My stores return policy

[Locut0s]

I work in retail in a store downtown here and one of the services we sell is pay as you go phone card minutes for charging up cell phone accounts. Now we have a zero tolerance no refund policy on these cards. Actually they are paper vouchers printed out from a small machine with a modem connected to a company that offers the service. One of the reasons we have a no refund policy is that the store is immediately charged for the voucher when it is printed out and if we did refund them they would be hard to sell again, people don't tend to trust buying vouchers that have already been printed. The other and more important reason is that there is no way for us to check if the vouchers have been used or not and we have had a few people pull scams on us where they say "the one you printed out isn't working" or "sorry I need one for a different cell phone plan" then when you refund the card and give them a new one you find latter that they already used the first one.

We have however gotten some extremely irate and angry customers who just bought a card then either find they can't use it or find out they need a different one and we tell them there is nothing we can do, their money is lost.

In your opinion does this seem too harsh or is it just another case of customers needing to RTFM on their phones, IE know what you need!!

 

[ThaGrandCow]

As long as it's printed on the machine in big enough letters (fine print doesn't count) that all sales are FINAL, and there are NO REFUNDS, then it's cool.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: ThaGrandCow
As long as it's printed on the machine in big enough letters (fine print doesn't count) that all sales are FINAL, and there are NO REFUNDS, then it's cool.

Hmm well it's printed clearly enough on the voucher, no refunds. We could tell customers more often "all sales one phone cards are final" but that might discourage some sales needlessly and wouldn't stop others from complaining still.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: ThaGrandCow
As long as it's printed on the machine in big enough letters (fine print doesn't count) that all sales are FINAL, and there are NO REFUNDS, then it's cool.

Hmm well it's printed clearly enough on the voucher, no refunds. We could tell customers more often "all sales one phone cards are final" but that might discourage some sales needlessly and wouldn't stop others from complaining still.

So you have to buy the product before it tells you no refunds? Real nice. :roll:

And as for your second part, that's just downright shady.

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: ThaGrandCow
As long as it's printed on the machine in big enough letters (fine print doesn't count) that all sales are FINAL, and there are NO REFUNDS, then it's cool.

Hmm well it's printed clearly enough on the voucher, no refunds. We could tell customers more often "all sales one phone cards are final" but that might discourage some sales needlessly and wouldn't stop others from complaining still.

So you have to buy the product before it tells you no refunds? Real nice. :roll:

And as for your second part, that's just downright shady.

What's so shady about that? Every other place enforces the same policy. Phone card sales are typically unrefundable. Go give it a try at your local Cingular store and see what happens.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Parasitic

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: ThaGrandCow
As long as it's printed on the machine in big enough letters (fine print doesn't count) that all sales are FINAL, and there are NO REFUNDS, then it's cool.

Hmm well it's printed clearly enough on the voucher, no refunds. We could tell customers more often "all sales one phone cards are final" but that might discourage some sales needlessly and wouldn't stop others from complaining still.

So you have to buy the product before it tells you no refunds? Real nice. :roll:

And as for your second part, that's just downright shady.

What's so shady about that? Every other place enforces the same policy. Phone card sales are typically unrefundable. Go give it a try at your local Cingular store and see what happens.

See bolded.

They want to withhold information from customers so that they are not informed, resulting in more sales.

Every store I've shopped at where the sale is final, it says in big bold letters "ALL SALES ARE FINAL."

 

[imported_Ned Flanders]

Phone cards are SO 5 years ago - I just dial an automated number, wak my credit card details in and top up - any time day or night. Go O2!

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Parasitic

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: ThaGrandCow
As long as it's printed on the machine in big enough letters (fine print doesn't count) that all sales are FINAL, and there are NO REFUNDS, then it's cool.

Hmm well it's printed clearly enough on the voucher, no refunds. We could tell customers more often "all sales one phone cards are final" but that might discourage some sales needlessly and wouldn't stop others from complaining still.

So you have to buy the product before it tells you no refunds? Real nice. :roll:

And as for your second part, that's just downright shady.

What's so shady about that? Every other place enforces the same policy. Phone card sales are typically unrefundable. Go give it a try at your local Cingular store and see what happens.

See bolded.

They want to withhold information from customers so that they are not informed, resulting in more sales.

Every store I've shopped at where the sale is final, it says in big bold letters "ALL SALES ARE FINAL."

I was more thinking out loud about what our manager might say not suggesting we should actually actively withhold information. Indeed I believe those higher up in the company don't mind us telling customers just that when purchasing vouchers. As for being told about sales being final I have many times purchased products for which companies had very strict return policies which they did not divulge until asked about. Software is sometimes non-refundable and very often so if the packaging is in ANY way disturbed something that might seem obvious to you or me but not necessarily to a newbie.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: Ned Flanders
Phone cards are SO 5 years ago - I just dial an automated number, wak my credit card details in and top up - any time day or night. Go O2!

Most of the pay as you go plans have the same feature but still MANY people buy the vouchers.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: Locut0s
In your opinion does this seem too harsh or is it just another case of customers needing to RTFM on their phones, IE know what you need!!

Yea, people need to learn to read things when they buy things, especially cell phones. People always complain about things to me, and I just tell them that it was in their contract, and it was their responsibility to read it.

 

[chrisms]

I would assume they are non-refundable but not everyone does. The fact that you're intentionally hiding information from the customer to save sales is what makes this unethical, put a clear notice up and you should be okay. It would also help if the customer started yelling at you, just point to the big sign in front of the register.

 

[j00fek]

Originally posted by: BigJ


So you have to buy the product before it tells you no refunds? Real nice. :roll:

And as for your second part, that's just downright shady.

QFT

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: Locut0s
I work in retail in a store downtown here and one of the services we sell is pay as you go phone card minutes for charging up cell phone accounts. Now we have a zero tolerance no refund policy on these cards. Actually they are paper vouchers printed out from a small machine with a modem connected to a company that offers the service. One of the reasons we have a no refund policy is that the store is immediately charged for the voucher when it is printed out and if we did refund them they would be hard to sell again, people don't tend to trust buying vouchers that have already been printed. The other and more important reason is that there is no way for us to check if the vouchers have been used or not and we have had a few people pull scams on us where they say "the one you printed out isn't working" or "sorry I need one for a different cell phone plan" then when you refund the card and give them a new one you find latter that they already used the first one.

We have however gotten some extremely irate and angry customers who just bought a card then either find they can't use it or find out they need a different one and we tell them there is nothing we can do, their money is lost.

In your opinion does this seem too harsh or is it just another case of customers needing to RTFM on their phones, IE know what you need!!

I had an interesting thing happen to me with a phone card. The store forgot to enable it before I left. So it was inactive and didn't work when I went to use a week or so later.

The problem is that I bought the card for use in the hospital when our second child was born (so I could avoid the userous phones rates at the hospital). I had to go and buy other more expensive phone cards inside the hospital.

After we got out, I went back to the store and relayed my problem. On the day I bought the card, the cashier realized her mistake and left a written message in the store for me with a new card that was activated. Obviously now it was no use since I was already out of the hospital, but the store refused to refund my money since they already activated the card.

I escalated to the manager who finally relented when he realized that it was the store's fault the original mistake was made.