I want my deposit back!

[COMINATCHA]

I like my job, I work at the head office for a pool and spa company, and I work in an office in the spa warehouse.

I had a real cheap-ass customer today.

She ordered a very expensive spa from overseas (America somewhere) back in 2005. Yes, 2 years ago.

It has been sitting in our warehouse for over 12 months, taking up precious space and costing us money in storage.

I have been trying to tie up all the loose ends from the girl who previously worked in my position (i've only been here about 4 weeks), and I saw this customer's file and noticed the last contact with her was 3 months ago.

So I gave her a call and asked her what was happening. She has only paid $200 deposit on a spa that costs almost $20,000.

She said she doesn't really want it anymore, and wants her deposit back ASAP.
I was thinking 'are you kidding?'

I told her that the amount of money its costing us to store it, far outweighs her little deposit that she paid 2 years ago. She then said if she doesn't get her money back, she wants us to keep storing it until she can afford it, yet she refuses to pay storage fees. GRRRRR!

I understand that people run into financial troubles, but lets be realistic people! The spa she ordered is now discontinued (don't know why, it's a great spa) so we could sell it to someone else easily.

So she won't cancel, yet she won't pay us either!

[iradney]

So, in a nutshell, she won't give you money for it, not for the storage then or now? Surely management can make a decision here - a customer is NOT a financial blackhole into which funds mysteriously disappear. A customer is a source of profit. How do you get profit from a customer? From the customer buying horrendously marked-up goodies from your store. Is that customer doing that? No? Then she ain't a customer!

Of course, expecting management to see logic is a little presumptuous...

[Jewels]

Wouldn't she have signed some sort of contract that listed what would happen if the item wasn't picked up?

[Seshat]

Ooooh!

Make up a contract in which she pays for storage, insurance and depreciation for the spa. She can shilly-shally as long as she likes, so long as she pays your costs for keeping the thing.

Of course, in five years, she'll have paid for the whole thing (depreciation), PLUS the storage and insurance, and STILL not own it.

I don't think she'd like that.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

After two years I think one can consider the $200 as partial compensation for the storage fees of the unit, put the unit on the floor as a discounted unit and get it out to someone who wants it.

M

[Spiffy McMoron]

So she won't cancel, yet she won't pay us either!

If she won't pay for an item, she's not a customer. Pure and simple.

And a $200 deposit far an item that costs $20,000? That's insane! For something like that (special order from the other side of the friggin' planet!) I would have thought that your company would have made her pay at least half of the list price upfront, if not all of it.

[MadRocketScientist]

I agree with the others, find someone with the spine to mark the purchase as deliquent and release the spa for resale, or sue the woman for the cost of the spa plus storage.

[Rapscallion]

Problem is, it's a touch hard to sue the customer from another country. It can be done, but it's rarely worth the effort, especially if she has no money to pay you anyway.

Of course, the inverse applies as well - is she really going to be able to sue you over two hundred dollars? She's already said it's something she can't afford, so affording a lawyer is out of the question...

Rapscallion

[Kusanagi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the OP and customer in Australia? She said she had to order the spa from America and that they were keeping it in their warehouse.

[Auto]

And a $200 deposit far an item that costs $20,000? That's insane! For something like that (special order from the other side of the friggin' planet!) I would have thought that your company would have made her pay at least half of the list price upfront, if not all of it.

I wondered this too.

You guys allowed her to make a 1% deposit on merch selling for $20,000? And then you allow the merch to sit in storage for years without anyone calling the customer to say it arrived?

Your business is either run by someone with no interest in making money or you're making so much money and enjoying such astronomical margins that you can survive any business practice, no matter how stupid.

[Rapscallion]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the OP and customer in Australia? She said she had to order the spa from America and that they were keeping it in their warehouse.

Whoopsie - you're right! Just did some hasty rereading.

Yup - in short, that alleged customer is playing the company along. In that case, just document the hades out of the situation, get the company's solicitor to send her an official letter stating that the deposit will be eaten up by storage costs in thirty days, detail how long it's been there, and that in thirty days you're going to dispose of it by other means unless she pays the rest.

Simple.

Rapscallion

[COMINATCHA]

I just called this customer again today.

I told her she has to either pay for her spa NOW and take it off our hands, or she writes a letter to cancel and loses her deposit.

She said that we must be losing alot of business as we don't accomodate to our customer's needs (like we haven't stored her spa for free for over a year!?).

She said she would like to cancel then, and possibly buy a spa from someone else in the future. I tried not to laugh at that, as we deal with all the spa companys over Australia. I may have to deal with her again one day, oh yay!

What a moron.

BTW we no longer have spas sitting here for that amount of time - it leads to major storage problems. We are having to store spas out in the carpark, it's that bad! The pressure is really on me to get them out. Customers always have an excuse as to why they can't take it yet though. Grrrrrrrr!

[BusBus]

Well...if you need somewhere to store a spa or two for a while, I'm sure I can help ya out with that

Oh, who am I kidding.....I don't even have enough room for one

[Spiffy McMoron]

Oh, who am I kidding.....I don't even have enough room for one

But I do...

Comi, can you please deliver that hot tub to Canada? I'm having a party on the 16th, so it need to be here before then. Thanks, you're a peach!

[JuniorMintz]

I cannot STAND people that pull this kind of shit!

At my office we have been FAR too generous. We have people who CONSTANTLY ask us to order an assload of frames for them to "view", then one of two things happens-

1. They either -never- come back and the glasses just sit there because none of my coworkers have the guts to put their foot down and put the damn things to stock (or better yet, return them for credit if they're ugly!)

or

2. Despite many, many phone calls from our office they will sit there for months (in some cases, years!) until someone (usually me!) gets rid of them, then the patient comes in and is pissed that they aren't still there waiting for them.

Yea, fuck that, I refuse to hold stuff for patients anymore. I tell them quite plainly that if they find a frame and want me to hold it, it will be set aside for ONE week before being put to stock and that we require a deposit to do so-that, or I'll write the model number down in their chart and when they actually plan on placing the order, we'll get a new one. Also, to special order stuff to view I'm charging for the shipping and in some cases adding a "viewing fee" to boot. Frankly I'm sick of getting stuck with hideous shit on my frame boards that I NEVER would have picked out while buying my normal stock purchases.

Jerkwads.

Also, I'd like to see her "possibly" get some other sucker to put a spa on hold for her with a $200 deposit... hell, she couldn't pay for yours, how is she going to "possibly" buy a spa somewhere else? Dumbass.