Yeah, I Fork out Money Left and Right for Unknown Causes Too

[flybye023]

A man calls in wanting to get some assistance with repair charges on a new steering column. We work with the repair shop and they agree to do the repair for free. Man then complains that they did the same repair two years ago but charged him. He wants a refund for that repair. We explain to him that we don’t do refunds for repairs done over 6 months ago. We also explain that it is up to the repair shop whether or not to do a job for free and that apparently the first repair they had decided they needed to charge for it. He states he still has the original repair order and all the payment documents. I respond "that’s nice but we can’t do a refund."

He changes direction, claiming they did the repair without telling him and without getting his permission.

Me (in an oh, so seriously concerned tone): you mean you took your car in for an estimate and they charged you $200 and didn’t tell you why?

SC (in righteous indignation): No! When I went to pick up my car they charged me $200 for it and didn’t tell me anything!

Me (in an oh, so shocked tone): You mean that they just asked for $200 from you, you handed it over and they didn’t even tell you why you were paying or give you a receipt detailing the repairs?

SC (in totally exasperated tone): Well of course they gave me a receipt showing what they had done!

Me: Oh, ok (**thank you Mr. Idiot, I now have recorded proof that you did, in fact, know why they were charging you $200 and yet, you made no complaint at the time about the charges.**)

[IT Grunt]

Give a man enough rope...

[BlaqueKatt]

Sarbaines-Oxley is your friend.

Repeat after me

"Per Sarbaines-Oxley, which is a federal law enacted after the Enron scandal, Federal Law prohibits the crediting by any company of any charges over 180 days old."

I get to pull this out all the time working for a cell phone provider, customers routinly call in requesting credit for years(actually had a customer request 8 years credit for a line they claim they didn't know they had-but had paid the bill every month for 7 years)

[Boozy]

Sarbaines-Oxley is your friend.

Alas, it is his friend only if his company is publicly traded.

[Andara Bledin]

I get to pull this out all the time working for a cell phone provider, customers routinly call in requesting credit for years(actually had a customer request 8 years credit for a line they claim they didn't know they had-but had paid the bill every month for 7 years)

AT&T screwed up the billing for my company so badly (including billing for a line belonging to a company across the street that was also being paid for by the company across the street!), over the last 3 years, that we've been wading through what we really owe (we had to personally check the 40 lines we were paying for to find out that 16 of them were never active) and have had to badger them into actually honoring the contract their agent set up with us. It's been nearly 4 months so far, and we've gotten several thousand in credits.

If it hadn't been for the fact that we've been complaining about their lack of fulfilling their end of the contract fairly regularly over the entire time it's been active, we'd probably be SOL.

^-.-^

[flybye023]

The thing that was so stupid about all of it was that if he had gotten the first repair for free, he would have been charged for the second one. The repair shop is not going to keep handing out repairs for free.