Refunds

[pyramid]

Just wanted to ask a question and see what peoples opinions are on this:

I returned a diamond ring to a vendor which they received on 31 July 2007 and I then received a cheque from them (in dollars, I am in the UK) on 13 August 2007. The cheque has only cleared now on 13 September 2007 which is good as I was told a foreign cheque can take up to 8 weeks to clear and sometimes more.

Anyway, I am just looking for some answers about this. This is not a complaint against the vendor at all because maybe it is me who was wrong here. However I would appreciate some advice for what I am thinking.

When the cheque cleared the amount I received is about $1000 less than what I sent. This is not regarding the setting or the initial postage and insurance because I have already taken that figure off. (I sacraficed the setting because I did not want to spend any more money on it, although it was platinum, and I thought to set a blue topaz or amethyst in it, I knew I would also have customs charges and as the setting was not the most expensive I made the decision to forgo it.)

This money difference is on the diamond alone.

Now what I am wondering is, when I wired the money I only had to pay a £20 charge (40$) although it did say in the small print further charges could be made by various banks involverd. I do not know if this difference of $1000 is due to the exchange rate as I have not received that details yet but it seems too much to be only due to that.

Now is it possible for vendors to wire money back to customers, what I mean is can a private individual get a wire like that or do you have to be a business? Is it common practice to receive a refund by cheque just by the fact that the vendor is courteous enough to allow you to return the goods or is it a mandatory thing in the USA also to give people a refund on unseen goods?

There is also the time factor in that when a customer wires money to a vendor it takes a few days but a cheque to a UK customer can take up to eight weeks. I know when customers initially buy they want the money to go through as fast as possible so that they receive their goods. Just wondering what others here think although I know many of you are in the USA and so are not affected by this.

ps. Just for information, for UK people, I am still waiting on payment from Customs who approved my claim on 21 August and claim to have sent a cheque which has now been stopped and I am waiting for another.

 

[strmrdr]

"When the cheque cleared the amount I received"
was the face value of the check correct?

Iv had currency exchange rate errors twice with banks was the right exchange rate used?


Vendors do refunds by check because they are trackable and and in the US it is legal proof the person accepted the refund terms.
Thats why its nearly universal in the US that refunds over a few hundred dollars are by check.

 

[pyramid]

Thanks Storm.

I don't know yet it if the face value is correct because I am awaiting details still about the exchange rate and whether there were charges. They will put this in writing so I will know then.

Thanks that makes sense about why they use cheques. I am not looking to make a big issue out of this because it was me who wanted the refund, I just was wondering how it worked and if I should have asked for the money to be wired back to me. If it is the norm to send cheques then I will live with that.

 

[pyramid]

When I divide the dollars amount by the amount I received, the figure I get is 2.07 and the exchange rate showing today on msn is 2.0 so it seems it could be correct. This is why I feel I must have been charged some fees by the banks. When the payment was made on purchasing the ring the exchange rate I got was 1.96.
(The cheque from the vendor in dollars was correct because I noticed that when I received it.)

I found a forum on the internet through a google search where someone who worked in a bank was saying the building society I use has to go through a bank? who has forex which they don't have. This may be the reason for charges here in some way.

 

[MustangGal]

Does the bank you cashed the cheque at charge a fee for converting the money? I was in London last month, and my bank charged me 3% on all purchases for doing that...

 

[pyramid]

Thanks MustangGal. I have not been quoted any percentage, they just quote that agent banks may charge fees. They quote:

Collection takes place where you or we require confirmation that the cheque has been paid. It often involves larger amounts and can take up to 8 weeks, sometimes longer, before we are able to credit your account with the proceeds. The fee for this is £20.00

you may be subject to further charges from the foreign bank in processing the cheque. Charges may apply regardless of whether the cheque is paid or returned. Any agent bank required to convert the funds into sterling will use the applicable exchange rate on the day that they receive the currency.

 

[niceice]

International banking is such a pain! While it is true that exchange rates are constantly changing, it seems like many banks use this excuse as a license to steal $$$ on both ends of the transaction. I''ll never forget the time our banker told us of how much $$$ we''d save by sending one of our cutters his money in Euro''s because of the exchange rate - they pulled the correct amount of $$$ from our account and then sent him an amount about $1K short! Yea, he was happy - REAL HAPPY

it''s been a couple of years since we fell for that one and I still get reminded of the correct way to send the wire (in U.S. funds) every time we send him a wire and believe me, I understand the "why" completely!

I''m guessing that the check was issued for the correct amount of the refund in U.S. dollars and that the reason for the shortage lies somewhere in the bank to bank "license to steal" trail... Your bank should be able to provide you with a clear paper trail as to how they collected their fees for this transaction. Good luck with it.

 

[pyramid]

Thank you niceice. I hear you about the Euro transaction. It would have been so maddening especially since the Cutter may have thought you had done it deliberately as well. It is as though they were blackening your name too.

I do think the reason is something to do with the banks and I suppose they have covered it by stating to customers they may have fees from foreign banks.

Not from my building society but on a google search I have read from other UK groups the words that they cannot give a specific breakdown of the fees, so I don't know if my building society will be the same. The building society I am with say they write to give me exchange rate used and whether the cheque was Collected or Negotiated, as Negotiated is supposed to take up to 5 days I think this one must have been Collected.

 

[Richard Sherwood]

Tell the selling vendor your refund was a thousand dollars short, and ask them if they charged you a restocking fee. Many do. It could be the exchange rates, but a thousand dollars sounds excessive. It''s more likely the vendor shorted you for some reason or another (restocking fee is another form of legalized stealing).

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 9/17/2007 10:12:57 PM
Author: Richard Sherwood
Tell the selling vendor your refund was a thousand dollars short, and ask them if they charged you a restocking fee. Many do. It could be the exchange rates, but a thousand dollars sounds excessive. It''s more likely the vendor shorted you for some reason or another (restocking fee is another form of legalized stealing).

She said the vendor sent the right amount in USD something else is going on....

 

[WorkingHardforSmallRewards]

Date: 9/17/2007 10:12:57 PM
Author: Richard Sherwood
(restocking fee is another form of legalized stealing).

I am going to have to disagree with that one and tell a little story of my own for fun and to make an exaggerated mostly unrelated point.

My father owns a rock masonry and fireplace business. I worked there for about 7 summers and Christmas breaks or so. I remember one summer this woman was building a patio and wanted rocks on the floor. We had several pallets of some type of large heavy but fairly thin in the world of rocks flat square stones. She called ahead and requested some 30 of them be brought out and prepared for delivery. I was of course told to go through the couple of tons of several hundreds of such rocks, lifting each one by hand, restacking them on a separate pallet of course breaking a couple of them, and selecting the best 30 for her based on her description of color preferences. I set them all out ready to carry to her vehicle.

When she got there though, she wanted to see them all laid out, so I ended up having to lay them all out for her as though it were on her patio and then she decided she wanted to switch out a couple of them. So I had to bring out the other palets and unload practically all of them until she selected some that she really wanted to switch out with. Reloaded them all up, breaking a couple more in the process as some of them had particularly fragile edges and a number of them had faults that broke easily do to the length and width VS depth ratios of the rocks.

Well the next morning her builder had convinced her that that the stones she had hand picked herself and spent months deliberating over and choosing were, in fact, ugly--despite her own personal feelings. So she brought them back to us first thing in the morning tossed in her car buy her builder with four of them broken, just waiting for me to carry back to the pallets--but at this point the warehouse was totally loaded with other palets and those particular stones put way in the back on a second shelf (we had had to unload everything initially, for several reasons, though I left though out of the beginning of my story) meaning that however you diced it restocking was going to take a tremendous amount of time and manpower cutting into other jobs, and they would all end up having to be carried by hand back to the far end of the warehouse one or two at a time, by myself no more.

Anyway, at first we were just going to charge them a restocking fee, but she, naturally, just as you were suggesting, took affront to the idea of a restocking fee and felt that they should get a full refund if she wasn't satisfied with our merchandise. I was a bit exasperated and offended by that attitude and mentioned the broken rocks, which she also felt that she should not responsible for, though it had happened during their unloading and reloading process.

So I took a bit of time and convinced my parents that in fact she should be held responsible for both the restocking fees and the broken rocks, the latter of which we had early happily waved.

So, long story short, there is often a lot more involved in the restocking of merchandise than is revealed to the customer, not to mention all of the labor that was involved in getting the goods to her in the first place and putting in so much man power to help her prior to her purchase.


Anyway, I feel sorry for whoever has to carry that huge diamond to the back of the warehouse. I know it was a heavy one, if it is the one I think we are talking about.


That being said, is it the one I think we are talking about!?!? What the heck!? I thought you kept that one! is it the huge honker we spent 150 post or so discussing 41degree pavilion angles on!? You sent her back!? but, I believe I have gotten my time frame distorted, I seem to remember it being farther back in time than July 31st? and I could have sworn you decided to keep that one? so what is happening in your world of diamond purchases, I seem to have missed something?

 

[crown1]

Date: 9/17/2007 10:12:57 PM
Author: Richard Sherwood
Tell the selling vendor your refund was a thousand dollars short, and ask them if they charged you a restocking fee. Many do. It could be the exchange rates, but a thousand dollars sounds excessive. It''s more likely the vendor shorted you for some reason or another (restocking fee is another form of legalized stealing).

ita with the comment in parenthesis. thanks for saying this.

 

[pyramid]

Date: 9/17/2007 10:12:57 PM
Author: Richard Sherwood
Tell the selling vendor your refund was a thousand dollars short, and ask them if they charged you a restocking fee. Many do. It could be the exchange rates, but a thousand dollars sounds excessive. It's more likely the vendor shorted you for some reason or another (restocking fee is another form of legalized stealing).

Thank you Richard Sherwood. No the vendor sent me the cheque in dollars for the correct amount, less the original shipping and the ring mount, which I knew at the start from reading their site was not returnable. The only question regarding the vendors point of view, was whether or not I should have asked them to wire me the money, if it was even possible, however Storm has explained why this would not be done. I know customer's wire them money but I suppose as they are a business it would be easier for many unscruptulous customers to say they never received it, so a cheque is proof of this. There was no re-stocking fee involved for the diamond and the amount in dollars on the cheque was exactly the pricescope wire discount amount.

 

[pyramid]

WHFSR

Your story with the rocks does make sense to me that they should have been responsible for re-stocking in that case.

Yes it is that same rock, I received the rock on 13 July 2007, and returned by Fedex on 24 July, however due to the vendors working days, it got a bit held up also they were on holiday so short staffed, however it was delivered on 31 July. My world of diamonds just now is on hold, until I save up some more money or find another stone I want. I sent that rock back because I just felt uncomfortable about the angles and the differing opinions on the discussion between the professionals although all involved were not dissing the diamond in any way. The vendor I used was very accommodating and very polite about it, I never felt my money was stuck or I was stuck at any time in the transaction. I made the right decision for me, if I had been someone else I would have kept the diamond. There was nothing wrong with it, just my being picky. The tightness of the stone being cut by that company cancelled out the reasons for refusing the stone although with another diamond of same pavillion angle it may not have but I also respected greatly the opinion of the other vendor, although he could not answer my questions or say anything at all and rightfully so due to the fact he was a competing vendor, so I made up my own mind between the two. From this I learned these were two very honest vendors who would not say anything against their competition.

 

[pyramid]

Just wanted to add here that I realise now what could be the reason for the $1k difference. When I bought the diamond/ring the exchange rate was 1.96$ to £1, now the exchange rate is 2.0$ to £1. The increase in money received ofcourse is greater when exchanging pounds to dollars but when it was exchanged from dollars to pounds, that is how much I lost. If I had been buying today I would have gained £500 or $1000 due to the exchange rate more than I would have in July. Therefore although I have not received anything yet from the bank it appears I have not had any fees charged apart from the £20.