Bad for Business

I know that I can be stubborn sometimes, but my wife is more stubborn when it comes to getting nice family pictures taken.

A few weeks ago while shopping at Kmart, she was approached by Olan Mills for free photo sitting in the store. The only contingent they made was making an appointment and giving a $10 deposit.  Courtney decided that was a great deal and made an appointment for a nice Saturday afternoon, figuring the kids would be cooperative.

Courtney received a call two days before reminding her to be there at 3PM. We showed up on time for our appointment, and they said it would be about 10 minutes until they were ready for us. We waited patiently as they took two families ahead of us and our 10 minute wait stretched to almost an hour. 

Waiting for an hour to do something is bad enough when it is for a roller coaster, when it is waiting to sit still for another twenty minutes for pictures with a 3 year old it's a total nightmare. Once Austin started to run around the store screaming we decided that there was no way on earth we were going to get good pictures that day. 

We went to cancel our now hour past due appointment and ask for our deposit back.  I took first crack at it, and they tell us that they are ready for us now. I tell them no, we have a now cranky 3 year old and a couple of unhappy older children who's afternoon just got wasted. They said that they have good people and can work with the kids, I had to hold back laughter while I told them I am not a new parent and I know better.

Having failed in my endeavor, Courtney decides that she wants a shot. She argues that we have been sitting for an hour, waiting patiently with 3 kids. However they are now very antsy, and they still try to tell us that they can work with the kids.  Courtney's loud reply of "Are you kidding me?" was met with a blank stare and then a simple "It's against our policy".

She tells them to forget it and she just wanted her deposit back because they were unable to  honor our appointment.  On the way out of the store, she decides that they are not going to get off the hook so easily. Courtney stopped at Customer Service and asked for the store Manager.  She explained the situation to the manager, who offers to talk to Olan Mills and try to get our money back.  

Unfortunately he was given the same answers that we were. He decides that Olan Mills wasn't going to prevent him from making a customer happy, and generously gives us a $10 gift card for the store.  He let us know that he was not happy with Olan Mills, and that they were well aware of it.

Obviously we will not be using Olan Mills in the future, and will encourage everyone we know to find another studio for their portraits. But you should shop at Kmart! They care about their customers and understand what Customer Service means.

So who out there thinks that keeping our $10 was worth; losing a customer, all the bad word of mouth from us, annoying the store manger of the place you are renting space from, and having a blogger post about the experience for all the world to google?

Huge thanks to Courtney for the timeline and Rough Draft for this post!

Beware Freecreditreport.com

There is a reason you are supposed to check your statements every month, even if you are no longer using a card and are simply paying it down.

FreeCreditReport.com is one of those reasons. I signed up with them as part of a website to receive a free copy of Rock Band (a story for another day) and canceled it shortly after. That should have been the end of the story, but my lack of attention to the card that I had put it on extended the story for an entire year.

It seems that when I canceled the service they did not do a full cancellation, they "downgraded" me to a cheaper service and it has been charged monthly to my card ever since. As I have not been using the card I have been simply paying a set amount and not checking the statement, so this has slipped by me.

I noticed the charges this morning and called them immediately, only to get connected to a remote call center that read from a script and told me that they could cancel the service but only refund me the last months payment. I asked for a manager and was sent to Experian (apparently the parent company) where I received a bit better reception but was still told that they could only refund me the last months payment.

I decided to play a bit harder ball and mentioned that I was well aware of how this occurred (the downgrade instead of the canceling) and that it amounted to fraud and that I was more than happy to contact the BBB and whoever else I needed to to try to rectify this egregious situation.

I again politely asked what I could do to receive my hard earned money back, and Erin (the Customer Rep) went to talk to her manager. Long story short, they are refunding all charges and I should see it in 7-10 days and receive a second notice of my cancellation within 24 hours.

The first lesson here is to keep track of your credit cards, even if you aren't using them. The second is to be very careful when setting up or closing down any service that has recurring charges, because some companies are not as honest as others.