There's an excellent chance you've experienced a lapse in customer service or corporate stonewalling. The company in question gets some of your money that you feel it isn't entitled to, and they won't give it back. Or, more frustrating, they drag their feet, and treat it as an interest-free loan from you.
Calls to customer service result in a big runaround and an opportunity for them to sell you more stuff. That's what happened when AT&T kept billing me after I had cancelled my long-distance service — not only did I not get the $9 and change I had coming to me for two years (probably about the time they got bought out), they tried to get me to switch back!
If the amount is small, you may (probably wisely) let it go for the sake of your own blood pressure (which I sorta did). But if it's substantial — several hundred dollars or more — that's a good chunk of change, and it's probably worth going after.
But how? Customer service feeds you a line or tells you that they already refunded the money or hands you off to half a dozen other people or some other nonsense. They know that they hold the hammer, and it really isn't in their interest to refund your money — the attrition of complaining customers is lucrative for them!
Here are some tactics on your side:
- Call the head honcho. If the company has any clout, the CEO or the store manager will exemplify it and take care of your problem immediately if it's legitimate. A relative had an experience with a particular computer company through her small private school. I think the amount was $180 and change. After a long run-around with a lot of paperwork, she sent it to the CEO. There was a refund check in her mailbox a few days later.
- Call them on your rights. The company has information, time, and resources on their side — and so do you. The Web has many resources for complaining effectively — just search “how to complain” in your favorite search engine for a good selection.
- Call the media. If you have a public forum for your complaint, and it's legitimate, and it's legal to do so (PLEASE — I'm not advocating blackmail, extortion, or anything else illegal here!), then nothing gets the ball rolling — and heads rolling — quite like a little pressure from a consumer advocate in the press. The Money Helps column on CNN Money recently helped a couple of frustrated readers get their refunds. It was a total of $841.02 between two people and two companies. I can imagine the calls: “Hello, this is Money Magazine calling to investigate a refund that is due …” Not too surprisingly, the problems were resolved quickly. It certainly speeds things along if you have to save face in front of a national audience.
I enjoy reading that column on CNN Money. It always feels good to see a company scramble to save their reputation, when threatened with negative publicity. However, it's frustrating at the same time, to think they moved that fast only because of that. Overall, it's satisfying to know that readers will probably come away from the story with a little caution at using the company's services. Good does prevail against evil 🙂
I was happy to see AOL's head on the chopping block. There are only so many coasters and sun-catchers you can make with those blasted "Try AOL free for 156,000 hours this month" CDs.
That, and I had the audacity to cancel my free trial with them. They got mean to me on the phone in a big hurry. This was in 2001, so they were probably still riding high on the hog and could afford to blow off customers that were obviously using and abusing them. But they would need to give me broadband at a stupid price for me to ever patronize them again.
I strongly urge as many people as possible to avoid AOL. I had them a few years back, when I moved out of my parent's house (I paid for the account at home and took it with me). When I moved I was using dial up for about a month, but my plan had been used on broadband at my parent's. I switched the plan online and thought everything was taken care of. By a major stroke of coincidence, I checked my bill online the day before my account was to be debited. If I hadn't checked, they would've debited $1300. You read that right. Apparently if you switch the plan online, there is no guarantee of when they actually process your request, and you are charged fee upon fee for the usage you are using under a different plan then you have, until they decide to get around to switching you. BUT – if you call in your request, no problem, done same day. I placed a stop payment on my account, fought with AOL on the phone for 3 hours. A) if I had known that I needed to do it by phone I would've because B) who in their right mind would choose to instead pay ridiculous amounts of money and C) who would pay $1300 for AOL, nevermind for a year, but for a MONTH??!! At first, I tried to settle with them for half the amount, just to get it taken care of, even though I felt it was very wrong. After all my fighting, do you know they had the AUDACITY to DENY my payment?? Like any payment at all, not because they were forgiving the 'debt', but because they would instead have their collection company handle it. 2 years later, and that still blows my mind how they responded. Long story short, I wrote a letter to AOL, provided a hefty packet of documentation (had emails also) and wrote the BBB. I did receive one collection letter, of which I sent them a copy of all my correspondence to AOL and the BBB. I included the advice " You can see from my correspondence that I have no intention of paying a wrongful debt when I did no wrong, and you can continue to send me letters, but be advised you will only be wasting your postage." I did not receive any more letters afterwards. And it is not on my credit report.
Want to know the funniest part of this story? I think one of the customer service reps felt sorry for us (there was one really nice girl that we spoke with), because while we never paid a dime of the $1300, our account was CREDITED 2 months later $400 something dollars… too funny. We MADE money on it.
Wow. $1300 is an impressive amount of money. It seems like any big company has its own set of procedures, and the way that they get compliance is by getting your attention with a hefty fee and leaving you to figure it out for yourself before you get your money back.
This is unfortunate. What used to be "keep your loyal customers happy" has changed to "take advantage of your loyal customers."
It's kind of like when I switched my address for phone service while with AT&T. I had been with them for 5 years. Reasonably loyal customer. I had had a 5c/minute plan in place. Well, little did I know that I had to call them up to get back on that plan. They charged me 25c/min MINIMUM for over a month — THE most expensive domestic plan they had!
So much for being a loyal customer. It's little wonder that they got bought out.