Complaint about Store Manager and Return Policy

Wow, are people judgmental! Of course you should have gotten your
money back if the DVD did not work -- which the Blockbuster employee
might have been able to verify by trying to play it in the store. If
it did not play, obviously you were not pulling a scam. If it did
play, you might have been trying to pull something, there might be
something wrong with your DVD player, or there might have been
something odd with the DVD. I certainly have seen CDs that could be
read in one machine and not another. In that case, unless your
account showed a history of such problems, he probably should have
offered you a credit anyway as a matter of good customer service and
you might even have accepted it once shown the problem possibly was on
your end. For everyone reading this, note that this is a
hypothetical. From the information in the letter, it sounds as if the
employee made no effort to test the DVD and the most likely case is
that it really was defective.

I do understand that employees are bound by policy, whether the policy
is good or bad. That explains why he could not refund the money. It
does not explain why he could not offer both the contact information
for the corporate office AND the credit (and an apology for the
customer getting a likely bad DVD, for that matter.) As to the
policy, itself, with 10 notable exceptions, policies did not come down
from Mt. Sinai. They were created by companies and can be changed by
those companies. The writer is doing exactly what people should do --
writing to the company and requesting a change in policy. In this
case, the policy should be changed. If you pay a company for a good
or service and it is not delivered in a usable form, what possible
justification is there for the company to keep the money? The
customer is entitled to a refund, not the next one free. That is like
the customer walking in, taking a DVD, and saying, "I cannot meet my
half of the transaction today by paying you but I will make it up to
you next time I am in the store."

Policies are policies. If Blockbuster's policy is to give a credit
for DVD's that don't play then so be it.

First you didn't want a credit and then you were mad because he didn't
give you a credit, something doesn't made sense.

As someone else said, the policy is probably in place because they had
excessive losses due to people watching a movie and then coming in and
saying it didn't play. Most of these restrictive policies that
retailers have had to put in place is because of scammers. Now they
strictly enforce the receipt policy as well as others so that they
could cut their losses.

I don't see what the big deal was about getting store credit instead
of a credit. Maybe that policy is in place (a policy set by corporate
for every store) to avoid theft. Think about it: You watch a movie,
return it the next day, say it wasn't watchable, get your $4 back.
Multiply that by all the losers out there who've tried that, and
voila. You get company policy.

At least this way, the store has a little more protection.

I do think he should have given you the credit. You didn't do
anything wrong by stating that you wanted to complain to higherups
about your dissatisfaction with that policy. I'd say we all have the
right to do that.

Hi Sheri,

I can see your point. It's just a simple matter of customer service.
While everyone else is saying you shouldn't have made such a big deal,
I think the store manager should been more compliant.
Jill

This seems a reasonable policy to me. Getting a credit is quite fair
and it's beyond me why you wouldn't want it. Giving people cash back
doesn't make sense for several reasons. Can you explain why you
needed your money back?

As for how you were treated, it's clear that you were making a pest of
yourself. You were offered a reasonable resolution, which you turned
down. Therefore, the manager was not able to help you any more.
Therefore, there was no reason for him to continue working with you.
Sure, he could have wasted his day talking to a brick wall, but even
you'd admit that wouldn't make sense, right?

Unless you have a reason why you needed the money back, right then, I
can't find a reason to side with you. As much as I'd like to.

That said, I'm willing to bet you'll get some coupons out of this.

What difference does it make? It was, what, 4.00 or so? If you rent
vids even once a year, you can still recoup your loss.

It sounds to me like you gave the manager a very hard time and/or made
a scene. There had to have been some logical reason for him to offer
you a credit, only to rescind the offer and take the next customer in
line.

Me thinks we're not getting the full story, here.