Forum - View topicAnime Online Store (sales & rentals) Reviews/Feedbacks
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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Nothing irritates me more than lousy customer service. I purchased a figure from AmiAmi recently and tried to apply the 725 points I had to it. I clicked on the "use all points" button. For whatever reason, that didn't "take" and my points were not applied (1 point - 1 Yen). Normally, I wouldn't care and simply use the points on my next purchase, but I've scaled back my anime merchandise buying and there is a time limit on how long these points last (one year from the time of purchase). A good chunk of those 725 points will disappear soon.
So I contacted AmiAmi via email to explain the situation and was told because the points are not actually money, they would not be able to refund my Paypal account for the Canadian equivalent of 725 Yen. What bullshit. Congratulations, AmiAmi, you have saved yourself the princely sum of 725 Yen and as a result ensured I'll never buy another item from you as long as I live. Well done. Please give your customer service guru a gold star. Stuff like this really makes me appreciate TRSI even more. The amount of money is trifling, but the principle really curdles my cheese. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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I won't defend the action as I'm not sure how common it is to retroactively apply store credit anywhere, but you happen to be wrong about when your points expire:
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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@ Polycell - well that is definitely useful to know, for sure. A moot point in my case since I refuse to deal with an operation that has such a dismal understanding of keeping good customer relations.
The ironic thing is that they have a point system to ENCOURAGE customers to buy more, but by taking their stance with me, they have ensured I will never buy more from them. Seems kind of self-defeating. |
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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@Blood-
Are you expecting readers to believe you're not at fault here? You had an invoice. You paid the invoice. If there was a discrepancy between the invoice you received and what Paypal paid, a simple email to Paypal's customer service would have credited your account, which is their policy. Since you seemed surprised at the info Polycell delivered, I decided to take a look at the site myself, and discovered this:
I can generally accept your complaints against customer service, but not this time. You're clearly at fault here and are using the customer service as a scapegoat when it's now obvious you lack understanding of the services you're using. You claim to appreciate TRSI? Shawne probably wasn't too thrilled to read a tantrum from someone who claims to appreciate the service regarding a change to the Canadian shipping policy, but he still addressed it professionally. Even if you're allowing yourself to go beyond what you'd do in the real world because it's the internet, you're still addressing the issue in a public forum retailers read. You can handle yourself however you want, but all you've done was shown a hostility which wasn't justified because it was based on your own decision to ignore the invoice. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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There is a simple reason why you would make a terrible business owner. You don't understand the simplest, most inviolate rule of business: the customer is always right. I pressed their damn button to indicate that I wanted to use my points. Why that wasn't recorded properly I don't know. But it doesn't matter. I contacted amiami and very politely mentioned there had been a problem with having my points allocated. I asked to have my Paypal account credited for the Canadian equivalent of 725 Yen, a trifling amount. They won't do it. For a piddling amount, they are willing to lose me as a customer for all time. Hey, if you think that's excellent business sense, what can I say?
As for the TRSI situation, there's a lot of background that I didn't bother posting onboard, so as usual, you are shooting your mouth off about something that you really know nothing about. Quel surprise. to the mod that moved my thread to this thread: I don't particularly care, but since AmiAmi is an international retailer, this should have been put in the International Retailers thread as opposed this one, but as I say, it doesn't make much difference to me. |
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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Translation: Blood starts getting personal and hostile. I should ignore this post, but now it's a matter of right and wrong.
Personal insult: +1
Personal insult: +1 This statement is as idiotic to me as the oft used "guns don't kill people...". It implies there's a firm belief in something that is clearly inaccurate. The customer is not always right. I will tell you this: If I were a business owner, and you treated me or my business with the same regard here, you'd never enter my establishment again.
I agree with this. Customers should have confidence in the system.
Your fault right off the bat. As I shown you above, their policy clearly states once an order is processed, they can not fix it. Doesn't matter to them if you knew it or not.
This isn't on them. It's on you. Let's compare the faults: AmiAmi: doesn't apply the points. Blood: doesn't know the policy, assumes points are actual currency, failed to read the invoice before paying it. Your admonishment of AmiAmi is callous and misguided. You can not be right when you've clearly ignored your responsibility as the customer.
It is business sense, because you're clearly looking at the issue from one perspective: your own. You've no idea what something like this would entail. To you, it's just a simple credit, but to the business, it's several issues to address. They may have to issue a charge back to Paypal, which could cost them money to do. Then, they'll have to send another invoice and hope you do your part to ensure its accuracy to transact with Paypal again, which will cost them. This wouldn't even include any other ancillary issues either, such as if the points system is tied to their inventory system or account system, or both. Since you already have the figure, this means a voided transaction has to be processed. All so a customer can get a few Yen off his order. Makes perfect business sense to stop idiocy like this.
*snickers When your attitude gets like this, there's no compromise with you, is there.
If you're not going to deliver all the facts in your tirade, that's another fault on you. Don't think for a second you're entitled to support your behavior just because you chose to omit information, which now looks to be important to the discussion.
You can try to use smoke and mirrors all you want to make me the enemy along with AmiAmi. I don't care. AmiAmi is a fine company and you're tarnishing for no good reason but your own ignorance. "Quel surprise" right back at you. Remember a while ago when you chewed me out for being a dick to you, in regard to your behavior? Show me anywhere in my post where I was a dick. Show me why I deserved such a callous, pointed, and rude reply from you. As I said, I don't care if you want to act this way, but it's disrespectful to the people you're trying to address. Needless to say, your behavior is no different than the TRSI discussion, because you've clearly decided to omit the factual piece of information you approved an invoice that was in error. |
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superdry
 Posts: 1309 |
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When did you try to apply the points? When paying for the order or placing the order? I haven't used any of my points, so I don't remember when you can/cannot apply them to an order. When contacting Amiami, when you explained the situation, did you ask if they could, on their end, apply the points to the order because something happened on the website instead of asking to be refunded in cash? I don't know if you did, but that would have been the first thing to ask since the people on their end could have done something in their system. |
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Nico87
 Posts: 139 |
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AmiAmi has excellent customer service. Always reply very quickly and are happy do assist in any way they can.
I would never expect points of any kind to be equal to actual money, so in turn I would never expect a refund of any kind. With that said, you probably feel aggrieved or disappointed or whatever, nothing wrong with that (specially since you thought the points would expire), but I think you're going a bit too far. My points over at NIS America has been bugged since I placed my first order ever from their online store, but do I really care about the 5 dollars or whatever? Refusing to shop at a store over 700-odd Yen? Remember, AmiAmi didn't really do anything wrong! Last edited by Nico87 on Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:11 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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@ superdry - there is about a four step process you need to go through to complete the purchase of an item. The allocation of points is, I think, in the first stage of the process. I clicked the appropriate box to indicate that I wanted to use all my available points and then clicked on the Next button or whatever you do to carry on.
On my first email I didn't make any specific suggestion as to how this could be rectified. It was only when they responded with their, "yep, ain't nuthin' we can do, too bad, so sad" that I replied with, "wait a minute, are you telling you cannot simply refund my Paypal account?" But they subscribe to the M.E. style of awesome and highly intelligent business practices that determines that it's better to keep 725 Yen rather than keep a customer who had ordered several items from them over the past two years.
@ Nico87 - I've already said it isn't the money, it's the principle. What AmiAmi has clearly communicated to me is, "we don't give a shit about you as a customer." So why would I continue to do business with a company like that? And again I can't help but contrast this with a company like TRSI which is run by a guy who DOES understand the importance of good customer service. Shawne K. would no more risk losing a customer over a lousy $7 than fly to the moon. But then again, he's not a moron, so there you go. |
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Jon182
Posts: 105 |
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@Blood
I think one of the main benefit amiami offers is the price they offer their customers. They're usually quite a bit cheaper than the other online retailers I've checked. The points are simply icing on the cake and I don't think they're going to give cash money for something which is a bonus. Having said that, I can understand the frustration of not being able to apply points to an order, especially if I thought they had been applied. |
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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Yes, but do you authorize a transaction which didn't show the points being removed? That's the part Blood conveniently leaves out. I've used many services from Japan and every single one of them has an authorization (confirmation) page. Even TRSI has one, which they send out after the order is submitted. It'll clearly shows if Got Anime discounts were applied, and it's up to the customer to ensure the order is accurate. Blood did not do this. Instead, he paid the invoice and now demands cash back because of it. Worse, he thinks it's justified that since TRSI can offer a refund, that every business should offer one. Now he has the audacity to call the folks at AmiAmi morons? Comically enough, AmiAmi gets the better end of the deal here. Blood leaves, over a single issue in two years, and AmiAmi no longer has to tolerate his demands over a refund because he didn't read the policy. He had more than three chances to understand how AmiAmi does business, and yet he faults their customer service because he can't take responsibility for his own moronic action of paying a bill he didn't look at.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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Oh, I agree with the fact that I when I authorized my Paypal invoice, I didn't notice that it was 725 yen more than it should have been. I'm sure other posters reading this could imagine making the same error.
Let's say I hadn't made the mistake and let's say the original cost was 7,000 Yen total. AmiAmi would have received 6,250 Yen from me. However, I didn't notice that the points hadn't been deducted so they got 7,000 Yen from me. If they refunded me, they would be no worse off financially than if the transaction had gone ahead as it was supposed to AND I'd still be a potential customer for years to come. This is a customer service no-brainer: you get a chance to look good to a customer who has dropped cash with you in the past at no cost to yourself. It doesn't get much more straightforward than that. But again, there's no point in trying to discuss what constitutes smart customer service to someone like M.E. He simply doesn't have the capacity to understand. |
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Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
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The problem I have with your position is that it's written once you authorize the transaction, there's nothing they can do.
This isn't about customer service, Blood. It's about the way they handle their business, to which you've had no problems in two years in using. Now that you made a mistake on your part, you expect them to make an exception to their policy for this mistake. When they don't oblige this expectation, you slander their customer service and make a decision of refusing to use their services again. I'm not finding any reason to support your principle here, Blood. You're not giving AmiAmi a fair defense they've done nothing wrong. If you want to rant against the policy, knock yourself out. If you refuse to use them again because of the policy, I'll accept it. But please stop with the abusive attitude of a customer service who has done nothing wrong. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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How can losing a customer over 725 Yen not be wrong? Where is the intelligence in that decision? I'll tell you where - there is none.
I'm not saying they have a legal, ethical or moral obligation to refund me that 725 Yen. I'm merely pointing out that they had the option of doing something very simple: i.e. refunding 725 Yen to my Paypal account. It may not be their official policy to do that, but that doesn't mean it's a physical impossibility. It's completely their choice whether they feel it is worth it or not. Clearly, they feel it isn't worth it. So for the sake of 725 Yen they are passing on the potential for many, many times that in the future. In a niche industry like online anime merchandise retailing, I don't see that as a clever move. Naturally, you will disagree because you have zero understanding of good customer service. Clearly, in your mind, it is more important to stubbornly stick to the letter of the law instead of honouring the spirit of good customer relations. Sure glad TRSI thinks differently than you do. |
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potatochobit
 Posts: 1373 Location: TEXAS |
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edit:
oic, you made the purchase 'unkowningly' the points were missing anytime a coupon or promotion does not work 'on any site' do not place your order and contact the customer service first. normally, a retailer could just give you a full refund and then re-submit a puchase with the discount applied. but when you use paypal it gets complicated -paypal charges fees and there are exchange rate fees and the exchange rate changes weekly. I understand you are upset but I also understand AmiAmi's position you still have your points bro, just let it go TRSI, I love them, but they have screwed move over many times, bro. like when I pay full retail price and then the item is on clearance sale the next day... I'm sure if I asked them they would credit me the difference but it is nothing to sweat over. as for Ami Ami I received a broken figure and they mailed me a replacement part within 2 weeks without any hassle |
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