Customer lying and trying to get a refund.

[Car_Wash_Guy]

It's only $12, but it's the principle and the thought that they probably do it often.

Lady said wash shut down. Ran fine and went through the dryer clean.
Lady said she always frequents my wash. Only one CC transaction with her name ( I guess she could've paid cash but doubt it).
Says she stopped and rang bell for attendant. Went right out the wash and exited the property.

All is on crystal clear surveillance footage.

Should I even bother?

 

[D3Dubs]

Suggest providing a repeat wash vs refund.

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

Suggest providing a repeat wash vs refund.

Says she lives 3.5 hours away

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

Lives 3.5 hours away but frequently visits. I don’t even know if I would respond.

 

[BBE]

Why wouldn't you just explain that you watched the video of her wash and that you can assure her that everything functioned properly, and that she got her full wash, there was no shut down. Sometimes if people get a different package than they normally get or just flat out aren't paying attention they will think the wash is incomplete and they missed something.

 

[pgrzes]

I have rarely ever give a cash refund, I will always give anything else to people no questions asked. Vacuum problems, pull up to the vac, drop a couple tokens in and hand them the hose! Bay gave you a problem pull in and lets see, turn on and hand them the gun, a vendor failed? What flavor freshener was it? Or for call ins I will email a wash code, or catch me next visit and we will take care of you. Old owner was in business for 40 years and warned of giving out cash, once you start it will never end. Tokens are a great response for me very few problems, and the ones that cause them are the ones you usually dont want around. In my view anyway.

 

[Randy]

If after reviewing the video and doing my internal investigation and finding no fault of the car wash or the equipment I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of a return phone much less a refund. I get a call occasionally that they lost money in the changer, if there is no problem on the video and the changer count is correct then I won’t give them a call back.

 

[MEP001]

I won't give a liar a second of my time beyond telling them that an attempt to gain an undeserved refund is the same as shoplifting and is a jailable offense.

 

[DiamondWash]

Tell her to Go Pound Sand, it's unbelievable some of the crap some customers think they can get away with. Just today I almost lost my soft touch IBA to a customer with a vehicle wider than the guide rails he goes to tell me he's been coming here for the past 6 months and never had a problem after I thought about it I should of just let him go through to prove him wrong.

 

[chaz]

We’ve all hear the saying...”the customer is always right”. I try to head that slogan as much as possible. Typically not giving cash, but simply starting the bay or vac or mailing a prepaid card. My thinking is simply that if someone is going to bother calling over a buck or two they did have an issue or it’s simply not worth arguing. I always get an alert when someone calls the wash and all calls are returned.

Yesterday a customer starts yelling at me that he lost $5 at my wash last Wednesday and I never called him back. Turns out he called but chose not to leave a message. He wants me to watch the video to confirm he lost $. I said I’m not in habit of watching cameras to determine if someone lost $...but I certainly would take care of him...just wanted a bit of detail as to bay and issue. He got mad, said I’ll never come back and drove off. Darn!

 

[Earl Weiss]

We’ve all hear the saying...”the customer is always right”. !

Said by some idiot who never dealt with the general public.

 

[MEP001]

We’ve all hear the saying...”the customer is always right”.

When someone being unreasonable says that to me, I replay "That's right, but you're now fired as a customer and no longer welcome here. Leave now or I'll have you arrested for criminal trespass." They usually don't know they can't just be arrested, but they get a CTW anyway if I can get the cops there in time.

Said by some idiot who never dealt with the general public.

I was at a convenience store a couple weeks ago and overheard some dumb kid telling the clerk "It's legal tender, you have to take it!" He was buying $5 of gas with pennies, nickels and dimes, and he just dumped it on the counter. They were even going to take it if he separated it out but he refused so they told him to leave.

 

[Kevin James]

Over the years we've seen them all. It's the nature of the car wash industry, every scum bag seems to find there way to the local car wash thinking they are an easy mark. We NEVER give a cash refund.

 

[DavidM]

If the customer has left the site, we refund cash every time. If it is an automatic bay, we also include a free wash coupon. If it is a SS bay or vac, we include tokens along with the refund. If the customer is still onsite, we start the equipment up for them and often give them a couple tokens or a free wash for next time as well.

Are there a few scammers? Probably, but satisfying the customers who had, or (believe they had) a legitimate problem brings in more than enough revenue to offset a rare scammer. We also have the names and addresses of customers that we sent money to, if we get repeats we dig a little deeper.

We want to encourage people to tell us when there is a problem, that way we can solve it as soon as possible so it doesn't affect other customers.

David

 

[MEP001]

If the customer has left the site, we refund cash every time. If it is an automatic bay, we also include a free wash coupon. If it is a SS bay or vac, we include tokens along with the refund. If the customer is still onsite, we start the equipment up for them and often give them a couple tokens or a free wash for next time as well.

Are there a few scammers? Probably, but satisfying the customers who had, or (believe they had) a legitimate problem brings in more than enough revenue to offset a rare scammer. We also have the names and addresses of customers that we sent money to, if we get repeats we dig a little deeper.

We want to encourage people to tell us when there is a problem, that way we can solve it as soon as possible so it doesn't affect other customers.

David

That's all well and good, and I agree if there's even a whiff of legitimacy behind a refund request I do everything I can to make the customer happy. When they're clearly full of BS I won't hesitate to threaten them with a criminal charge, and I won't encourage the deadbeats to spread the word that I'm an easy mark, and trust me they will do that too.