UPDATE: Man Finally Gets His $130 Back From Circuit City
Sean writes:
I returned a product [yesterday] to the Appleton, WI Circuit City with a gift receipt. The clerk accepted the returned product, but mistakenly credited the original purchaser’s credit card (I am not the original purchaser) for the return. After informing me of this, I told her that I did not purchase this product, it was given to me (thus, the gift receipt) and that I intended to return it for store credit so I could purchase a different product. I was told that since the return had been processed and credited to the original purchaser’s credit card, nothing could be done. I was advised to contact the original purchaser and try to collect the money myself.
After much debate with the clerk, the supervisor, and the operations manager, I was told there was nothing that could be done, and the only option I had was to go back to the person who bought it, and ask for the money. This is unacceptable.
I entered the store in possession of a product (my property, I was the owner). I gave the product and gift receipt to the clerk to process a return. The clerk accepted my return and gave my money (the monetary value of the product – the original purchase price) to the wrong person (someone other than me). I left the store without my property or the monetary value of the property.
I would like either my property (the original product – a Logitech Harmony remote control) returned to me or store credit (gift card) for the orignal purchase price (approximately $130) of the product.
That’s the letter Sean sent to Circuit City’s customer service department, although Seans says he has yet to hear back from them. He adds, “What can I do? Isn’t this illegal? They accept my returned product and mistakenly give the money to someone else, and then refuse to give me either the product or the money (store credit)? Isn’t this theft of some sort? Should I contact the police?”
What do you guys think? Will the police take his report seriously? This certainly sounds like the definition of theft to us.
In the meantime, Sean, you may want to send that same letter to these Circuit City executive email addresses. What happened to you sounds to us like a fireable offense for that supervisor, and you need to make sure your story reaches the people who can see to it that you’re compensated.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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I would have walked out with my product since they didn’t give me the money for it. It would still belong to me because I never got my refund.
It’s like me tossing a $500 Best Buy gift card to the Circuit City clerk as I was walking out with a TV and telling the clerk to go to Best Buy to get their money.
Let them call the police on me for stealing. What would be their arguement? “We gave his refund to someone else so he can’t leave with that!”
@fett387:
1) Police know store managers VERY well due to shoplifting issues, and often pal around with them
2) due to #1, police always or usually assume the customer is wrong in an incident like this
3) Police carry firepower and other means of violence
4) You never know if Officer Furman is having a bad day and not thinking well.
This is just patently ridiculous.
A person walks into a Circuit City store with $130 of merchandise that they own, and a little while later, walk out with nothing.
CC, how is that NOT your fault?
@InThrees: Hey, the financial meltdown wasn’t the fault of the guys in charge either. Otherwise they’d be in JAIL.
A very similar thing happened to me at Best Buy almost three years ago, and it was what made me stop shopping there. A friend had bought me and my boyfriend 4 sticks of RAM as a gift that were supposed to be identical. When we went to install them, one was the wrong kind, even though the correct product was on the receipt.
The idiot at the desk returned the wrong stick of RAM because he “didn’t want to mess up their inventory.” Except that he didn’t pay attention to our explanation and ended up screwing up their inventory even worse. All he had to do was take the wrong thing out of the bag and put the right thing in.
Rob, the “customer service manager,” kept cutting us off time and time again and eventually we were escorted out of the store by the police because we made the guy cry (the police were sympathetic to us but had to ask us to leave, according to them).
Many calls to corporate did not resolve the situation to our satisfaction, so we don’t spend a dime there and use them to check out products in person that we later buy online, and of course, to say “Hi!” to our good buddy Rob…
@uberbitter: Yup, the police know who they will be dealing with on a regular basis, and it ain’t the ones in the right.
Shame on you for thinking the police are there to protect you. Quite often, they are not.
When I worked at a computer store (not CompUSA!), the point of sale system had no way to post-void a transaction, even for a store manager. As a normal-privileged employee, I could return to any payment method I wanted, including the original or a new credit card, but once a credit or debit card transaction had gone through, that was it. I spent three hours on the phone with BofA one time trying to get a card authorization cancelled after a cash register glitch. Unsuccessfully.
Circuit City uses the same core point-of-sale system (Oracle, formerly 360commerce), so I wouldn’t be surprised if they, also, lack post-void functionality. See [findarticles.com] for other stores that use this software.
same thing happened to me at CC a few years ago. Luckily it was only like $20 and I told my friend (the gift-giver) and he promised to buy me something pretty. Come to think of it, he never made good on that promise…oh well.
CC is full of FAIL.
i’m confused. the money went back exactly where it came from. How is this theft? it’s not like CC kept the money and the item.
Sure it sucks and they did it wrong, but CC hasnt’ stolen anything. They put the money back where it came from, albeit in error.
@EdnaLegume: You must have a funny definition of “gift” if it doesn’t, in your mind, connote transfer of ownership.
As Tooki said, CC can’t reverse or post-void a transaction as many of you are spewing, so please stop saying it’s that simple.
Second, it more than likely was done as an innocent mistake, it’s very easily to accidently tender something through to the original paytype, especially if these is even a simple 2 second hangup in the register where you didn’t *think* it registered your keystroke, but it did.
Last thing is, it could have been a misunderstanding on either end as well. In this case, it sounds like a mistake on the employee’s part, but I’ve processed returns myself, told customers where the money was going, only to have them come back 30 seconds later or when they come back to reality (or get off their cell phone) and ask where their cash/gift card is. At that point it’s way too late.
First of all he/she’s in Wisconsin. Nuff said.
I run a sales office in our company, and every charge or return is spooled till the end of the day when the entire batch is then sent to the bank. It’s very simple to void a sale or a return before the end of the day when we post the batch.
I have worked in a Circuit City for three years and counting, and we use a computer system that is from the 80′s. There is no way to void the last transaction. That money is instantly removed from the account or charged to the credit card. The only way to reverse the transaction would be to “re-buy” the item with the original form of payment. The problem here is two-fold. One, the original purchaser was not present and circuit city has no right to charge someone’s card without them being present. Two, depending on the balance of the purchaser’s account this may not tender due to the fact that the refund takes a few days to process unlike the sale.
The supervisor and manager are not to blame, there was nothing in their power to do. The customer service associate is at fault because she did not ask the customer if he was the purchaser, and also because she absolutely should never have processed a return to a credit account without asking for identification and the card itself.
Just my two cents, if someone gives you a Harmony remote, you probably know them well enough to take care of it.
Sorry guys, but it doesn’t work this way. Quoting the MasterCard Merchant Rules Manual, section 3-12:
“If a card acceptor agrees to accept merchandise for return or to cancel services, the card acceptor must credit the same account used to purchase the merchandise or service.”
[www.mastercard.com]
Entire_Manual.pdf
I believe that Visa, Discover, and Amex also have provisions similar to this. It isn’t necessarily right, but I wouldn’t necessarily blaim CC.
@crazydavythe1st: make that [www.mastercard.com]
@crazydavythe1st: Technically, it would seem that he was *exchanging* a gift. I don’t want to read the MC rules right now, but certainly it’s supposed to be an internal CC transaction.
@dweebster: Yes; this is exchanging merchandise for an electronic store credit. An actual refund of tender has to go back on the original credit card.
A lot of stores have a policy on crediting purchases made with credit cards back to the original card. It’s a common policy that makes sense in normal circumstances. However, following that policy for a gift receipt doesn’t make sense. The main purpose of a gift receipt is to allow you to exchange a gift you don’t want for a gift that you do want without having to go through the trouble of contacting the person who gave it to you and telling them that you didn’t like it. The purpose of a gift receipt is not to give the money back to the purchaser.
In this case, the store screwed up and didn’t want to go through the trouble to fix the problem they created.
@xip: …thus, creating an even BIGGER problem.
Certainly the original purchaser and gift-giver will see the $130 credit on his credit card statement, and may well figure out what has happened. The idea of not offending the gift-giver by informing them that their gift has been returned is pretty much moot at this point.
@Cliff_Donner:
1) Some people re-gift.
2) Some people fall out of favor or touch with a gift giver,or they could be in another town or state or country.
3) Some companies give gifts as prizes and such.
4) Some credit card numbers change or are closed.
5) Etc.
CC stole his property that he had full title to. After you’ve been robbed before your eyes, it’s pretty ridiculous for the robber to claim he can’t figure out how to give your property back and that it’s your problem to pursue the “fence” he gave it to.
If I were to be in the situation the OP describes, having returned an item but not been given money or store credit, I’d have grabbed the item and walked out. It’s not shoplifting if you own the item, and since they didn’t exchange value for value, it’s not theirs.
@Difdi: Problem is:
1) It was probably out of reach.
2) If the staff was so stupid they couldn’t fix this, it’s a sure bet they wouldn’t have a grasp of the fine points of the law and would have called the cops.
3) The responding police, having built up a relationship with the store employees (because of shoplifting calls) would have automatically assumed their friends were “in the right” and worked from that framework.
4) If the OP was in possession of his property that the CC would have illegally claimed was theirs, most police would have sided with their friends @ CC and busted a little OP head for dragging them out of the Dunkin’ Donuts to deal with this crap.
Best course of action is to do what you can within the store framework, noting time, names, faces, etc. Maybe file a police report at the station if you have time for the humiliation and futility. But it’s really something that the corporate overlords will need to deal with properly – if not then sue the bastards.
@dweebster: What can they charge you with? Theft? It belongs to you. Shoplifting? Same problem. Disturbing the peace? Possible, but extremely shaky.
Possible I missed it, but after double checking the story, I never see where he ASKED for to either exchange it or receive it on a gift card. I worked returns at K-Mart a lot of years ago, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to bring in the gift receipt because they had lost the real one. Perhaps the consumer should have said something instead of assuming the minimum wage worker to read his mind?
@lulfas: Don’t the “GIFT” receipts say “GIFT” in some readable form? I can understand the register monkey screwing up, but it’s pretty ridiculous for the customer to have to say he’s NOT the original purchaser and it’s a “G-I-F-T.”
Anyone with self respect running the cash register may have a problem with a customer that tells them that the “GIFT” receipt means it was a “GIFT.” He told them afterward, but even the genius running the store couldn’t figure out how to void a transaction that the cashier screwed up.
If the guy is presenting a “GIFT” receipt for a refund, isn’t basic competence as a cashier to know it’s probably a “GIFT”?
I don’t know about everyone else here, but I’ve never bothered to save a “GIFT” receipt for a purchase I made for myself. If I present a “GIFT” receipt it’s a pretty good bet that I am not the original purchaser and it was given to me as a “GIFT.” It’s also likely that I want to handle the “GIFT” replacement myself and not need to bother the person who originally gave me that “GIFT.”
CC screwed up here, they need to return this guy’s property plus a serious “we messed up and are sorry” gift card. Here’s where I’d focus my attention after failing at the store level:
CEO: Philip Schoonover
Address: 9950 Mayland Dr., Richmond, VA 23233
Phone: 804-527-4000
So, Circuit City’s incompetence basically turned away a guaranteed $130.00+ sale, AND made sure they disappointed said guaranteed customer. Nice work, assclowns – firing all those “experienced” staff is really helping your bottom line, eh?
With geniuses like these operating the stores, it’s a pretty safe bet that they aren’t maximizing income for their investors. Throw away enough $130.00 sales and they’ll be joining Good Guys, The Wiz, Sharper Image, CompUSA, and the rest of the has-beens in the consumer electronics retailing wastebin.
As per policy, money will be credited back to the original card used. So they did what they were supposed to do. What the customer should have done was ask for a gift card instead of a refund. But I have a feeling this guy is a cheapskate in the first place to return a gift and try to get the money. Scan of the receipt?
Ohhh and please call the police and a lawyer, lets tie this up and make some money for you.. NOT.
@jimjones124: Full disclosure, please (you only comment on Circuit City posts and you always defend them).
@chadbailey: I too find it interesting that he only comments on CC articles, and always defends CC.
I recently went to cc topick up some software my mom needed and to pick up a cd that was released that day. I had wanted to go to best buy since i had called earlier to confirm if was in stock, but cc was the only one who had microsoft live one or whatever. i walked in, could not find the cd i wanted. foound a salesperson, asked them for help… after 5 minutes of searching he couldnt find it and went to the back to locate it. i picked up another cd i wanted and headed to the software section. there was a group of 3-4 20 somethings huddled around a closed register. I asked for the software, and they told me to go up front and theyd bring the software to that register. So i head up to that register, and im informed they DONT have the cd i had originally come for. they arent the biggest band, so i bit my tongue, asked them to seperate the items and paid for the other cd in cash. they scanned the software and told me the total, at which point i handed over my moms debit card. they asked for id, i showed it. the sales person asked me if it was my mothers, i told her it was, and she said she couldnt take it. keep in mind we have the same last names, and i had paid for a cd which was obviously mine in cash. i stormed out pissed off as anything. the next day when my mother went to pick up the software, they didnt even ask for her id. laziness at the end of the night, ageism, or just stupidity aside, they will never get a dime of my money again.
Can’t post void with CC’s system. Sucks
When you hit “Enter” when doing a return, it is automatically returned to the credit card originally used. It can be put on a gift card though but if you have to add the gift card for the amount and then continue processing the return.
I would have asked if he wanted a gift card seeing it was a gift receipt…
Oh and Philip Schoonover is no longer the CEO of Circuit City.
I’m failry certain CC still has “Loss Prevention” or Sales auditors.
i.e. the people you call when you have credit card issues and need someone to research transactions. THEY have the ability to post void transactions even if the function isn’t available at store level.
The management team should have just created a 2nd return for the same item and given him store credit.
then gone backwards and got someone with the power and means to correct the issue.
As a matter of fact, if all you say is “I want to return this” then yeah, it will be returned to the original card, and no, once it has been tendered, the system does not allow it to be cancelled.
Sounds like my story that was posted here of when a rebate company sent my check to a family member and told me to go get my money from them. After explaining to them that I would take them to small claims court and they could explain to a judge how I should get my money froma 3rd party, they quickly sent me a check.
In this case I would not have left the store without my property or a refund. If someone takes your property and gives you nothing in return (against your will), that is theft pure and simple. It is up to the thieves to prove that they paid for the property. I would have filed a police report in this case. These thieving companies must learn the hard way that this is not acceptable. This person was deprived of his property and that is theft. If this person had taken an item from the store without compensating them, you can be SURE they would have had them arrested. I say you have the store clerk arrested!
So it sounds like an honest mistake happened. The Circuit City associate does not need the credit card number as it is saved in the system. The associate is unable to view the credit card number so it is safe from fraudulent associates as well. If you truely did get this as a gift just suck it up and ask the person for the $130. they are getting back anyways can’t imagine it would be a problem. Sure they made a big mistake but is it really necessary to complain about it this way. It’s unfortunate that people feel they can complain about any small mishap and think they are “owed” everything!!!
@VarunRhea: Returning a gift to the gift-giver is a rather nasty insult. Few things in life are quite so rude, in fact. About the only things I can think of that surpass it in rudeness are physically stomping the gift into the mud in front of the gift-giver and instantly offering payment for the gift. Any of those three things were, in more polite eras, grounds for bloodshed and killing.
For a business to return a gift to a gift-giver for someone might well have ended a friendship, possibly permanently.
BOP
Fact: Whenever legal terms are used, suddenly 75% or more of Consumerist readers become experts on law and interpreting it. It’s been pretty well clarified that this isn’t theft so far in this thread.
@Wolzard: Hypothetical case: you buy an item from a store, decide you don’t want it, still have the receipt and return the item. The clerk hands the refunded money to someone other than you, and takes back the item. You now have neither item nor money. How has the clerk not stolen from you?
This situation sucks, but believe it or not there are retailers that cannot do post-voids. I’m a lead cashier for a major electronics retailer and we are unable to do post-voids. Simply not an option in our POS system. But if this were to happen to me in my store, I would cash out a gift card and let the store take the hit, or escalate the matter to store operations. Never would I let the customer simply leave without compensation.
I do feel it’s important to mention here that as a CSA myself, I have been handed gift receipts and had the customer become confused when I handed them a gift card back, only to find out that they thought the gift receipt WAS the sales receipt.
This case was more than likely the CSA’s fault and probably an accident, but to repeatedly throw insults that this person could not read what “G-I-F-T” meant is uncalled for. To make that kind of generalization would be calling a solid share of consumers stupid as well. Accidents happen, both ways, suprisingly enough.
I had this same experience with a Lowe’s home improvement store. I think it’s just laziness on their part. You could probably make a sound legal argument that it’s theft, but this is almost certainly a case where the police will just tell you it’s a civil matter to avoid having to do any actual work.
He should have taken a similar remote that is rightfully his. If they (CC) call the cops, they would have to explain why the remote does not belong to him and “We gave the money to someone else” does not seem like proof to me.
I this case the gift receipient did not make the purchase from Circuit City and is not bound by any contractual agreement between the purchaser and Circuit City.
The gift receipient has no legal standing with the card holder to recover the money.
The card holder did not retain title to the item and had no right to a refund.
I would contact the corporate headquaters and explain the situation. If that doesn’t work, file a complaint with the better business bureau and your state’s Attoryney Generals office. If they won’t refund your money, then file a police report. Lastly, you might have to sue in small claims court.
Contacting his local police would probably be a waste of time. I recommend that he takes the issue to his state’s attorney general’s office. Normally each state has a department just for consumer protection. In this person’s case (Wisconsin), it would be the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer protection.
[datcp.state.wi.us]
The above website has contact information, along with instructions on how to file a complaint online.
It is interesting that the card didn’t have to be present to make a return on to it. Any time I returned something when I was Assistant Manger at a music/movie store, I had to swipe the card in order to return the product onto it. If people did not have the card, we had to give store credit (or cash if it was under $20). It seems like a bad idea to have it go automatically onto the card considering, not only was it a gift receipt, but also that it would require no proof of purchase and the individual could of found the receipt and picked up a new copy, impacting the bottom line of the retailer. A post void could of easily rectified this situation. Unless, the money never was destined to go back on the card after all?
Am I the only person here who’s ever worked in retail?
1: Many stores have a “credit to the original card or use as an exchange THE SAME DAY as the return” policy. Period. End of story. With or without the gift receipt. I’ve worked for stores like this in the past. I do not shop there, because I do not agree with company policy, but I know of a few stores that have this policy.
2: Many more companies have a NO VOIDS rule. I can name about four retail stores I worked for in high school and college that had that policy. Voids would trigger an internal audit and usually resulted in demotion or firing of the manager who did them.
Sorry, but a customer’s satisfaction isn’t worth my job. And no, you saying “But she did what I wanted!” isn’t going to save anyone’s job.
I used to work for a large retail chain store, and they would not credit a return back to the credit card used to buy the item, unless the customer had the credit card in hand. It wasn’t because of situations like this – it was because the store didn’t HAVE the original credit card number.
When customers would complain about not getting a credit because they didn’t bring the card with them, the manager would reply “I can’t give you a credit because we don’t know what your account number is. We don’t save the numbers. If we saved the number for your convenience, then we would be maintaining a giant database of credit card numbers, just waiting for a hacker to break in and steal them, like TJ Max. If we don’t ever have your number in our system, then you never have to worry about us misusing it or having it stolen.”
The smarter customers would say “hmmm, good point.”
So the point is – I’m not happy about the fact that Circuit City is saving credit card numbers, and has the ability to put credits (and possibly new charges?) on that card without the cardholder AND the actual card being there in the store. *Especially* if they appear to lack the ability to undo a transaction.
@vespolina: That’s a good point, which I hadn’t thought of. Come to think of it, I can’t ever remember processing a refund without having the original card on hand.
Thing is, at least where I used to work (various places in NJ), there was a lot of cc fraud. Steal a card, buy lots of merch., then hand merch. off to a friend to return for cash or credit. If store credit, they could then ebay off the store credit for the same or more than the actual items would have brought. So most of the stores had a policy of only putting it back on the card. But you’re right — 99% of the time, we had to have the card present to do that. I didn’t think of that.
Of course, I did work at Wilson’s Leather once, and they would give you CASH for a return, regardless of original payment type, if you had a gift receipt. Of course, now they’re going out of business, so maybe that wasn’t the best policy after all….
Once the refund to the credit card is in the system it could be processed within seconds.
And the company can’t re-charge the card because they don’t have the right to do so (no signature from the card holder!).
Yes it was a stupid mistake on their part but at this point their hands are tied. There is no way in hell that they are going to give a $130 gift card or the same item to the person walking into the store, or else they are out $130 dollars worth of product. I’m sorry to say but most clients of circuit city only shop there once per 11 months with a zero or negative profit to the company after all is said and done. Simply put, that client is not worth $130 to retain as a customer.
What might have happened here is when a refund goes through in the return policy time period, it automatically gets credited back to the original purchasers credit card and there is really nothing you can do about it. I work at Best Buy, and this is how are computers operate there. To make it go back as a store credit you have to trick the computer, by doing a no receipt return, which I have done before.
CC is wrong in saying that there was nothing they could do – they could have easily post voided the transaction and done a no receipt return with the product to make it come back as store credit. Or whoever was returning could have just exchanged it for something right on the spot, avoiding this mess in the first place. :
I always present people with a gift return with lots of different options, and it sounds like they didn’t.
How do you prove that that item is your property if it’s a gift?
What’s to stop someone from stealing all your Christmas presents and returning them to the stores for a credit?
What’s to stop someone from laundering money by buying expensive items on one card, returning the items and putting the money onto another card?
Or doing the same in order to juggle credit?
My mother had the *exact* same thing happen to her at a Circuit City after Christmas last year. I gave her laptop bag with a gift receipt, which she tried to return. Surprise, they credited my credit card instead of giving her a store credit and she left the store empty-handed after being told the exact same thing that Sean reported.