5 ms·

I have one word for you my friend: chargeback. Call your credit card issuer and state that you a retail outlet made a sale, made some promises on that sale, an

by teej 17y ago

I have one word for you my friend: chargeback. Call your credit card issuer and state that you a retail outlet made a sale, made some promises on that sale, and charged you $278. This is the easiest action you can do to deal the most damage. Anyone who processes payments knows that chargeback hurt a lot. Chargebacks are a consumer protection, so they are easy to do. If a company makes a promise to give you X, Y, & Z at a certain price, they have to follow through. You have a few options, but chargebacks can be the simplest way to get there.

compay 17y ago
Having owned a merchant account for many years, I can tell you that this advice is 100% correct. Do it now!
jordyhoyt 17y ago
To add to this, threatening to chargeback can be an excellent way to get decent customer service out of some places. Most customer service associates are trained to go way out of their way to avoid it.
- patio11 17y ago
  You can also avoid the call center by looking up your favorite source of executive information, finding the name and address of someone like a VP of Customer Relations or what have you, and writing them a polite, businesslike letter on dead tree explaining what happened and what they need to do to make it right for you. This will get read by their secretary, who will call the switchboard, ask to be transferred to the person in charge, and say "The Boss wants this handled now." And that is about all it takes. (Well, apparently the VP in this case was not great, either, but you could have shaved two months off the resolution time by contacting her earlier.) I've had to do this to a bank or two which was under the mistaken impression that I owed them money. Incidentally: a tact I particularly like, since I own shares of essentially any publicly traded stock by dint of owning broad index funds, is to send the letter to Investor Relations. Just say you're a shareholder (you are certainly not the most convoluted situation that results in getting invited to their shareholder meeting) and that you've had a problem, blah blah blah, please fix at your earliest convenience.
  - BrandonM 17y ago
    Today is January 22nd. Tiffany called me back about an hour ago and told me that Melanie Doty, Barnes & Noble's Vice President of Customer Care had instructed her to tell me that, despite repeated assurances to the contrary, Barnes & Noble wasn't going to be able to honor their promise to me because their computers showed that my order had been cancelled.
fuzzybassoon 17y ago
Agreed. I had a problem with an eBook I purchased from B&N being unusable on my nook. After many attempts to explain why I should get a refund to the dense customer service, I finally threatened a chargeback via email, and was promptly refunded my money. And for what it's worth, having used both a Kindle and a nook, I really want to like the nook more, but I just can't. The poor user interface and the bad taste from B&N customer support make me not want to use the thing.

by teej 17y ago

compay 17y ago

Having owned a merchant account for many years, I can tell you that this advice is 100% correct. Do it now!

jordyhoyt 17y ago

To add to this, threatening to chargeback can be an excellent way to get decent customer service out of some places. Most customer service associates are trained to go way out of their way to avoid it.

patio11 17y ago
You can also avoid the call center by looking up your favorite source of executive information, finding the name and address of someone like a VP of Customer Relations or what have you, and writing them a polite, businesslike letter on dead tree explaining what happened and what they need to do to make it right for you. This will get read by their secretary, who will call the switchboard, ask to be transferred to the person in charge, and say "The Boss wants this handled now." And that is about all it takes. (Well, apparently the VP in this case was not great, either, but you could have shaved two months off the resolution time by contacting her earlier.) I've had to do this to a bank or two which was under the mistaken impression that I owed them money. Incidentally: a tact I particularly like, since I own shares of essentially any publicly traded stock by dint of owning broad index funds, is to send the letter to Investor Relations. Just say you're a shareholder (you are certainly not the most convoluted situation that results in getting invited to their shareholder meeting) and that you've had a problem, blah blah blah, please fix at your earliest convenience.
- BrandonM 17y ago
  Today is January 22nd. Tiffany called me back about an hour ago and told me that Melanie Doty, Barnes & Noble's Vice President of Customer Care had instructed her to tell me that, despite repeated assurances to the contrary, Barnes & Noble wasn't going to be able to honor their promise to me because their computers showed that my order had been cancelled.

fuzzybassoon 17y ago

Agreed. I had a problem with an eBook I purchased from B&N being unusable on my nook. After many attempts to explain why I should get a refund to the dense customer service, I finally threatened a chargeback via email, and was promptly refunded my money. And for what it's worth, having used both a Kindle and a nook, I really want to like the nook more, but I just can't. The poor user interface and the bad taste from B&N customer support make me not want to use the thing.