Your Refund Idea Doesn’t Even Work On Paper

(A woman comes up to our counter with a return. She pulls out packets of designer papers. I am serving other customers and keeping an eye out just in case it gets out of hand.)

Customer: “I want a refund on these; I’ve used some of them.”

Coworker: “These have all been opened.”

Customer: “Yes. I used what I needed from each pack. I just want you to work out what each sheet costs and give me the refund on them.”

Coworker: “That’s not how it works. These are sold as a pack; we only refund full packets”.

Customer: “I don’t want a refund on the full packs; I just want a refund on what I haven’t used.”

Coworker: “I can’t do that.”

Customer: “Why not? I shouldn’t have to pay for what I don’t use.”

Coworker: “We do not refund leftover items. If these papers were bought individually then we can, but they are in a packet, and we can not resell the packet if it is missing items.”

Customer: “I don’t understand why you won’t help me. I need a refund on these items I am not going to use. It’s a waste of my money when I only needed a couple of sheets out of each packet. There’s still ten in the packet. Just work out the price for the individual sheets.”

Coworker: “We can’t do refunds on partially-used items. Would you take back a box of cereal to a supermarket because you only wanted one bowl of cereal out of it?”

Customer: “Well, that’s just idiotic. No, I would not. What’s cereal got to do with it?”

Coworker: “It’s basically what you want me to do: take back a partially-used product that we can no longer sell for full price. I can’t do it.”

Customer: “Get me the manager.”

Coworker: “I am a supervisor. The manager is not in.”

Customer: “Well, get me your supervisor, then.”

Me: “That’ll be me, and I can’t do it, either.”

Customer: “I’ll be calling Head Office about this.”

Coworker: *handing the receipt back* “The phone number’s just there. Good luck with that.”

Customer: *to me* “Oh, but can’t you just do it?”

Coworker: “As I have already explained, no, she can’t. Now, if you would just move on; you are wasting your time and mine, and there are customers waiting. NEXT!”