Your Lack of Understanding Is Exactly the Issue Here

[BrenDAnn]

I just have a quick tale from my eight hour shift today. I went in at ten. One of the first customers I had, brought in a cell phone charger to return. Everything seemed fine, he had a receipt and all, but, it wasn't a charger that we sell, or have ever sold, at our location. To cover my ass, I decided not to take the return without management position, so I turned it over to my manager. The following discussion ensued between Manager (M), Mr. I Don't Understand (SC), with my interjections:

M: **looks at receipt, then at SC** Where'd you purchase this at?
SC: **names store in our chain in another town**
M: I'm sorry, you'll have to take it back there for a refund.
SC: I don't understand. Y'all are **c-store** ain't you? It's all the same corporation! Why can't I just return it here?
ME: We don't carry that brand of charger, though.
M: That may well be, but they have a different novelty supplier at that location than we do. We don't carry this brand of chargers at all.
SC: But y'all are **c-store** just like them, y'all should be able to take it. Aw, nevermind, just gimme it back!

At this point, SC leaves, and M and I look at each other and shake our heads. If the moron had given us a minute to explain, we would've told him that since we don't get our chargers from that particular supplier, the charger would've been useless to us if we would've taken it back. We had no way of returning it (the suppliers come independently of our weekly grocery truck, much like the Pepsi/Coke/Bud/etc trucks do) so it would've sat there, collecting dust and losing money for c-store. Note: Just because the store is **c-store** doesn't mean we HAVE to take returns from other locations. We aren't Walmart, after all!

[ottid]

So your a franchise rather than a chain then?

I get the problems associated with that too. "But the price of book x was cheaper at store an hour down the road" which is quite probably true, but as all of the stores are independently owned, apart from what is advertised in the store brochures/online, my boss can charge whatever he wants, which doesn't necassarily make him right.

Also had the "Can I return this here" for something which we don't stock, but store an hour down the road does. The main problem here is that the person lived in between the two stores, so was trying to save a trip

[flutes_and_fabric]

My old job was a regular store. There was a super store about half an hour away from us. We always got stuff that we didn't and couldn't sell. We'd just take it and ship it back to the other store.

[BrenDAnn]

No, we're a chain, with a corporate headquarters and all. the c-store I work for has very few franchises, I think. The problem was that the store he'd gotten the charger at, and the store I work at, have different novelty vendors, and our novelty vendor almost certainly wouldn't have taken the charger, since it wasn't from his company. Of course, try explaining that to an SC, as he's stomping out the door.