"You should explain your ENTIRE return policy before...."

[Rubystars]

I had that too!

Woman walked up with a gift receipt, wanting a refund.

I explained that we could not refund with a gift receipt.

Well, no one told her precious angel that when he bought it.

"Actually, ma'am, I did. Not to mention, it's written right here on the receipt."

She left. I can't remember if she came back with the real receipt or not.

Jenni

This probably makes me seem really ignorant, but I thought you gave a gift receipt to someone with their gift so if they didn't like it, they could return it, but if they didn't return it, they wouldn't know how much you spent on it.

[Enjis]

Gift Receipts

In my store, we give gift receipts, which means this: you can get an exchange of the item, a credit to your in-store charge, or a credit slip, good for buying merchandise elsewhere in the store for up to a certain amount of time (not sure of the time yet, since we recently underwent MAJOR ownership issues, and are now working under a new system to match our new parent company)

Gift Receipts will NOT give the giftee CASH...and that is the one thing that bothers most customers.

[technical.angel]

Right. You can get store credit or an exchange with a gift receipt, but not cash.

Jenni

[XM10ADefiant]

The worst is when people claim that it is the LAW that you give them cash back... uhh ok and what congress passed that man that really gets me raging

also I love it when someone tries to return a CD that does not work and you look at it and it is scratched to hell god forbid you reccomend taking better care of their CDs and oh yeah not giving them a refund on stuff they broke is a crime and its a crime to sell stuff that breaks GAH!

[chainedbarista]

yeah not giving them a refund on stuff they broke is a crime and its a crime to sell stuff that breaks GAH!

i figure it will only be a crime when someone finally invents an idiot proofing method that CAN'T fail, then it selling it would be a crime, because every idiot in the world will see a challenge before them. the result would be an increase in lawsuits over wrongful death, severe injuries or some other foolishness they bring on themselves. you just can't win...

[SongsOfDragons]

I second the thought on mentioning her colour. Not because I think you should avoid potentially racist-seeming comments, but because I was reading it expecting to read something like "then she called me a n****er" and it never came.

Like setting up a joke and forgetting the punchline.

Meh, it's a basic descriptive term. Big deal.

[Imogene]

This probably makes me seem really ignorant, but I thought you gave a gift receipt to someone with their gift so if they didn't like it, they could return it, but if they didn't return it, they wouldn't know how much you spent on it.

Exactly, return, not refund.

[SongsOfDragons]

You can't even get a gallon of gas with $2 anymore, and hey I've got news for you, no-reciept cash refunding is an AUDIT POINT and can GET ME FIRED, no matter how little or much cash is refunded without a slip.

Here in England, $2 is just over £1...and we buy our petrol by the litre, of which there are about 4 and a half in a gallon.

Now we pay a pound a litre, and to buy the equivilent of a gallon we spend £4.50...which translates to about $8.60.



So I don't wanna hear any Yanks complaining about the price of fuel - thank whomever you wish you don't live in the UK!!!

[dragonflygrrl]

I'm just trying to picture the glazed, bored expression of absolutely not listening to me that would cross the faces of my customers if I actually did read them the whole return policy. They don't listen when I explain the contract they are about to sign that commits them to a two year service agreement, why should they listen when I explain the return policy? Nah, it's way more fun to try and return a broken , soaking wet phone with no charger or owner's manual on the fifteenth business day and claim I never told them they couldn't.

[varmintjane]

Meh, it's a basic descriptive term. Big deal.

I don't think anyone was making a big deal of it, but most stories using descriptive terms like that, the description has a direct bearing on something that happened in the story. I think most people who inquired about it were just wondering if we had missed something or if the OP had left something out, such as the SC playing the race card.

[Mighty Girl]

When i worked at this clothing store in the strip mall- they had a "No cash refunds" policy. And in HUGE letters above the counter, they even had a sign that said "NO CASH REFUNDS. STORE CREDIT FOR RETURNS ONLY"

You'd think that people would get it. This sign was easily 18 inches tall and 3 feet wide. Nope. At least once every couple weeks we'd have some dullard whining that they didn't know about our policy.

[One-Fang]

Uh, to be fair though, what 'counter' was this above? The returns counter? Why would I look at that when I'm buying something at the checkout? So it does kind of sound like it's not really clear until you go to return something - at which point it's too late.

[Mighty Girl]

It was a puny store- there was only one counter. You go to the front counter to buy things or return things, so there really was no excuse.

[SonOfSpam]

I apologize if this is a bit wordy, but I just remembered this story. At my rug place, the policy was absolutely no cash refunds for defunct merchandise. You could exchange a damaged or unwanted rug within 2 weeks for store credit and could only spend the credit in the rug section, you couldn't take say, $40 of rug money and go to a private vendor. One woman came in on my second or third day of work, I helped her pick out one of the $270 9X12 area rugs but before I could finalize the sale I was called away for a minute to help carry out a customer's items. Before I left I told her the return policy and asked that she check over the rug and make sure everything was to her satisfaction, you know, in case there were any big tears I didn't notice. I actually saw her checking the rug over as I walked away and I assumed all was well. I got back to her and after explaining to 3 times about how the customer pickup worked, she had me roll the thing up and lug it to the cash register for her. I noticed while rolling that there was a very small rip in the side, but being an idiot I just assumed she had looked it over and decided it wasn't enough to disregard the rug over, and she was already 50 feet away at the register preparing to hand over the cash and I'd already had the thing rolled and taped. I lugged it over and set it next to her, telling the cashier the SKU number and walking off as the sale was finalized. Not two minutes later I heard loud complaining about the tear in the rug, I turned around and saw the lady I just helped waving her arms frantically about the imperfection, the thing that really sucked was that after the cash changed hands she couldn't get a refund and after about 10 minutes of intense debate she agreed to an exchange for, as she put it, an uglier rug. The manager came down on me about explaining the exchange policy better, I told her I did but she was still skeptical. What really irked this lady was that her money was two feet away and she couldn't do a damn thing about it, I sympathized with her but "Buyer Beware" is all I can say.

[One-Fang]

Exactly. I'd have told her "Lady, I didn't tell you to check the rug over because it makes me feel good."