Two-faced companies

Fascinating

Best Buy is the worst. Fortunately, a credit card dispute usually works well.

“We appreciate your business” I’ve heard while my call is on hold for 15 minutes.

Discover Card has great customer support. They usually pickup you phone call quickly, and are accommodating.

This isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I found PayPal particularly useless in a dispute I had with a merchant last month.

I ordered food from a restaurant and paid for it over the phone with my PayPal debit card. The restaurant processed the sale and their CC company did an authorization. When I picked up my food, I added a tip. The restaurant processed the total (food + tip). The first transaction was supposed to be covered by money in my PayPal account. But the restaurant's CC company only processed the second transaction, for which the money was removed from my checking account, which it should not have been.

No money should ever have been deducted from my checking account. Somehow it was. PayPal said the CC company was the only one who could release this hold on my money. The restaurant's CC company said it had to be released by PayPal.

Finally, after four weeks, the money was released back into my PayPal account.

Guess who isn't getting food at that restaurant anymore. And guess who cut up his PayPal debit card. I will only use PP for eBay from now on.

I think with most companies, it's their poor customer service department. I don't ever deal with customer service anymore. If I'm pissed, I reach out to the office of the CEO. Most times when I do that, I've been put in touch with a higher level person. However, these companies never, ever change their policies.

Step 1. Contact company, Step 2. Bad review, Step 3. Contact Amazon or PayPal etc.

Usually, Step 2 or 3 works.

Hi Karen

Try dealing with AT&T. They lie.

I work with customer service first. If I don't get the answer I know I SHOULD get within two exchanges, it goes to the CEO.

I"ve ALWAYS gotten it fixed immediately.

Once I send an email to the customer service dept and the CEO at the same time, and got two totally different answers, The CEO immediately fixed the problem. The customer service dept said it would not fix the problem. Then I sent the customer service email to the CEO.

Trying to deal with an insurance company paying for a specialist doctor visit for my dad was like going through hell.

Then, I escalated it to the CEO of the insurance company (hard to find online as companies are getting shrewd about this) and it was fixed in 2 days--after 2 months of trying before.

R8, I HATE AT&T.. When cell phones were just coming around, I had AT&T and I knew that whenever the bill would come, I would have to set aside 1-2 hours to call AT&T and complain about the mistakes.

There were ALWAYS mistakes and they were ALWAYS in AT&T's favor.

Directly address the President/CEO via email/phone in a civil, logical manner; I've been doing this lately with large well-known firms instead of going to phone/email hell & getting "John" from Mumbai (No disrespect for John/Mumbai!). Resolution has been fast/appropriate. Some here have suggested that I was talking with an underling, but in one particular instance the CEO phoned me himself from back East, & took time to discuss the situation & resolve it. I'm fully aware of spoofing, etc., but this was the real deal & I was very satisfied.

On the other hand, I had a large $ dispute with a vendor in Washington that finally went all the way up the chain to the governor's office, a judgement was issued, but no restitution ever occurred. When I asked about the status of the case, I was told that "there's nothing more we can do", blah blah blah . . . I'd heard about how supremely passive-aggressive Washingtonians were, but was very shocked to encounter it in such a blatant manner--perfectly explains recent events in Seattle though . . .

The final resolution was to dispute the charge with American Express; the funds were refunded very fast. Their dispute process is excellent.

I ordered masks through Amazon. The masks came from China and stunk of chemicals. I wanted to return them, but the company wanted me to pay for postage. I refuse, and called Amazon to dispute. I told them it was a scam, based in the reviews and my experience. Amazon eventually told me to keep the masks and I still got a credit,

[quote]Amazon eventually told me to keep the masks and I still got a credit

As well you should. Jeff Bezos is a gazillionaire. A box of $10 masks is nothing to him.

R15: Amazon and eBay are very good about refunds. Esp. if you have a long history with them. PayPal took threatening a bad review for resolution.

I’ve never had a problem with Am Ex to get charges reversed.

I always wonder why I hear stories like: “I’ve been trying to get back my money for months!”

Just call your credit card company and claim back the money! Yes, it’s that easy

OP is a full-on Karen

- You know damn well that companies like Amazon, eBay and Walmart also allow third party vendors to sell through their platform.

- You order shit from sites like Wish.com. All the sellers on there are drop-shippers, ordering fake knock off's from Alibaba or Aliexpress, or similar sites.

- There's no "manager" for you to demand to speak to when you get burned. You're not getting through to Jeff Bezos.

R18, third party vendors still have to follow amazon’s rules

R19, you know that It's people like you that keep trying to score free shit by exploiting this. Third party vendor on Amazon sells a product at a thin profit margin - troll files a complaint to Amazon to get the product for free. Who do you think is footing the costs for these products, and paying for shipping and returns? It's not Amazon.

I read about Jeff Bezos treating his employees like shit but they're great with helping you out when there's a problem. They are super conscientious. Mom and pop and brick and mortar stores in comparison were a nightmare. I'm happy to be done with them. Just the death stare you got when you had a problem with something and brought it back was enough to freeze your blood.

Ebay itself has been great. While some sellers there jump through hoops to help you I've come across a few who were jerks and sold me used stuff that they described as new. Ebay has always helped me out. Spend a lot with both companies and have never lost money.

R20, I have never registered a complaint unless I was truly wronged. You have to send me what you advertised within the stated amount of time, or else you don’t deserve my money.

Pretty simple and most vendors seem to do it without a problem whatsoever

Always, always, always take the compliant higher until it gets resolved assuming you have the time. It can often take a long time but so satisfying when you get the outcome you want.

Best Buy is so rigid with their rules and fine print. And you really have no recourse. What would you do in a dispute? Sue in Maryland? Or wherever it’s incorporated? The only real resource is to dispute your credit card charge. I don’t know how that would work out. This is one of the reasons I think so many companies should be broken up. We need more competition.