 I had to go to an office building today. I won’t state the nature of the business done there because the people there have been nothing but knowledgeable and helpful before this. I was there for my wife and a refund owed her.
Now where I went was the kind of place where you take a number when you walk into the place. There was no one there, a miracle. Well, I was about to meet the dark side. The person I went in to meet with did not want to help me or listen to our case which: again, dealt with a one thousand dollar refund owed to us. She had made this decision before she had even opened my wife’s file and nothing was going to change her mind. Lucky for me though, I’m an idiot. I explained again what had happened and how we were owed a refund that had been calculated by her department with the company issuing the refund to be $1100. The other company agreed to the refund but stated it would not release it until her department authorized it to be released. She told me that her department ,“didn’t give out refunds.” I said to her that her, “department wasn’t giving the refund, another company was.” But what I needed her department to do was to authorize the refund. I explained, “The process had already been done once, but the refund never came.” She insisted it hadn’t been done before. I told her that I could call up the company that was to have sent the refund, and they would have a record that showed what I had just said was true. I got on my cell phone and she said that she “was not going to talk to anyone on my cellphone.” I said, “I know that. I’m going to talk to someone on my cell phone.” At this point she sent us to another person to do the case. She was a lot better, but she kept echoing replies to things I never said or were illogical. For instance she told me that she had a sheet that showed that we had $8000 in refunds that had been given to us by the other company, so we weren’t owed any more money. I said to her, “So if I spent $10,000 on a car that was a lemon and I was by a judge’s order to be given back all that money but was instead only was refunded $9,000 by the car dealership, you’re saying that I wouldn’t be owed the other $ 1000 because the car dealership had given me $ 9,000. She then looked at her supervisor’s notes on the case which the other lady said basically didn’t exist. The notes stated that I was owed $1100 and possibly $2,000. Somehow the lady helping us now thought this meant that we were again owed nothing. To be truthful, I am still trying to reckon her out on that one. At least I got phone numbers to sort this out myself. It didn’t surprise me because I had to get on the phone a lot for the original refunds. The irony was that there was, on the notes that stated that we were owed money, a reply from the main headquarters that also stated that they did not authorize refunds, that the company we were owed money by was wrong in this assertion because department “xyz” actually issued the orders for refunds to be processed, and they should instead be contacted. My nemesis was triumphant. This she could read. Triumphant only for a moment though. I may be an idiot, but I can think pretty quickly. I said to her, “So did anyone from here contact them?” I paused and continued,” I mean, if you didn’t, shouldn’t you at least have contacted me so I could. It isn’t doing me any good if what is written there just sits in a drawer.” I left, graciously, I might add. I’ll have to get on the phone tomorrow. My head hurts. Is this the way your business works? Do your employees handle customers with tact and diplomacy always remembering the old adage that the customer is always right?!! You might want to take a second look.
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