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More tales from the returns desk

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  • More tales from the returns desk

    I had the girl from paint come wheeling a cart filled with three 5-gallon cans of wood stain yesterday that had been returned by a customer.
    She said, "We don't stock these."
    OK. No problem. Our company has a policy that it doesn't matter if it came from another store in our chain. We can send it back to head office.

    So I looked at the cans, and they had our shipping label on them from October last year!
    They were our stock. The original customer order slip was still attached to them.
    No biggie. It it's an item we have ordered in specially, and we don't stock, we can also send that back as well.

    The thing was, they were a year old! It's stain. It does have a shelf life. (We got them in 10 months ago, but it was manufactured before that.)

    The customer had ordered 6 pails at the time, and there was a note on the slip that was still attached where I saw that they had been phoned in as a special order. That meant the paint manager had bypassed our normal ordering channels because it was an urgent order situation, and they needed them quickly, rather than waiting the extra week for them to arrive on our regular truck.
    The note also said that it was the last of the stock available in that size, and if they needed more, we would make up the balance with gallons.

    It was obviously quite a big order (over $1,000) and there must have been a reason why the manager went the extra mile for them.

    Anyway, I looked at the cans, and they were all rusted.
    There is no way I can send them back to the warehouse now.

    Before she came in to the store, the customer called.
    She told the clerk over the phone that she had been told by the paint manager that she could return what she didn't use.
    She told them it was all in good condition and had never been opened.

    It was all approved over the phone, sight unseen.
    The customer came in, and the person they talked to was on lunch. They called her in the breakroom, and, rather than come down and look at it, she gave the cashier voice approval to do the return.

    I am so pissed now.

    The paint manager is on vacation.
    I am not doing anything until she gets back.

    Even if I am able to clean up the cans, we have no idea where and how the product was stored in the past 10 months. Because the cans are rusted, they were obviously stored where it was damp.

    I'm sure the manager did tell her she could return what she didn't use, but obviously, she meant within a reasonable time frame. Our policy is 30 days.
    I'm sure it didn't take them 10 months to finish staining something.
    If it did, then by the time they finished it, the stuff that was applied 10 months ago will have weathered and won't match what has been applied now.

    I think they got the stain and ordered too much, but they just sat on it for months, and now, they just realized they had about $500 worth of stain sitting there.

    I am so sick of shit being returned well after our 30 day return period, and then I have to try and deal with head office on it.

    Sadly, there's a reason why I have chosen the avatar that I use.
    It represents my work day.
    Too tired of living and too tired to end it. What a conundrum.

  • #2
    This is the very reason why my store has a "no returns" policy on opened goods. My boss gives me leeway to make a judgement call but those paints would never have gone over with me.

    Of course, if you had said no, she would have bitched and whined, called "corporate", and said those immortal words "I am never shopping here again".
    "Employees can make or break any business, so treat them with respect. Job satisfaction has little to do with money. Discover what it has to do with and make sure they get it."

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    • #3
      ARGGGGGGH. I hate returns. My store used to have an unlimited return policy. No matter what. But I guess they finally wised up and realized hey, we're losing money here, and went to 90 days, about 4 years ago. So gone are the days of bring it back whenever you want, gone are the days of "i don't like it, the shoes hurt my feet....etc." nonesense. If its worn, unless defective, you are SOL.

      Also gone, is the policy of returns with no receipt giving the customer credit for what the ticket says, rather than what its actually selling for now. When we have sales, we mark the tickets in store. but if you order sale stuff online, they are not marked.

      Under the old policy, if someone brought something back, sans receipt, and it was on sale, if the ticket wasn't marked, they'd get credit for the full price. Now, they get the sale price PLUS any additional % off.

      Mind you, this was done about 4 years ago and we still have customers say they didn't know, weren't aware, yada, yada, yada. Yeah, right, but too bad, you get what you get.

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      • #4
        Sandiercy - They were (apparently) unopened, but so old as to effectively be useless. Either way, the situation sucks >_<
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