[meteorite-list] Dealer Refunds

From: Ken O'Neill <kenoneill_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:43 2004
Message-ID: <000201c33d7f$b6cff9d0$3943869f_at_btek.org>

Hi all,

The dilemma highlighted by other posts is :

1) Refund and take the hit no matter how unreasonable or unjustified the
grounds for the refund, and thereby save any aggravation/bad press.
or
2) Refuse the refund and hope the fallout will not be too damaging.

I think this is a classic dilemma suffered by anyone involved in a retail
environment. It is always a good idea to have a clear and concise refund
policy, this will clarify any grey area's and will lead to a reduction in
contentions. However this advantage only applies when you are dealing with
reasonable people. There will always be customers who are totally
unreasonable. No matter how clear, concise, any disclaimers, sales, refund
policies are, they will not help you with that totally unreasonable customer
unless they plan to go legal. The legal option I would envisage as the very
very last resort & extremely undesirable. If the legal road was taken I
would say you sales policies (as long as legal themselves) would win the
day.

So its back to the dilemma above. There is no clear answer but I would tend
to agree with Rob Wesel's first instinct and that is refund and get on with
life.

There are also different levels of retail trade. If I buy stocks or
commodities and get wiped out the next day, its my look out. I may buy gold
the market may push the price down the next week, would I get a refund or
would the dealer give me the difference in value as a refund. I don't think
so. What about a car (as mentioned)? washing machine ? Where do meteorites
fit in ? Should there be a different attitude to different products ?

I reckon with good clear sales policies in place the instances of a bad
transaction will be greatly reduced, regardless of what product you are
selling.

Regards

Ken O'Neill
Received on Sat 28 Jun 2003 10:15:15 AM PDT