Draft, in the event it becomes necessary or otherwise useful in future
Background added at the demand of my Lâg guitar dealer.
I had returned the Lag guitar one week after I’d bought it, wanting a refund, which the Lag dealer refused to provide. When I asked why he couldn’t give me one, he pointed to my barely legible receipt and the “no refunds” printed on it that I had not noticed earlier. When I said it seemed unreasonable to advise a customer like that without having said anything before taking his money, he replied with a rationale that basically went something like this :
Quebec law gives him the right to refuse a customer request for a refund.
the law is something everyone, especially consumers, should know, and would know if they took the trouble to find/learn it,
so the question of how, when, or even whether or not, he chooses to mention his refund policy to a customer is irrelevant, because if the customer didn’t know the law when they came into his store in the first place, it’s their own fault for having neglected to find it out on their own.
At that point, I decided it best for my own sanity not to pursue that particular line of conversation.
In any case, as he went on to explain, the law entitled him to offer alternatives to a refund, which he subsequently did, but none of which were reasonable under the circumstances:
Replacement with another Lâg guitar. To my mind, this was too high risk an alternative. With 40 years education and experience in mechanical engineering, I know a possible systemic defect when I see one, so no way was I going to accept a substitute guitar in lieu of a refund.
Repair. This seemed to me an astonishingly complicated, impractical, and inadequate proposal in lieu of a simple refund, particularly given the shocking amount of repair required. If I had wanted such a patched-up Lâg guitar, I would have looked to Facebook Marketplace rather than pay full MSRP. Moreover, I didn’t purchase a new Lâg guitar expecting to wait some indeterminate time while some technician of indeterminate skill completed an extensive repair of indeterminate quality; I purchased it expecting to take it home and enjoy it.
Full store credit. In general, I find the “store credit” to be an altogether extortive practice, and even more so in this case. I purchased the guitar as a result of Lâg’s great success in marketing their guitars as high value for dollar instruments; the dealer had no other guitar to offer that met my needs and budget. The sole purpose of a store credit is to hold the customer captive, in this case with the intent of eventually forcing me to buy a guitar I either didn’t really want, or couldn’t really afford, or both.
I had argued those three points then and there, though of course not as articulately as presented above: I was still reeling from the initial discussion on the “no refunds” notification, which hadn’t left me in the best state of mind for calm, clear and comprehensive expression of my thoughts.
In the end, I decided I had no choice but to accept a store credit, and to use it is as best I could. I noticed he carried Yamaha guitars. In my research I had come across reviews of the Yamaha LL-16-12 A.R.E. 12-string, which looked very interesting, but which I had decided against because it was 40% above the budget I’d set for myself. At this point though, it looked like the best option for making use of my money that the dealer was holding in his hands. He did not have that particular model in stock, but would order one for me to try out.
Unfortunately (at the time, but fortunately in retrospect) the LL-16-12 option did not work out, as explained in my April 3 email to the dealer.
As to the main point is his demand, i.e. that I had decided on my own to keep the guitar:...
I think that decision of mine is sufficiently explained in my first April 7 email to him. His reply to that was to say that
a) “in the worst case” [whatever that was supposed t mean], he’d give me a refund, and
b) if I wanted to keep the guitar, he would handle the repair himself [whatever that was supposed to mean].
Anyway, regardless of what he meant by any of that , the fact was that the offer had come too late: I had already incurred additional costs - in fact exceeding that of the Lâg guitar - in manhours and expenses getting this website project started.
Of course, I wouldn’t expect any of you to simply take my word on any of that - you haven’t really gotten to know me yet - so I’ve created a new Correspondence page so that you can decide for yourselves how it all went down.
- - - End of dealer-demanded background explanation - - -
So what do you think? … “The customer is always right” ? …or… “Once you’ve got your hands on the customer’s money, never ever let go.”
Like I said earlier, totally screwed.