There’s something odd going on at reader Brian’s local Friendly’s. Brian and his wife ordered and paid for two sundaes, but when Friendly’s discovered they were out of the flavor they’d requested, things got complicated. First, the employees refused to give Brian and his wife their money back because the manager doesn’t allow refunds, then, when they asked to speak to the manager, not only would she not speak to them, but she also wouldn’t allow the employees to say her name.
refunds
Target Has 79-Year-Old Taken In For Mental Evaluation After She Demanded Cash Refund
By 8.14.08
79-year-old Christina Brown had a sales receipt and bank records showing that Target had taken cash from her bank account, but the retailer refused to give her a cash refund — offering a gift certificate instead. Christina refused. She wanted her money, and said she’d stay at the Target all day if she had to, but she wasn’t leaving without $30. Target told her she was trespassing and that they would call the police. Christina said that was fine with her and called 9-1-1 herself. When the police arrived, Target had Ms. Brown hauled out of the store on a stretcher and taken via ambulance to a hospital for a mental evaluation. Does wanting a cash refund mean you’re potentially mentally ill?
United Sells Family's Tickets To Someone Else, Ruins Once-In-A-Lifetime Vacation, Then Won't Admit It To Insurance Company
By 8.13.08
- Holding $5,000 in tickets from a family for six months, then telling them the day before that the flight has been canceled;
- When confronted with the fact that the flight hasn’t been canceled, telling the family that the reservation has been lost;
- Finally admitting that they’ve bumped the family from the flight and were lying about the cancelation and the lost reservation;
- Offering replacement seats on multiple planes and days, splitting the family up on different flights and depositing them at different islands;
- Offering to get them there 5 days into a 7 day vacation, part of which was scheduled to spend time with a family member who was dying in a hospice in Hawaii;
- Refusing to write a letter on the family’s behalf so that they can collect their insurance payment on the house they rented but never used.
With one act of disregard, United destroyed the vacation, cost the family over $10,000 in house rental fees that they can’t get back, and forced them to cancel the trip. The dying family member they didn’t get to see passed away in early June.
Citibank's Website Glitch Tricks Man Into Overpaying $755, But They Won't Issue Refund
By 8.12.08
Citibank’s website isn’t reliable, at least according to them. Matt assumed that a website from a bank could be trustworthy, and that if there was no scheduled payment showing up, then he must have forgotten to arrange it. He scheduled a second payment, but then both payments went through one day apart. Now Citibank refuses to give him a refund: he should have called or emailed before rescheduling, they’ve told him, and not trusted what the website was telling him.
Throwing A Monitor Through A Glass Door Is Not The Best Way To Complain About Iron Man
By 8.8.08
If something goes wrong with the projection while you’re watching Iron Man, (or any other movie, actually) and the ticket agent will not give you a refund, do not grab the monitor and throw it through a glass door.
OnTheGoTickets Is Just TicketsMyWay In A New Skin
By 8.7.08
Back in June we mentioned how TicketsMyWay has a reputation for not actually providing tickets—”MyWay” apparently refers to the company and not the customer, and it translates into “no tickets or refunds for you.” A customer who learned the hard way about TicketsMyWay sent us an alert that the company is operating under a new banner, OnTheGoTickets.com.
Yahoo Offers Coupons To Let Customers Download DRM-Free MP3s
By 7.31.08
When Yahoo announced last week that they were turning off their DRM-restricted music store store in September, thereby abandoning customers with songs that would no longer play, people were understantably angry. At the time, Yahoo suggested you burn the songs to CD while you still can, then re-rip them into unprotected MP3 files—but that was a lousy solution that took time and money, and resulted in lower-quality audio files. Now they’ve come back with a proper solution that seems to more than make up for the trouble—especially if we can believe what their spokesperson told the LA Times.
REI Gives Great Customer Service, Refunds 4-Year-Old Skis
By 7.21.08
It sounds like sports-equipment company REI actually enjoys providing good customer service—their official Return policy seems pretty lenient, and it turns out they stand by that,at least for Tom’s family:
Delta: Sorry Your Lung Collapsed, But You Should Have Used Your Voucher Sooner
By 7.13.08
Trevor’s lung collapsed last year, flummoxing his plans to travel with Delta from New York to Toronto. Delta issued a voucher and promised Trevor that it could be redeemed anytime within one year. What they didn’t tell him, at any point, was that they started counting not from the date of his planned travel, or from the date he requested the refund, but from the date they issued the original ticket.
How To Cancel An Order You've Placed On Walmart.com
By 6.27.08
As we noted in this earlier post, it’s technically not possible to cancel an order after you’ve placed it on Wal-Mart’s website. A helpful reader says there are a couple of ways around this, although neither option will immediately free up any hold on your funds.
Walmart.com Holds $550 Hostage For PS3 Bundle It Won't Ship
By 6.26.08
Consumerist reader The Unicorn has $550 tied up in some strange Wal-Mart purgatory for a PlayStation 3 bundle that they won’t ship to her, even though it clearly states in their online terms that they won’t charge you for your order until it’s shipped. Her customer service queries are being met with content-free scripted CSR-bot responses. She writes, “Here’s the thing: don’t ever buy anything from Walmart, ever. I knew this, and ignored it, and now I’m paying the price.”
Travelocity Stole $2,594.55 Of My Honeymoon Money!
By 6.26.08
James booked two flights for his honeymoon with Travelocity, but when it became obvious that their visas weren’t going to come in on time, James asked Travelocity if he could reschedule. They assured him that he could, so James followed their instructions and FedExed his tickets back to Travelocity. He then waited for them to call to complete the transaction. They called 2 days after he was originally scheduled to leave and left a message saying that he could now reschedule. When he called them back, Travelocity said that they’d neglected to inform the airline that he was going to be rescheduling, so they’d been marked as “no shows” and were out of luck… and out of $2,584.55.
U.S. Airways Refunds $2200 Tickets For Recently Unemployed Man
By 6.23.08
Travel expert Christopher Elliott says US Airways refunded a couple $2200 on a pair of nonrefundable tickets to Ireland after the wife wrote to the COO and explained their situation. They tried Expedia first and were refused, and although they had travel insurance it wouldn’t cover unemployment. The wife, Jennifer Bush, says the US Airways rep who responded to their plea “told me that they all felt for my situation and decided to refund the amount of the airfare.”
Tax-Relief Company Agrees To Refund $1.5 Million To Scammed Customers In 18 States
By 6.15.08
JK Harris & Company is a tax-relief company in South Carolina that promises to help people settle IRS debts for “pennies on the dollar” by helping them file an Offer in Compromise (OIC) on their behalf. What they didn’t tell consumers is that “the IRS accepts only a small number of these kinds of cases,” writes digtriad. What they also didn’t mention is that they’ll accept your money even if they know you won’t qualify for an OIC, and they won’t give refunds. “In many cases, JK Harris did not even apply to the IRS to help consumers as promised. But the company still refused to give those consumers their money back.” Now JK Harris has made an agreement with attorneys general in 18 states to change its advertising and pay $1.5 million in restitution.
Target Refuses Return, Says If Computer Doesn't Show Item, It Doesn't Exist
By 6.6.08
Kirk and his wife spent over $4,000 last year at Target, but we have a feeling that figure is going to drop dramatically for 2008 after Target refused to refund Kirk $24 because they said they didn’t have a record of his purchase in the system. In fact, they didn’t have any record of the lampshade he was holding in his hands—it wasn’t in their computer, and therefore it didn’t exist, even after his wife went and brought an identical lampshade from the store shelves to the customer service counter. Said the clerk, “We don’t carry this lampshade.”
AT&T Agrees To Refund Unauthorized Third-Party Charges On Cellphone Bills
By 6.3.08
AT&T Mobility has agreed to offer refunds to customers who were charged for third-party services like ringtones, although if you were frequently a victim of this you’ll quickly exhaust your refund quota: “Customers will able to claim refunds for spurious charges that appeared on up to three of their monthly bills between Jan. 1, 2004, and May 30, 2008.” AT&T should be sending out a notification to its customers “soon,” but you can already download a refund request.
UPDATE: IKEA Apologizes For Charging You A $60 Restocking Fee On A Defective Bookcase
By 5.20.08
The mighty EECB (executive email carpet bomb) has brought justice to West Chester, Ohio, says reader Drew. Drew was mistakenly charged a $60 restocking fee on a defective bookcase. He wrote to us and launched an EECB on IKEA. The results? A very nice apology letter, a full refund and a $25 gift card. Looks like it’s Swedish meatballs for dinner tonight.
