like for like payment and refund methods?

postie1392

hi all, could someone please help:

i bought a sony dvd/hdd recorder from richer sounds in bromley, within a week it had developed a fault so i tried to return it to the shop

i had paid £210 in cash and so had expected to be able to get a straight forward refund of £210 in cash, but was told that they could only refund to a credit/debit card or they could get a cheque sent out to me from head office, which may take up to 10 days.

should i not be able to expect a repayment in exactly the same manner as i paid for the item? please help, thank you

Hintza

Does it really matter?

They will need to issue a cheque or card to keep a paper trail.

Andy_L

Perhaps they didn't have that much in cash in the till?

frannyann

I am surprised that Richer, which deals in expensive goods, would not have £210 in cash in the till. I would expect to get my cash back, had I paid in cash. Currys did something similar to me at the weekend, as I decided to cancel an order due to the long wait for delivery and I'd paid half cash, half credit card (to make sure I had S75 cover! I remembered Martin ) They refunded all to my credit card, and claimed they 'couldn't' give me cash. I queried it and eventually the sales person who went and got a manager who found that they 'could' give me my cash back!

bitemebankers

They probably couldn't. Often in big stores the cash is removed from the tills frequently and put into a timelocked safe. Unless another customer had just paid in cash, the chances are they really wouldn't have that much cash in the tills.

Also, as Hintza says, they need a paper trail for accounting purposes. They satisfied the law by honouring the refund, so I can't really see where else you can take this one.

markybaby

A lot of retailers have rules on large cash refunds of say over £200. These are usually to stop money laundering or stop problems with counterfeit money. It is a pain as the vast majority of us are completely law abiding. If you are a retailer that is known to do large cash refunds though, you will be targeted by criminals.