An exercise in endurance:
Conversations with the Vintage Stock manager #######################################################

 
e-mail this morning from my sis-in-law:
wow! such fervor! what is a 'vintage stock' store and why are you so mad at them?
jan


Because Friday, before making an extensive purchase, I specifically asked the employee assisting me (in the hearing of yet a second employee), "I'm not sure if this is the kind of Game-Boy my daughter wanted. If it ISN'T what she wants, can I return it?" Answer, "Yes...as long as you do so within a week." On that basis I bought the items. Had the answer been "We don't allow returns...only exchanges for faulty items," I would NOT have made the purchase at that time. Tuesday I went to take one of the purchases back because it WASN'T what Darcy chose. Guess what! On the RECEIPT (which I didn't receive until AFTER purchasing the product) printed in small letters is their return policy...ie, no returns! (No where in the store is posted their "No Return" policy.) The manager is an extremely annoying, rigid, self-important individual who talks in circles and tells you his whole life history and all sorts of irrelevant stuff when you are in a hurry. Initially he wouldn't bend a bit, even though it was HIS EMPLOYEE who had told me the items were returnable. That just isn't right. And I don't care that he went to med school for five years at UMKC with lots of time spent at Children's Mercy Hospital (4.0 gpa) before changing directions and getting an MBA or that he is about to become half owner of the store and is only working as manager to get "to know the store better" or that he had been planning, anyway, to fire the employee who had told me items were returnable...despairingly characterizing the boy (who was very helpful and nice, even if he was ill-informed about the store's policies) as a 'HOMESCHOOLER who has LEARNING disabilities...a real idiot whose family is going to TOUR through EUROPE for the entire month of July'....(Okay, buddy, in one short sentence with your negative stereotypes and tonal insinuations you have managed to further alienate me THREE different directions...1)I happen to be a homeschooling mom, myself. Which means I have homeschooled children and you are acting as if all homeschooled kids are blithering Neanderthal idiots by just the WAY you SPOKE the word. 2) I happen to have a son with learning disabilities. And, for the record, YOUR actions over the last ten minutes are a lot more inexcusable than the actions of the employee in question. 3)I happen to have European relatives and don't see how touring Europe is something to be uttered with the disdain that you just used in your sarcastic tone of voice.) (In case you are wondering, I didn't bother to tell him any of that...it wasn't relevant to my needing a refund. And I mistakenly thought maybe I could guide him by EXAMPLE.)

I also do not care that he has "TWENTY applications on my desk now from kids who want to work here. This is a great place to work because they get to check out all the new games and borrow them." (Excuse me, but absolutely WHAT relevance does that have to do with anything in MY life or with my current complaint to you?...I don't follow your logic... Besides, if you have so many eager employee-hopefuls, why can't you staff your store with people that are properly oriented to the store and its policies?...one of many unvoiced thoughts that passed through my brain.)

I had three separate encounters with this "manager wanna-be-half-owner" trying to work out an acceptable resolution to the problem without resorting to disputing the charge on my credit card, but each encounter wound up being more drawn out and irrelevant than the one preceding! Most annoying of all is how he insisted on giving me all the extraneous information that had absolutely nothing at all to do with what we were talking about (believe, me, I CONDENSED here, for my own sake, all the extraneous information he insisted upon informing me of...I haven't even touched upon all the history of the former store manager that he described to me in great detail, nor about how his wife wanted to go to nursing school when they married but he told her absolutely no way she was going into that crummy profession. (Need I say I am a NURSE?...strike another one up for the old boy!), nor how she now has a high position with Sheratin Hotels in charge of customer relations and how he "goes home every night and lays his head on her shoulder and tells her all about his day and listens to her counsel" about how to resolve matters....or.....oh, no, I don't have time to relive ALL the saga here!). Once, I did actually interrupt him and told him (very nicely and gently, but firmly), "That has no relevance to my issue. Can we talk about what can be done regarding this item I want to return?" He continued on, apparently unaware that I had spoken!

In the beginning, I just wanted to return the Game-Boy (with the really DIM screen). I had found a new one for just a little more at another store and its screen was TWICE as bright as the used one from Vintage Stock. He started out only willing to exchange the Game-Boy I had purchased for another Game-Boy. I looked at the other two in stock...their screens were every bit as dim. By the time I had to take this to my credit card company for resolution, I requested refund for ALL my purchases from that day...the Game-Boy and three game cartridges....twice as much, monetarily, as I was originally asking to have refunded.

I tried speaking with this annoying individual one last time after calling my credit card company to dispute the purchase, thinking that it would be a lot better for him only to have to refund half the purchases, rather than ALL and that, hearing I had disputed the charge with my credit card company he might be more interested in helping me and I would be more than happy to withdraw my dispute that I had registered with the credit card company. Well, he was a bit more malleable (though no less IRRITATING and ALIENATING) the last go 'round....he offered to give me a voucher for use in the store for the purchase price of the Game-Boy in exchange for the Game-Boy (rather than just saying all he could do is trade me one Game-Boy for an identical Game-Boy). The point remained that I didn't WANT to spend the purchasing price of TWO Game-Boys (the good one that we are keeping and the dim one we wanted to return to Vintage Stock)....whether it was on that Game-boy or something else in his store (the store that I had already vowed to myself I would NEVER step foot in again.). So, we will just let the credit card company render their decision and go from there.

Diplomat that he is(n't), the manager managed to inform me near the end of our final conversation that if the credit card company resolved this dispute in my favor, Vintage Stock might take ME to small claims court!!! (This from someone with an MBA?....maybe he needed to have at least one more course in say...COMMON SENSE!) I didn't tell him that, either, I just told him I was finished discussing the matter with him and was going hang up...he quickly interjected, "You said you were going to leave your phone number and name in case I found another way to resolve this. What is your phone number?" (That had been MY OFFER, my suggestion, when I had begun this, our third conversation, twenty minutes earlier. Twenty LONG minutes earlier! At which time he had showed no interest in getting either my name or my phone number.)
I said, "I'm not telling you my phone number now! It is apparent that you have no interest in resolving this matter in any way that is acceptable to me."
"Well, what is your NAME, at least?"
"I'm not telling you that either. Good-bye." Click.
I had had THREE extensive conversations with Craig (both in person and over the phone) and he still didn't even know who he was talking to!
He sure enjoyed listening to himself, through our conversations, though...so, I guess it wasn't a total waste of time!  ¶ 6/14/2006 08:33:00 AM