My husband and I decided to replace our washer and dryer. So I found out that a certain home improvement store that rhymes with Schmo's was running a promotion where if you got one of the store credit cards, you can either get 18 months with no interest, or 5% off for life.
So husband and I got o Schmo's and find a set we'd like to buy. Then we talk with one of the employees in the appliance department, tell him what we want, and agree to get the super fancy hose with a lifetime warranty, and agree to purchase a 5 year warranty that will cover any issues, parts and labor. That employee directs us to customer service to apply for the credit card, and to check out, so we head up there.
I apply for and am approved for the card tell the customer service lady that I want the 18 months no interest offer, and she rings everything up. I pay for the majority on the store's credit card, but have to use my personal credit card to cover the rest. We get checked out and head home.
I made my first payment on the new credit card and all is well. I go to make another payment two weeks later (I always pay twice a month to pay more than the minimum amount), and find that I am indeed being charged interest.
I called up the credit center, and they said there was nothing they could do on their end, I'd have to go back to the store we purchased the washer and dryer from. So we headed there, and I explained the situation to customer service. Customer service lady says that we were probably given the 5% off instead.
She looks it up in the system and we weren't given either offer. I told her that we definitely want the 18 months offer, and that we specified that at the time of purchase. The CSR wants to call the credit center and make them deal with it, because it's apparently a complicated and time consuming process for them to do it at the store. I told her that I'd talked to the credit center, and was told it would be handled in the store, but she still wants to call them, which I understand.
So she calls them up, they tell her it's not their issue, and there's nothing they can do on their end, handle it in store. After that she and another CSR debated over how much I was actually going to get refunded. We bought the washer and dryer on sale, and now it was on sale for an even lower price, but they don't want to refund us the new lower price since we'd be getting back more than we paid for the set. The price wasn't an issue to me, I was fine with getting back the amount we originally paid I just wanted my 18 months of no interest. They finally decide to refund us back the original amount we paid.
Then we run into another problem, re-ringing and paying for the entire transaction again. They refunded the store's credit card, no problem, but if they refunded my other credit card it would take several days for the refund to hit, and I couldn't charge the remaining amount to the card again, because I didn't have that much available. So they are trying to figure out a way to get it refunded, then they finally ask if they can just refund me the remaining amount on a store gift card and pay the remainder that way, which was fine with me. (I'm not sure why that wasn't given as an option earlier). So we got everything refunded and paid for again.
Then I ask them how do I get refunded the amount of interest I was charged, since it shouldn't have been charged in the first place, and I was told, "Oh you'll have to call the credit center for that."
The whole ordeal in the store took over an hour. The customer service area didn't seem to have a lot of employees working and I took up 1-2 people's time for over an hour. So of course a huge line of other customers forms, and they don't have enough employees to deal with them all quickly, never called for more assistance and the other customers were shooting me dirty looks the entire time. My husband and two kids were with me, and roamed the store for awhile, then finally bought a snack and drinks and went to wait on me in the car because it took so freaking long to get everything dealt with. I called the credit center about being refunded the interest and that was only a 5 minute phone call at least but I'm still kind of annoyed that we had to go through the entire ordeal in the first place.
So husband and I got o Schmo's and find a set we'd like to buy. Then we talk with one of the employees in the appliance department, tell him what we want, and agree to get the super fancy hose with a lifetime warranty, and agree to purchase a 5 year warranty that will cover any issues, parts and labor. That employee directs us to customer service to apply for the credit card, and to check out, so we head up there.
I apply for and am approved for the card tell the customer service lady that I want the 18 months no interest offer, and she rings everything up. I pay for the majority on the store's credit card, but have to use my personal credit card to cover the rest. We get checked out and head home.
I made my first payment on the new credit card and all is well. I go to make another payment two weeks later (I always pay twice a month to pay more than the minimum amount), and find that I am indeed being charged interest.
I called up the credit center, and they said there was nothing they could do on their end, I'd have to go back to the store we purchased the washer and dryer from. So we headed there, and I explained the situation to customer service. Customer service lady says that we were probably given the 5% off instead.
She looks it up in the system and we weren't given either offer. I told her that we definitely want the 18 months offer, and that we specified that at the time of purchase. The CSR wants to call the credit center and make them deal with it, because it's apparently a complicated and time consuming process for them to do it at the store. I told her that I'd talked to the credit center, and was told it would be handled in the store, but she still wants to call them, which I understand.
So she calls them up, they tell her it's not their issue, and there's nothing they can do on their end, handle it in store. After that she and another CSR debated over how much I was actually going to get refunded. We bought the washer and dryer on sale, and now it was on sale for an even lower price, but they don't want to refund us the new lower price since we'd be getting back more than we paid for the set. The price wasn't an issue to me, I was fine with getting back the amount we originally paid I just wanted my 18 months of no interest. They finally decide to refund us back the original amount we paid.
Then we run into another problem, re-ringing and paying for the entire transaction again. They refunded the store's credit card, no problem, but if they refunded my other credit card it would take several days for the refund to hit, and I couldn't charge the remaining amount to the card again, because I didn't have that much available. So they are trying to figure out a way to get it refunded, then they finally ask if they can just refund me the remaining amount on a store gift card and pay the remainder that way, which was fine with me. (I'm not sure why that wasn't given as an option earlier). So we got everything refunded and paid for again.
Then I ask them how do I get refunded the amount of interest I was charged, since it shouldn't have been charged in the first place, and I was told, "Oh you'll have to call the credit center for that."
The whole ordeal in the store took over an hour. The customer service area didn't seem to have a lot of employees working and I took up 1-2 people's time for over an hour. So of course a huge line of other customers forms, and they don't have enough employees to deal with them all quickly, never called for more assistance and the other customers were shooting me dirty looks the entire time. My husband and two kids were with me, and roamed the store for awhile, then finally bought a snack and drinks and went to wait on me in the car because it took so freaking long to get everything dealt with. I called the credit center about being refunded the interest and that was only a 5 minute phone call at least but I'm still kind of annoyed that we had to go through the entire ordeal in the first place.
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