I brought my vacuum cleaner in for repair. I observed another customer complaining about a fee he hadn't been told about. The head manager was swearing under his breath as he filled out my claim ticket. Against my better judgment, I gave them my vacuum, because the store was very close to my house. I was told that store policy was for the customer to leave a $75.00 deposit, the balance of which would be refunded when repair was complete. The store would call me to authorize all repairs.
I did not sign any agreement to a non-refundable fee, nor was I told that the deposit was non-refundable.in fact, I was told the opposite.
About a week later, I received a call saying that my vacuum was ready to be picked up. The man on the phone said, "You're all set. The repair was covered by the deposit." I asked why I hadn't been contacted to authorize the repair. The man immediately became flustered and said he would have someone else call me back.
I went into the store in person to ask about the repair. I was told that the vacuum was not ready, and that it was still lying in pieces in the repair shop. To me, this sounded like a lie to cover up their mistake. I asked to speak to the head manager who had helped me when I brought the vacuum in. I was told, "He's on the phone right now." I said I would wait. The man at the counter agreed to tell the head manager I was waiting, but I never saw him go back into the office to do so.
After twenty minutes of waiting, the man at the counter said he would try to help me himself. I said I wanted a refund and to have my vacuum returned to me. He said he couldn't do that. I asked why. He said it was "just the way we do things." I told him I did not trust the store anymore and wanted my vacuum back. He said no. He said that I had agreed to a non-refundable repair fee just by signing the credit card receipt when I left the deposit. He claimed there was "no way to stop the process once it's started."
I told him I hadn't been informed about the non-refundable fee. He pointed to a small sign on a desk in a corner that apparently described the fee. I told him that I hadn't been anywhere near the desk on my previous visit, and that the head manager himself had told me the fee was refundable. He said he couldn't help me. He said that in order to fix the vacuum, I needed to pay an extra $15 on top of the $75 I had already paid. He never explained why the man on the phone hadn't mentioned the extra $15. I said I wouldn't give them any more money, and that I wanted a refund. He said something about how Obama was ruining the country. I didn't understand this political reference, since we were engaged in a business transaction. He refused to help me any further, so I left.
I filed a report with the Better Business Bureau. Then, I waited a month for the store to respond to my complaint. They didn't. Finally, the head manager left me a voicemail saying they were going to throw my vacuum away because they didn't have space to store it. I told him I had filed a BBB complaint and was waiting for their response. He said, The BBB doesn't matter. It's not a government agency. You can file a complaint if you want, but we don't care. Then he started to say something about Obama. I told him I wanted my vacuum back, as well as a refund. He told me they didn't do refunds. I told him that he himself had said the deposit was refundable when I brought the vacuum in. He said, That was a month ago. I don't remember what I said. He told me he would give me the extra $15 back, which didn't make any sense, because I had never paid the extra $15. I told him I wanted a full refund or none at all.
I went in to the store to get my vacuum. The head manager stayed in his office the whole time I was there. I told the two men at the counter that I wanted my vacuum back, and a full refund. They told me they would absolutely not give me a refund. They wanted me to sign a piece of paper saying that I had agreed to a non-refundable fee. I refused. One of them said, We're not going to give you your vacuum, then. I couldn't believe this. I told them the vacuum was my property. The two men started to shout and threaten, trying to bully me into doing what they wanted. I finally had to sign the paper just to get my vacuum back.
I'm unemployed, so I certainly can't afford to throw money around, and I especially don't want to give my money to people who lie and cheat. However, it wasn't losing the money that bothered me as much as it was the attitude of the employees. They seemed to think they could get away with anything just by bullying their customers. Pretty much everything they did since I set foot in the store was handled in the worst, most dishonest way.
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