A Time Out New York reporter paid nearly double MSRP for a new G1 phone she bought off Times Square from Cellular Stop. After she realized she’d been had (internet access and texting were sold to her as “add-ons”), she went back to the store asking for an explanation. Instead, she says, six clerks began circling her and her friends, screaming and cursing and threatening to “break” their “fucking faces.” Her friend was tossed against a wall and another clerk tried to smash her camera.

She then tried six different ways of solving the problem, from filing complaints with various bodies to trying to track down the elusive store owner to including having 25 TONY staffers come into the store and screw with the staff to calling the T-mobile media relations line and getting an investigation launched. None of them worked. T-mobile did end up “terminating its relationship with the store,” the reporter still never was able to return the device and get a refund.

That’s a lot of work with little to show for it. Try this order of events instead:

1) Pay for item with credit card
2) Realize you way overpaid
3) Ask to return item for refund
4) Get cursed and thrown out of the store
5) Call credit card company and do a chargeback
6) Get money back
7) Watch Scrubs

What to do if…you’ve been had [TONY]

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