They gave me $28.00

[bigjimaz]

Unholypet's $30.00 + $2.50 =/= $35.00 thread reminded me of a similar incident I had a couple years ago.

I needed an oxygen sensor for my car to pass emissions. The local store didn't have one in stock so I ordered it online from Autozone.com (99¢ shipping!!!) and had it shipped directly to me at home. When it arrived it was the wrong part. I ordered part number 123456 and they sent me 123465, transposing the last two digits (or letters, I don't remember now. Not important anyway) The accompanying paperwork said that I could return the part to any store so that's what I did. (mostly to avoid paying return shipping)

So I got to the store and the incredibly friendly guy proceeded to refund my money...and part of theirs. He asked for my card so they could refund my charge back to my card, as is policy. When he handed me my card and receipt I noticed that he charged back about $28.00 more than I paid. The part I bought cost around $65.00 and they refunded my card around $93.00, the actual cost of the wrong part sent to me.

After about twenty minutes of me explaining to them that they refunded too much and them trying to correct it, the store manager finally gave up. Believe me, they tried doing all different kinds of things. Every employee in the store took a stab at what they thought would work. The problem they had was that they couldn't add the $28.00 back to my account (even though I was buying the correct part at the time) and they could not negate the refund they had just given me. I even suggested that they adjust the price of the part I was buying to the price of the incorrect part but their computers wouldn't allow it.

Anyway, when all is said and done, I ended up with an extra $28.00 with the manager's blessing and I got the correct part. The company never corrected the problem, I still shop there and the same guys (employee and manager) still work there. We even joked at one time about me buying pizza for them with my windfall. I did get them some doughnuts.

[Boozy]

they could not negate the refund they had just given me.

But they could. All they had to do was ring you through again for the part they just refunded.

Then everything would be back to square one, at which point they could have processed the return for the correct part.

They couldn't figure this out in 20 minutes?!

[bigjimaz]

They tried that but because they didn't have the part in that store's computer inventory (it didn't exist as far as the computer was concerned) it wouldn't let them. The refund was done manually just by entering the numbers on my card (and the wrong amount) into the keypad. As I understood it at the time, They could manually refund payments but couldn't manually charge. Some computer setting or something. They even tried calling their credit card payment clearing center and because the manager didn't have the password they asked for, they couldn't do it.

[Becks]

Lucky you.

I wish I got free money.

[wolfie]

That system needs to be fixed ASAP. In your case, it cost them $28, but what if the error were the other way? That would just be asking for police involvement (statement below is the way a SC would report it):

"I ordered a part for my car, they charged me $93, and sent the wrong part. When I returned it, they only refunded $65, and refused to correct the mistake - that's fraud"

[Boozy]

Good point, but it wouldn't have gone that far.

The store has already expressed a willingness to give away $28 in order to please the customer. I'm sure that in the case you describe the manager would have just given the OP $28 cash from the till and explained the shortage to corporate later.