Fenrir Enterprises said:
They agreed to let me ship the broken one back before they ship the
replacement. That way I don't have to give them the card number and
deal with the hassle of being charged for however long it takes them
to replace it. I was told twice it would be a charge. I would have
been annoyed with a hold, but hotels and other companies do this as
well. A charge, however, is not acceptable, and I will not risk being
stuck with it if the replacement they ship is also broken and I have
to go through this more than once. Like I said, I don't know if the
people I talked to simply didn't understand the difference between a
hold and a charge, but one of them told me that 'We only charge your
card for specific models, and yours is one of them'.
Once again, I have to ship the original back first. They're giving me
shipping labels only. So I have to buy the box and packing material to
return it. I would rather pay for the phone costs and packaging then
give them my card number at this point, since I don't know whether
they will charge it or not, and I'm not going to waste more phone time
finding out. I asked to talk to a supervisor the second time, but I
hung up after being on hold for fifteen minutes.
I /highly/ doubt asking for phone costs back from any company would
get you anywhere.
Unless you are unfortunate enough to have maxed out your credit card, the
temporary charge shouldn't pose a problem. I have had the need to call my
cc company to request that they suspend a charge when a vendor sold me a
product that was poorly designed and didn't function as promised, and he
wouldn't accept the product back for a full cc credit. The cc company was
very cooperative, suspended the charge, and then fully credited it to my
account, even though I still have the piece-of-junk product sitting unused
in my closet.
I'm sure that you, as I, regard yourself as an honest person. I understand
and respect the principal you are expressing, but in the real world there
are enough dishonest people that a company like Epson is not unreasonable in
trying to protect itself from potentially fraudulent claims. In the long
run, they may be better off to simply send the new or refurbished unit as it
may cost them less hassle and keep more friends as purchasers of their
product. By the same token, recognizing what hassle you are putting
yourself through by standing on principal and knowing that your credit card
company has a procedure for protecting you from inappropriate vendor
practices, you might lighten up a bit and go with the flow! Rightous
indignation can result, figuratively speaking, in prolonged
self -flagelation and no discernably benefit to you other than increasing
adrenaline flow, heart rate, and blood pressure. Epson isn't a little
fly-by-night operation that will disappear once they charge your card, and
Visa/Mastercard/American Express do offer this protection as they want to
keep you charging on their cards.
Bottom line - there are lots of ways to win. If you do it their way you sit
in the comfort of your own home, stop long distance charges for fruitless
phone calls, have a temporary charge on your credit card, recieve the
replacement printer in the box you can use to send yours back, Epson removes
the charge, or you call your credit card company's 800 number and have them
remove the charge for you.
If you do it your way you spend countless hours trying to reason with people
(whose paychecks come from Epson) who will tell you company policy as they
have been instructed to do. You engage in a very long dialogue on this
newsgroup about what you consider as Epson's ant-consumer attitude. You
have to purchase a box and packing materials, send your defective printer,
and wait for its replacement by return mail. Lots of time spent fruitlessly
and a delay in getting the new printer back into use. BUT you enjoyed
standing on principal and exposing to this august body of printer users your
perception of unfair business practices by Epson. On balance, I like their
way better for me, but it's your choice.
