I need to vent, and this thread seems like the logical place.
4 months ago, I purchased a bottom loading water cooler. Picture below, in case you're wondering what the hell it is...
It arrived in excellent condition, per instructions, I left it standing upright for 24 hours before plugging it in. Plugged it in, all displays light up. I put the 5-gallon water jug in. As you can see, there are 3 buttons on top. One for hot water, another for room temp water and the third one for cold water. Hot works fine, cold works fine.....but....the ambient temp button does not work. I mean, it pushes down super easy with no resistance. No water, no nothing.
So, I'm like, no chance I'm keeping this thing if it's got issues. A major pain in the ass to box back up, but I did a great job and even stretched the super thick plastic that it came with over the outer box and taped it up.
Requested a return/refund from Amazon. I even selected the reason for returning from a drop-down box as "item defective or not working". Easy as hell. Dropped it off at local UPS, within a week, I received notice that it had been received and refund would commence.
To be honest, I totally forgot about the refund until today (4 months later). I got an email from Amazon saying they processed my refund. First off, I'm thinking, why in hell did it take that long? Then, I see the refund is for $145. Then I'm thinking that isn't right. Looked at the drop-down from the refund link, and it says they charged me a restocking fee.
I about blow a fuse on that one. The damn thing was defective when I got it. I shouldn't have to pay any restock fee if the product is broken.
Get in a chat with a real person on Amazon. I explain (calmly) the situation. He says he needs to get additional information and 5 minutes later, his response is "I see that there is a restock fee for this item". Then nothing more. I wait, silence. He then says, I hope you understand.
Now, I'm getting pissed. I said, you sell me a defective item and you expect me to pay a restock fee? I told him to put someone on higher up. So, up comes another guy. He tells me to give him 5 minutes while he reads through the messages/chat. He comes back and says you are being charged a restock fee.
Duh! That's my damn point. He knows I'm angry, so he finally says. I'm willing to make an exception and get that fee reversed. You know what I'm thinking....but I was done with this guy. I said, thank you.
So, yes, they dropped the fee, but they called it an exception. WTF!!!! it should not be an exception. It should be a mistake, and they should apologize and then reverse the charges. I'm still fuming....