Back in early May, Consumerist reader JR decided to buy a microwave off BestBuy.com, which should have been a simple process. Little did she expect that she’d end up paying for two microwaves and waiting nearly three months to get a refund.

Here’s how it happened.

JR placed her order on BestBuy.com and waited for the confirmation e-mail. When that confirmation didn’t show up in her inbox in a reasonable amount of time, she assumed that she must have made a mistake and tried again. Shortly after placing that second order, she got simultaneously received two e-mails confirming both purchases.

So she immediately called Best Buy customer service, where a rep canceled one of the two orders. Or so JR thought.

Two days later she gets e-mail notifications from BestBuy.com to let her know that her two microwaves were shipping. There was a note in the e-mail for one item that read, “We received your request to cancel the items below. Unfortunately, your order has already shipped.”

“I called customer service again,” writes JR, “explained the situation, and asked what I should do next. She provided conflicting information, and when pressed for clarification, she did not offer a concrete solution… She first recommended that I refuse delivery. Then when I said I wouldn’t be home during delivery, she said that ‘we would pick it up and give you a return label.’

“I was confused by this and asked her if she meant she would give me a return label and UPS would come pick it up,” she continues. “This seemed to confuse her further. She then said, ‘I’ll just cancel your order.’… I then asked how that would make any difference considering that the order had already been shipped. She couldn’t answer. Then she told me to just take it up to a store and they would refund it. Since she just sounded confused and was throwing out conflicting answers, I didn’t feel I could trust her.”

And so JR e-mailed Best Buy customer service, hoping that maybe the written word would be easier to understand.

And the e-mail she received in reply, while written in fractured English, did provide some hope. This time, the rep said that she would initiate a shipper intercept with UPS and have the canceled order returned to the warehouse.

“Once it will be returned back to our warehouse, automatically the refund will be processed,” reads the e-mail, apparently written by a relative of Yoda. “It will take 1-3 business days that Best Buy will going to process your refund the amount of $91.99. And its all up to your bank institution when they will going to reflect that amount back yo your credit card.”

JR tracked the package after that and found that it was indeed returned to the warehouse on May 9. But as for that automatic refund of her $91.99? That was nowhere to be found.

So after 11 weeks of trying to figure out when she would get her refund, JR contacted Consumerist.

We were able to put her in touch with someone at Best Buy who could actually help her, and within a matter of a few hours the refund was being processed, along with a $50 gift card for her troubles, though JR says she’ll only use the card in an actual Best Buy as her online ordering experience has turned her off BestBuy.com for the foreseeable future.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.