Impolite Inquiry

First off, I was going to name this one "Inconsiderate Information Inquiry," but I figured that would be a smidgen too long. *Sad face.* Anyhoo, today's troublesome tale features yet another jerk with the innate ability to get under my skin. Working as a customer service rep, I've come to accept the fact that my counter for exchanges and returns also doubles as an information booth for our store's patrons. Having worked up there for quite a while now, a majority of the time, if I don't know the answer to a customer's question, I know who does. It just so happened that, on this particular day, my answers to a specific customer's questions were really just not good enough.

~~~

~ As I was working with a customer on their return, a grumpy gentleman approached the counted wanting to speak with a supervisor. Because I'd needed one's assistance not but a few moments prior, it just-so happened that she was still standing right next to me. So, I eagerly directed his attention to her, and turned my attention back to the customer I was with.

Whew.
Crisis averted

...or so I thought.

Mr. Grumpy had a prepaid Visa card that was apparently giving him some trouble. He'd tried to make a purchase with the card, but it was declined. This bothered him because he stated that there should have been more than enough money on the card to have completed the transaction. Because of this, he wanted to just withdraw all of the rest of his money off the card. Unfortunately, that's now how these convenient, yet sometimes very inconvenient, pieces of plastic work.

My super was doing her best to try to answer his agitated inquiries, but it was pretty obvious that she wasn't well-versed enough with the type of card that Mr. Grumpy had to provide the information he was looking for. By that time, I'd finished with the customer I was working on and, against my better judgment, decided to step back into the line of fire. I still recall our conversation pretty clearly, but I don't carry a tape recorder in my pocket, so I can't provide you with exact quotes. The following is (in as best an order and detail as I can remember) the customer's questions followed by the answers I provided him with:

Q. I don't want to just withdraw my money $20 at a time from this thing with cash back. I want every last cent back off of it. That cashier doesn't know, so who and where am I supposed to do that with?
A. I'm sorry, but those types of cards don't work that way. Cash back is the only means of withdrawal off the card once the money is put onto it.

Q. Its my money, and I want it off the card. Why can't you just do it?
A. Our registers don't even have a command to do that for you. All I can suggest is to withdraw as much as you can or want in cash-back amounts.

Q. I don't want to do that! I want to withdraw all of it. Your store sells this card. Shouldn't you be able to give the money back?!
A. I understand what you mean, but really the only affiliation our store has with those cards is the fact that you can purchase them here. All of the rest of it is handled through the company shown on the back of the card. Their Customer Service number is on the back, as well, in the upper right, if you want to speak with them about it.

Q. I don't want to call them. I want someone here to give me the information. Can you at least tell me why your registers declined my card?
A. I'm sorry, but the only people who would be able to look into that for you is through the 1-800 number on the back of the card.

Q. I just told you I don't want to speak with them! How can your store honestly sell a card and not know a thing about it!?
A. I know quite a bit about those cards, but I can't possibly know everything because they're not run by our store. In this case, I do know where you can get the information, though. If you just call that Customer Service line on the back of the card, they'll be able to tell you what you're looking for.

Q. Look, I'm not trying to be an ass, but stores should be run better than this. Are you telling me that there isn't a single person in this store who can tell my why this card was declined?
A. I understand its frustrating, but yes. That 1-800 number is the only place where they'll be able to provide you with that kind of information. I'm sorry.

Mr. Grumpy was done with me at this point, moved off to the side, pulled out his cell phone, and finally dialed the accursed Service line. He still seemed skeptical that he wasn't going to find out what he wanted to know and hung around a bit in our customer service area while he spoke with them. I can only assume that he did get the answers to the questions he had regarding the prepaid card because he eventually wandered away without throwing anymore 'who', 'what', 'when', 'where,' 'why' or 'how's at me. In the end, my super didn't mind my cutting in on the conversation at all. She didn't come right out and say it, but I'm pretty sure she appreciated it, too. I couldn't help but be kinda proud at how easily and calmly I responded to each increasingly agitated demand for information.

~And by the by, if you ever feel the need to use the line, "I don't mean to be an ass, but..." you're already being an ass. Thank you for confirming anyone's suspicion on the matter.

2/21/2010... As Well

This experience also happened on the day after we got back from our trip, but yesterday's blog was long enough that I decided to make each their own separate post. I also created a visual aid for this one via my leet skills with Paint.

Enjoy!

~~~

~ A woman approached me with three items to return: a $7 pair of boy's jean pants and two, large $50 area rugs. Lo and behold, she didn't have a receipt for any of them. Because of the cost of the two rugs, I didn't have the authority to approve their return, so I scampered off to find a supervisor. By a stroke of luck, there was one nearby, and I quickly ran the situation by her. The super really didn't seem to like the idea, but she said that I could go ahead and do the return as long as I processed each item in a separate transaction. Returning to the counter, I informed the customer of my supervisor's decision and in my explanation, I made sure to make note that our computers only allow a certain number of returns for a specified period of time per any given ID number. Slightly to my surprise, the woman calmly understood this and seemed a little too proud of the fact that she "always kept her receipts" and that this would "be the first time she'd had to return something without one."

The pants, I would be able to process by myself, but the rugs would require a supervisor to physically come to the counter and type in their numbers to approve the return of them. Just in case there were any hiccups, I went ahead and started with the easiest item. As you'll soon find out, this was a very good idea. After quickly working through the return transaction for the jeans, I politely asked for the woman's ID. Upon receiving it, I immediately took note of the fact that the whole card had a large bend diagonally through it. Almost too conveniently, the bent plastic obscured one of the numbers that I needed to type in to finish the return. This is where my awesome skills in Paint come into play.

Yes, I know it doesn't look exactly like a Texas driver's license because I didn't intend it to. The dark gray line across it is, of course, to represent the obscuring bend in the plastic. The woman spoke up quite readily at my inspection of the card and stated that the last two digits of the ID number were 60.

Now, having had the "privilege" of looking at these IDs day in and day out, I will swear to you as I am breathing right now that those last two digits were 50. The "6" she was referring to had a definite straight top on it instead of a loop curving back down. She stuck to her digits when I mentioned that it looked like a 5, but I could tell that she wasn't going to back down. So, instead of arguing, I pulled out my ace-in-the-hole: I informed her that I could not accept the ID because the obscured numbers rendered the card invalid. Defeated, she gathered her things and left.

In the end, I truly believe that she was attempting to be fraudulent. For all I know, she may have been able to walk out of the store with those rugs without paying for them only to later try and return them for store credit. With a maxed out ID, she may have purposefully bent her card in an attempt to trick me. Whether one or both of those ideas apply to this particular woman is purely speculation, but both are still very probable.

Thieves Strike Again

Yesterday sucked to high heaven. It just so happened that it was a Saturday and also the day before Valentines. So not only was it super busy because it was the first day of the weekend, it was double busy with all the last-minute holiday shoppers. It just seemed as if we could not get enough cash registers open all day. Managers were even helping check people out, which they normally avoid doing. We even shut the service desk down early to have just that one more person on a normal register. It was almost worse than Christmas. At least we had more cashiers scheduled then. Oh well, let me get into the good stuff. The first story doesn't have to do with today's title, it was just interesting enough to publish. My second story today is really the good'un. You'll see why when you get there.

~~~

~ When I arrived for my shift, the employee already at the desk mentioned some sheets that a woman in the store wanted to exchange, and then scurried off to her break. My co-worker had already informed the woman that there was nothing that we can do with the sheets that she brought us, but apparently that didn't sink in. The customer, against advise, went ahead back into the store to get the sheets she wanted to exchange out. When she returned, I reiterated what my co-worker had already told her, and sent her on her merry way without exchanging them.

The problem was this: The sheets that she had brought us were obviously extremely old. She said that they had been given to her as a Christmas present, which very well may be, but whoever bought them had had them for a very long time. The sheets looked like they had never been used, but the reason that it was so easy to tell they were old is because the plastic cover was turning a yellowy-brown from age. The barcode, itself, had already turned from white to brown and was tearing around the edges. It still scanned just fine, but we didn't have the price for that item in our system and probably haven't for a very long time. The discoloration was most likely caused from long-term exposure from a smoker, and there is no way she'll be able to exchange those sheets anywhere.

~~~

~ Later in the day, a gentleman approached the counter with a question. He didn't have his stuff with him because he wasn't sure if there was anything we could to do for him. He had purchased three boxes of baseball cards. All three boxes still had the cellophane on them when he bought them, but when he opened them up, all of the individual packs of cards were already torn open. Each pack of six was missing about one to four cards and its very likely that the only ones that were taken were those which retained some face value. This, of course, was a strange situation and all I could tell him was to bring the items in and we'd see what could be done. He was concerned with his predicament, but was also well aware that there wasn't really a way for him to prove that he was lying. Each box was almost $20, though, so he couldn't help but try and see if there was something we could do. Because of this, he was pleasant enough to deal with and I was definitely willing to give the boxes a look.

After he left to retrieve his items, he instead turned to the boxes we still had on the shelf. He picked one up, inspected it and, he returned to my counter to show me what he'd found. At first glance, the package seemed just fine. Looking closer to where he was pointing, I also noticed what he was referring to. This box, right off our shelf, had been tampered with. After showing me this, he hurried off to his car to grab his merchandise. While he was gone, I took the last one of the same box of cards off the shelf and inspected it, as well. It, too, had been tampered with. For this blog's purposes, I'm not going to go into detail as to how the thieves messed with the packaging. I know the majority of you who read this blog are honest people, but I do not plan on giving the dishonest ones the same idea.

When the customer got back with the boxes he had purchased, a close inspection of them also reviled the same subtle marks of the intruders. Since the remaining two that we had in stock were also messed with, I went ahead and refunded his money because he still had the receipt. It very well may be that he was the one who set this whole thing up, but he seemed legit and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. You can also bet that, from now on, I'm take a closer look when people try to return items that are still in their plastic wrap.

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!!!