Is Boots UK a pain when it comes to refunds/returns?

Dragonflew1010

Earlier this year, i tried to refund an item from the 3 for 2 offer. The cashier was young and seemed new but she said she processed the refund and the manager did come to check the product. However, since it’s part of the 3 for 2 i was refunded £0 instead of £10 despite it being one of the more expensive of the 3. Wasn’t told this when returning. In hindsight i should’ve got a receipt or returned it all together perhaps.

Now, i didn’t collect an order in time and they didnt even return an item that was part of the order! So i’ve lost £16.50. 

Watch out when you are returning to Boots, they are a mess when it comes to anything online it seems. A shame as they have good deals.

eskbanker

Dragonflew1010 said:

Earlier this year, i tried to refund an item from the 3 for 2 offer. The cashier was young and seemed new but she said she processed the refund and the manager did come to check the product. However, since it’s part of the 3 for 2 i was refunded £0 instead of £10 despite it being one of the more expensive of the 3. Wasn’t told this when returning. In hindsight i should’ve got a receipt or returned it all together perhaps.

Yes, it's unsurprising that you won't get a refund of the full item price when returning one of a 3 for 2 deal, in that the basket price will be recalculated as if you'd just bought the other two items.

Dragonflew1010 said:

Now, i didn’t collect an order in time and they didnt even return an item that was part of the order! So i’ve lost £16.50. 

When you say they didn't 'return' an item, do you mean that they didn't refund one of the items on a cancelled order?  How have they responded when you've pointed this out to them?

MyRealNameToo

Dragonflew1010 said:

Earlier this year, i tried to refund an item from the 3 for 2 offer. The cashier was young and seemed new but she said she processed the refund and the manager did come to check the product. However, since it’s part of the 3 for 2 i was refunded £0 instead of £10 despite it being one of the more expensive of the 3. Wasn’t told this when returning. In hindsight i should’ve got a receipt or returned it all together perhaps.

Now, i didn’t collect an order in time and they didnt even return an item that was part of the order! So i’ve lost £16.50. 

Watch out when you are returning to Boots, they are a mess when it comes to anything online it seems. A shame as they have good deals.

Would help if you gave the prices of the individual items...

If you bought three items for £5, £7.50 and £10 you would have originally paid £17.50 

In principle if you were to return the £7.50 item you should therefore have paid £15 and so should be refunded the £2.50. You clearly dont get the £7.50 back 

Crossing between in store and online can be complex. In an ideal world you would have a single system running everything and everyone having access to all of them but thats not the reality. Many companies had a series of systems in place and when expanding to online or store etc they didnt take on the cost of replacing everything but got something new and created some tools to try and span the gap to varying levels of success. 

saajan_12

Dragonflew1010 said:

Earlier this year, i tried to refund an item from the 3 for 2 offer. The cashier was young and seemed new but she said she processed the refund and the manager did come to check the product. However, since it’s part of the 3 for 2 i was refunded £0 instead of £10 despite it being one of the more expensive of the 3. Wasn’t told this when returning. In hindsight i should’ve got a receipt or returned it all together perhaps.

Now, i didn’t collect an order in time and they didnt even return an item that was part of the order! So i’ve lost £16.50. 

Watch out when you are returning to Boots, they are a mess when it comes to anything online it seems. A shame as they have good deals.

What do you mean by you weren't told sounds like it was an in person return so presumably you saw they didn't hand you any cash or the card machine said £0.00 refund when you inserted/tapped. So could have queried it then, and decided whether to keep the item or return everything. 

What are the prices of the items - it wouldn't be the full price, as otherwise you effectively bought 2 for the price of 1 which wasn't the deal. 

Okell

@Dragonflew1010

As others have said it would help confirm whether you've been refunded less than you should have been if you gave some details

eg

1.  what were the individual prices of the three items you bought?

2.  what total did you pay on the 3 for 2 offer?

3.  which item did you return?

4.  what were you actually refunded?

And what does this mean:  "Now, i didn’t collect an order in time and they didnt even return an item that was part of the order! So i’ve lost £16.50"?

Dragonflew1010

Sorry for leaving this for so long, but to update i've got the refund for the Olay total effects shown on the screenshot. But no reason as to why it wasn't refunded in the first place (i didn't collect it)

But they still won't budge on the 3 for 2 offer refund, and didn't really listen to what i had said. They just sent basically a script response, and won't let me escalate it. 


As you can see, i bought 3 products in the offer. 2 worth £10, the other worth slightly more. I was told i would be refunded so i assumed i would be at least refunded pro rata but they never told me i would be refunded £0. And they took the product back.

Their refund policy states "3 for 2 items can be returned individually but will be refunded based on the promotional price paid" which is pro rata right?

eskbanker

I don't know about anyone else reading this but am still struggling to follow the numbers, given the way they're presented, without obvious correlation between the narrative and the screenshots, so it really would help to answer the questions about the exact individual prices that constituted the 3 for 2 offer, what you paid in total, what you were refunded, and what you expected to be refunded?

boobyd

Are you talking about two different orders ,the first being.

"Earlier this year, i tried to refund an item from the 3 for 2 offer. The cashier was young and seemed new but she said she processed the refund and the manager did come to check the product. However, since it’s part of the 3 for 2 i was refunded £0 instead of £10 despite it being one of the more expensive of the 3. Wasn’t told this when returning. In hindsight i should’ve got a receipt or returned it all together perhaps."
Multibuys generally is cheapest free so return all 3 and then repurchase.

Then you did a click and collect/online order that you haven't collected within in a timescale and this hasn't then been refunded?

mta999

The receipt shows you paid for two items at £10 and one item at 11.39. Cheapest free so you should have paid £21.39

Assuming you then returned one of the £10 items then the three for two offer does not apply so you should pay £10 for the other cheap item plus £11.39 for the other ie £21.39 so no refund

If on the other hand you returned the £11.39 one you are due a refund of £1.39

pinkshoes

Dragonflew1010 said:

Their refund policy states "3 for 2 items can be returned individually but will be refunded based on the promotional price paid" which is pro rata right?

 The promotional price is paid is 3 for 2, so if you are returning one of the three items, you have only then purchased two items so no longer qualify for the 3 for 2 offer. Therefore the price you owe is the price of the other two unreturned items, and you have essentially returned the FREE item, hence your refund is £0.

Otherwise people could just buy three then return the item they didn't need for a third off the other two. They would then have to call it 1/3 off not a 3 for 2 offer!

Shops do pro-rata the refund but only when them item is returned for being faulty and there is no replacement available, so you pay 67% of the price of the remaining two items.


The person at the till probably should have explained to you that you would get zero refund and were better off keeping it. I would perhaps email them and say that this wasn't explained clearly at the till, and that had you known you were essentially returning a free item then you would have kept it, then as a good will gesture perhaps they could give you back the item you returned.

Dragonflew1010

eskbanker said:

I don't know about anyone else reading this but am still struggling to follow the numbers, given the way they're presented, without obvious correlation between the narrative and the screenshots, so it really would help to answer the questions about the exact individual prices that constituted the 3 for 2 offer, what you paid in total, what you were refunded, and what you expected to be refunded?

Sorry hopefully this makes sense now. This is about the 3 for 2 issue: 


Took me too long to work out the breakdown of the whole thing (where the savings / points / subtotals came from). The boots receipt is not very easy to understand with all the points, coupons discounts mish mash but thankfully it makes sense at last.

The prices of the 3 items were £10, £10 and £11.39. I would've paid £21.39 (since one of the £10 was shown on the receipt as £0.00). I've left out the discounts as they are exclusive of the 3 for 2 offer and wouldn't apply for a "free item" obviously but if it were pro-rata i'd have expected £5.40 (after 1/3 off and discounts). I wasn't refunded anything at first since it was "free" despite me telling them multiple times that the staff took the item. But they offered a £3.33 goodwill refund since then. 

Ultimately, this seems to be all down to a staff error in-store but i guess i can only be cautious about returns and refunds next time, and 3 for 2 offers of course.