Bad Tuesday

I don't know if it was something in the air or what, but today was just chock-full of lunatics. I had my hands full quite a few times with unpleasant returns. Out of all of them, three topped the charts considerably.

~~~

~The first situation was with a guy and his pre-paid phone card. He had the receipt, it was bought yesterday, and he would get an 'invalid PIN' error when trying to load it to his phone. The card, itself, looked like it had gone through hell and back. This particular reload card is only made of cardboard with the magmatic strip affixed to it like a piece of black tape. Because this card had apparently been in his pocket while he was at work, I wasn't even unable to swipe it to see if the minutes were still on it. The computer just would not read it.

The guy continued pressing that he wanted his money back at this point and was getting considerably aggravated at the whole situation. Because of this, it fell on me to contact FastCard (the company who keeps track of these types of cards and the PIN numbers associated with them) and find out if the minutes were still legitimately on the card before I could devise a different way of refunding the money for it. I also just so happened to be graced with the fact that this particular model of cursed, painted cardboard did not have the number to FastCard on it.

So I proceed to contact our electronics department for said hotline number. After almost a four minute wait, the first number I was given was for the T-mobile group of cards. Keep in mind, four minutes is an extremely long time while you're just standing there and tapping your fingers on the counter while your customer is trying to burn a hole through you head with his eyes. I needed the Verizon one.

Yay.

After another four minute wait, I finally got the one I needed. By this time, I'd been dealing with this customer for roughly fifteen minutes and I now had a considerable line of customers built up. My only stroke of luck was that one of my supervisors was in earshot by this time. I flagged her down just as I had finished pounding my way through the automated response system to speak with a live FastCard representative. My super then took over the phone while I hopped back over to the counter to take care of my line.

You can imagine how overjoyed I was to find out that the PIN had already been drained of it's minutes. According to the FastCard rep, it had been used the day they'd bought the card. Now I had the pleasure of putting up with a line of disgruntled customers that only accumulated because I had to deal with some [expletive], [expletive], [insert penis insult], cowboy wanna-be who was trying to rip me off.

~Later, a woman approached me with a PlayStation3. She had the receipt, the console was apparently malfunctioning, and she just wanted to exchange it. Under some circumstances, this would not be a problem. In her case, it was. She'd purchased the PS3 in September of last year. Because of this, the devise was well over the maximum in-store return period of 90 days. She will need to contact Sony to work out repairing and/or replacing her console, so I got the necessary information printed up for her.

This did not satisfy her.
She 'had her receipt.'
She 'wanted us to fix this.'
She was sorely mistaken.

I had to head to lunch by this time, so my co-worker took over. When I got back, you'll be happy to read that management told the woman the same thing. She'll just have to deal with Sony.

~And last, but definitely not least, there was a different gentleman today who ended up trudging over what little patience I had left. He had a DVD which he told me played the video, but not the sound for it. Because the movie was obviously open, I was able to exchange it out for another, exact copy. He ventured back into the store and returned with a different movie. This would not do because I'm not allowed to exchange an opened movie for a different title. Apparently, our store was out of that particular title, so I phoned another store (roughly a 15min drive away) if they had any in stock. They do.

The customer wasn't satisfied with this. His explanation was that he did not have a car and could not go do this exchange at the other store. He would not wait for us to get another copy in our store, either. Because he had the receipt, he demanded that he be able to trade the defective copy for a different movie.
I told him no.
My supervisor told him no.
One of the store managers told him no.
He eventually left the counter.

When I had gone to and came back from lunch, this guy was back at the service desk with the same issue.
The associate who had replaced me for my lunch had told him no.
A different store manager had told him no.

He was now requesting to speak with someone higher. Our premier manager had already left for the day, so I called the second-in-command for the store. While I was doing so, the gentleman had thrown some type of side comment to my co-worker and wondered off. When my call was answered, my blood pressure soon shot through the roof. The second-in-command was aware of the DVD situation and told me, "Go on and give the guy his money back." I am rarely ever affected by stress-induced headaches, but today was definitely special enough for one. This guy had been told 'no' by at least five separate people, two of which were managers. Just think of how it felt when I was told to just "give the guy his money back."

There must have been some divine being who had sensed my frustration and chose to smile on me at that choice moment, though. The gentleman had wondered away only seconds before I was given the command to relent. Mr. DVD never made his was back up to the counter and he did not get his way tonight. He had better not be back tomorrow.

~~~

As you can see, I had three separate and very different cases where the customers had their receipts and demanded satisfaction. In each of their cases, what they were asking for was above and beyond our detailed store policy. I know that receipts are very important. In most cases, they make returns much, much easier. But, for any of you out there in Internet Land who think that your receipt is a magical, gleaming ticket of wonderfulness to bend or even break the rules with:

SCREW OFF!!!