Thursday, November 20, 2008

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I'm just wondering why I routinely have the worst interactions with the very people who are supposed to be helpful:

So Monday night I went to the grocery store and bought some McIntosh apples. (Fujis usually do it for me, but in this economy even our apple choice suffers.) I wasn't watching the cashier, since I was trying to bag groceries in my nifty-environmentally-friendly-re-usable bags. Once I got home, however, I realized I'd paid nearly $9 for some apples. Mushy ones at that! After calling Customer Service, I asked should I bring my bag of apples, one apple, or anything to show proof of being overcharged and was informed that I need only bring my receipt to receive the difference of the overcharge.

Now comes Thursday when I actually remember to go get my money back. Upon arriving at the desk marked Services, which prominently displays signs for Money Orders, lottery tickets, and bonus card, but nothing related to Customer Service, I waited while 3 women politely ignored my presence until I asked if I was at the Customer Service desk. When I was finally helped, I handed over my receipt, relaying my overcharge discovery and the phone call. (remember? where I was told I only needed my receipt?) And what was the response? "Well... I don't really know what you got since you didn't bring the apples or anything back, but I'll go ahead and give it to you." Foreal?! Did you not hear me? Why did the other chick tell me all I needed was a receipt? And if you're gonna give me the money back, why say anything in the first place, heifer?!

The story ends well for me and my pocketbook though since I got back the whole $9 rather than just the difference in cost.

Morale of the story: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

5 comments:

identitycrisis said...

yay! so glad you've decided to join us.

I'm so sorry your apple preference has suffered in these tough economic times. You can't get your apples, wustl can't build new buildings. Damn.

I think the customer service girl was power tripping. Like "I'm mad I work at the grocery store so I need to make sure you know I control whether you get your money back." Glad you got ALL your money back. Did you use it to buy fujis?

Kismet Nuñez said...

LMAO. It IS a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Hmm...sisters and brothers...let's step our customer service game up....

middlesister said...

AWWW, snap! the empress has arrived!

middlesister said...

p.s., ink lady and gala is where it's at! whoop, whoop!

T said...

I HATE when customer service people do that. I pay my corporate express late EVERY month, because my company takes 50-60 days to get me my money and the billing period is every 30 days.

EVERY month I call and ask them to erase that $39 late fee.

This past month the fellow from India said "ma'am, you've been late every month for the past 6 months, we're going to give it to you now, but we won't be able to do this again."

Um... SIR... don't do that. Don't tell me what you're going to NOT do next time when you do it EVERY time I ask. You are American Express. You EXCEL in customer service. Trust, you'll do whatever the hell I ask you to do.

And as a side note: This credit card is on my company's credit report, not mine (I've checked), so nevermind the horrible credit practice of paying my bill late.