What is the customer to do when an on-line company just reneges on their undertakings and you can't call in at their office to dispute their decision? Specifically, I am talking about Coles/Flybuys, from whom I get frequent (several times weekly) offers for special discounts and rewards. Usually I ignore them, as they don't amount to much (five or ten percent, and the conditions usually mean you have to spend more than you would normally feel the need to). However, a couple of weeks ago, I took the bait: for a change, it sounded like a genuinely good deal… spend $70 and have $15 deducted at the checkout. That's a 21.5% discount, much better than their usual offers, and $70 isn't a huge outlay. Someone in at Flybuys must have been asleep at the wheel when they offered that one, because they swiftly geared themselves up for the inevitable renege. First off was a follow-up email, one day after I had registered: they hadn't explained the special conditions fully enough, they conceded, and then proceeded to change the deal so that you had to make TWO purchases, for more than $85 total, within seven days, to qualify. Well, that knocked the discount down to 17.5%, but I decided that was good enough and went ahead. But the discount never happened. Not one cent. When I rang Flybuys they had a very well-rehearsed set of responses as to why this had happened, assuring me that it was all my fault, that I hadn't registered in time, or I hadn't read the qualifying dates. When I was able, after some searching of emails, to refute all these charges, they conceded that the problem was at their end, not mine… but that was my bad luck, as they didn't refund money! More arguing, and they "generously" offered to give me some Flybuys points instead of the discount. Flybuys points! Wow, who could ask for anything more? Well, myself, for one, and I objected to their whole attitude, especially blaming everything on the customer (have these people no shame?). A supervisor then came on the line with a "compromise": if I made a THIRD purchase, to bring my total expenditure to over a hundred dollars, she would authorise for the discount to be applied. So now the discount had dwindled down to just under 15%… a not-infrequent offer, and a far cry from what was originally promised. I declined to accept that, and told them that since they had my name, address, email address, and telephone number, I would expect them to come up with a more equitable solution and get back to me. Their solution was a simple one… they haven't yet got back to me by any of those methods, even though I sent them a follow-up email. I understand what's going on here: someone in the company didn't get his sums right, and offered a discount which rang warning bells in the highest echelons of the company, and they then had to sit down and work out how to avoid actually going through with this. But they couldn't do the decent thing and just say, "Sorry, we can't do it, it was a mistake". They had to work out ways to make the customer think it was HIS fault, which is what they did to me… I was just about ready to apologise to THEM, and they would have accepted that, I am sure, and gone away chuckling, having won again…. which is the only game they are interested in. I think that's a terrible way for a company to act, and I am very anti-FlyBuys. Oh, by the way, I followed up by ringing the Coles store and telling the manager that I was bringing the ninety-nine dollars worth of groceries back for a refund; he was much nicer, and quickly offered to do what Flybuys would not… send me the promised discount. A happy ending… but now I stick with EasyRewards!
Any chance of a tl;dr version?