Two years ago, Jamison ordered a speaker system from Amazon. They worked all right, and there was nothing about this story to write home about. Until he decided to take them apart recently, just because he could, and discovered that one of the speakers was actually fake. As in, there was a speaker in the box not even connected to a wire. That was very strange. He contacted Amazon. They don’t have any reason to do anything about it, though, right? The purchase was two years ago. It’s not their problem anymore. [More]
refunds
All It Took To Get A Refund From eBay Was A Very Public Shaming
By 2.28.13
An eBay user bought a dress for her daughter, but what showed up was far from what had been advertised on the site. eBay now says it will refund the purchase, but not until after being called out by the local news. [More]
Macy’s Knows They Double-Charged Me, No One Has The Power To Fix It
By 2.5.13
John’s wife ordered a pair of boots from Macy’s, returned them, and got a refund. In a perfect world, that would be the end of this post, which would be very short and very boring. John lives in the real world, though, where Macy’s just went ahead and charged the couple a second time for the boots three weeks later for no clear reason. No one can explain where the charge came from, and no one has been able to get their $180 back for the last two months. [More]
Target Employee Lies To Me About Refund Policy, Short-Changes Me 25% Of Purchase Price
By 1.25.13
If you buy something for $10 and have to return it a couple weeks later because it’s defective, you should get the full $10 back, even if it’s since gone on sale, right? This is a lesson that never made it to the employees of one Target in Tennessee. [More]
AT&T Wireless Rep Refunds My Phone Upgrade Fees Because I Didn’t Whine About Them
By 1.9.13
Natalie called up AT&T Wireless yesterday to ask about a few relatively small charges on her bill. The customer service representative offered her a refund of two $36 activation fees due to phone upgrades, explaining that it was because Natalie was quite possibly the only person who had called AT&T that day who hadn’t complained about activation fees. (We’re paraphrasing and exaggerating slightly.) Then the representative gave her another credit, ostensibly for being a loyal customer of twelve years. Natalie was stunned, and couldn’t think of a way to repay the CSR…until she found our site. [More]
1-800-Flowers Promises Flowers, Refund, Coupons: Delivers None Of The Above
By 1.4.13
Kyle had a LivingSocial voucher for 1-800-Flowers, and thought that he would put it to good use sending a lovely arrangement to his parents to show that he was thinking of them at Christmas. 1-800-Flowers didn’t really want to cooperate, though. They e-mailed him twice to let him know that the arrangement had been delivered…but it actually hadn’t. Silly Kyle, assuming that one of the messages had to reflect reality. They’ve since promised him a refund and a $20 coupon that have never come. [More]
Best Buy Charges Me Twice, Now I’m Stuck In Refund Limbo
By 12.19.12
After being misled and provided incorrect information about her purchase, Nicole says Best Buy then managed to charge her debit card twice. Now she’s stuck waiting for a refund and there’s not much anyone can do about it. [More]
Sephora Says I’m Stuck With Expedited Shipping Charges Even Though Purchase Didn’t Arrive On Time
By 12.5.12
If you pay a premium to get an order within a specific period of time, then it would only make sense that you’d get a refund on that extra shipping cost if the order doesn’t arrive in time. But apparently not when you order from Sephora. [More]
Woot Marks Item Down, Issues Partial Refund, Delights Customers
By 12.3.12
There are a few (very few) companies that Consumerist readers seem to universally adore. Woot is one of these, even when they’re not sending their customers unexplained wads of cash. They did something pretty simple this week: sold an item for $200, then put it up for sale for $170 only a few days later. Instead of saying “tough luck” to those first few customers who paid $30 more, Woot issued a pre-emptive refund. [More]
Someone Charged $560 Worth Of Kindle Books To My Amazon Account; No One Seems To Care
By 11.5.12
Say what you will about print vs. digital and retail vs. online, but if you were to go into your local bookstore and show them proof that someone had somehow illegally purchased $560 worth of books there, you’d probably get a better response than the one Consumerist reader Joe received from Amazon. [More]
GoDaddy Offers Apology, Credit For Website Downtimes
By 9.12.12
While an anonymous hacker took credit for taking down web host GoDaddy earlier this week, the company says that the outage was their own darn fault. It wasn’t a hack or distributed denial of service attack, but “internal network events that corrupted router data tables.” More relevant to this site’s interests is that they offered a small refund to affected customers, but only those who took the time to click on a link in an e-mail explaining and apologizing for the outage. [More]
No One At Buffalo Wings & Rings Knows How To Give A Refund
By 8.23.12
Michael had a gift card to Buffalo Wings & Rings to use up. His balance was less than a dollar under what he spent on his meal, but he put the remainder on a debit card anyway. Sure, handing over a dollar would have saved him some time in the end, but he had no way to know in advance that the employees of this particular outpost of the chain were all incompetent. When the waitress accidentally ran the entire balance on a credit card, she shrugged and made it Michael’s problem. She didn’t know how to reverse a charge. Guess he’d have to come back and use the gift card another time. [More]
To Dell Hell And Back, With A Refund
By 8.23.12
When we first heard from Dan a few weeks ago, he had been sent to endure punishment in Dell Hell for his sins. His principal sin, of course, was purchasing a computer from Alienware, a once-beloved company now owned by Dell. The products still look cool, but it’s Dell providing the technical support, with all of the competence and generosity that implies. His computer continued to fail. Dell sent a replacement, which was supposed to resolve this, Instead, he reached even more advanced and frustrating levels of Dell Hell. Finally, through persistence (and maybe having his story appear here on the site) he was able to make a deal with Dell and escape with his soul. And a refund. [More]
Greyhound Has A Strange Understanding Of The Word 'Refundable'
By 8.14.12 — Updated: 9.8.16
Noa bought Greyhound tickets that were sold as refundable. Unfortunately, the bus line was using some other, little-known sense of the word “refundable” that actually means “we will charge you extra for a refund, but not actually grant a refund if this route is discontinued.” It didn’t make a whole lot more sense to Noa, either. [More]
Flight Somehow Booked For The Wrong Day? Call To Fix It Right Now
By 8.13.12
Sean booked a flight on United Airlines, US Airways, but had found the flight through travel übersearch site Kayak. He learned the hard way that there may be an occasional bug in the system: he says that even though he did everything correctly, his flight was booked on the wrong day. He learned the hard way that when this happens, you’d better notice quickly: there’s only a 24-hour window to call about the error before the airline will just keep your money forever. They’re called “non-refundable” tickets for a reason, after all. [More]
Comcast E-Mail Rep Needs A Lot Of Words To Say 'I Have No Power To Help You'
By 8.6.12
Tired of waiting around on hold when she called Comcast, Susan decided to just send them an e-mail with what she had to say. What she had to say to them was “Hey, why did you charge me $64 too much for installation?” The e-mail representative she talked to had an answer to this question: taking four hundred words to say, “I dunno, take some time off work to go to your local Comcast office and maybe they can give you a refund.” [More]
Fans Of The Who Allowed To Exchange Tickets From Cancelled Concert… 33 Years Later
By 8.1.12
Back in 1979, a little band out of the UK called The Who was slated to play a show in Providence, Rhode Island. But after 11 people were killed during a stampede at a Who show in Ohio, the venue nixed the concert. In a few months, that same band will be playing that same venue, and folks who still have tickets to that cancelled performance are being allowed to exchange them for seats at the upcoming show. [More]
Virgin American Refunds Non-Refundable Tickets For Expectant Parents
By 7.31.12
Brian and his wife do know the meaning of the word “non-refundable.” Really, they do. But they booked their trip to Mexico without knowing that his wife, Brooke, would get pregnant. Brian Jr. or Brooke Jr. is due right around the time the trip is scheduled, making it a very poor idea. They figured out that they could return the tickets, minus some fees, for Virgin America credit, but that would have to be used within a year. As considerate Consumerist readers, they don’t want to fly for fun with a [potentially screaming] baby. So they checked with Virgin to see whether an exception could be made. [More]
