try to pay for something. I was the person paying for plane tickets, strep test, doctor fees and mental health therapist for the child, food, utilities, and last but not least the new house "we had to buy" because my townhouse wasn't big for 5 people. However, the mother and the receipt were in the St. Louis area, and we weren't. Anyway, after discovering the repair of the zipper at the dry cleaners would be $20, I remembered the condition of some of the shoes returned to the store where I worked. So, I decided to kind of go against my personality, and I took the coat back to the store where the it had been bought 3 months prior. The woman at that customer service counter was very friendly, as I hope I am. Even though I explained that the receipt was in St. Louis with the mother who purchased the coat, I was wondering if I could exchange it for a coat with a working zipper. I was a little embarrassed that the coat needed washing, but at the same time I knew it didn't really matter if it would be "damaged out". Anyway, I found an identical coat, completed the exchange and for once that seemingly ungrateful child said "thank you".

No Refund

The reason we won't refund an expensive item without a receipt is because someone probably stole it instead of paying for it. Maybe the theif is not the person who actually comes to the Customer Service Counter with valid forms of ID, but it is this person's friend, who has lied to the friend.

On the other hand, we do refund inexpensive things that we know you bought a decade ago from the look of the box of a game with play money and dice, but if you want your ID put into our system, we will give you store credit. However, you don't have to waste everybody's time pretending you think you might have the receipt in your purse! I know I returned a game once that literally contained a piece of graph paper and some plastic discs. This was within a week of purchasing it, and I had my receipt, plus I'd used a purchased discount card to that store. In other words, I was a loyal customer of that bookstore. However, that manager gave me a hard time, because I'd opened the game! Well, I don't know how I was supposed to know it wasn't worth what I paid for it!

As long as we are talking about refunds, I might as well tell you what I need to know at the Customer Service Counter where I work. I don't really need to hear a long detailed story about each thing you are returning, I just need to know a few things, which I will ask you. The people waiting in the line behind you just want us to get through the return as quickly as possible!

Scammer Dude

If I tell you what Scammer Dude does, then someone out there might follow in the footsteps of this unethical lump of moving coal people mistake for a human being. I just want to say that we know what you are doing when you are returning all of those things, but there isn't anything we can do but give you a full refund. Scammer Dude, we call you something else, but it might give away how you scam the world, the economy, and fellow humans with your backhanded ways. However, I just want you to know you aren't fooling anyone. I don't know how you sleep at night. I see all kinds of scams, but for some reason you really push my buttons. I just want to ask you one question, if you bought all of the same stuff your wife bought, why did you return it all? Didn't you need any of it? If you both bought the same product, why didn't you keep any of it? I think you could use some of those hygeine products, though in all honesty, if I saw you on the street, I wouldn't think you were a crook. I would think you were a hardworking surgeon or something.

The Basket Case

Things were kind of slow at the Customer Service Counter where I work, and that was okay with me, as I was all alone. Then, this woman who ultimately turns out to be a basket case pushes up a cartload of stuff. The first thing she pulls out that she wants to return is a "gift basket". She says, "This is a nice gift, but it's missing the basket!" I examine the shrink-wrapped lotions and dried grass that are in a sense "planted" in an egg carton container that most likely used to have a basket around it. I want to ask the customer if she expects me to believe she picked up the item without the basket intact. Instead, I go through the process of refunding her money.

Next, "Basketta" has men's clothing, about 49 pieces of it. Apparently, this very unobservant woman also didn't realize she was in the men's clothing section, and she purchased a bunch of things for her female friends from there. I want to mention that men and woman's clothing is sized very differently, but she's just saying that she'd never wear men's clothing. I tell her I would, and as I am returning all of her stuff, people are piling up at the Customer Service Counter.