9. Refund

I work at a furniture in Customer Service. On a daily basis we have customers come in with items that have been used, broken, old, without their receipt, some even not Ikea products and they are DEMANDING a refund. But the couple that really takes the cake tried to return to me a broken and rusty ironing board. It was obviously used and without a receipt I’m limited with my options.

We can only offer store credit if the item can be returned to stock in original packaging. Obviously, it wasn’t. With a receipt you have 90 days to return your item in any condition. After I refused the return they asked for my manager. My manager offered to look up their receipt, couldn’t find it so we couldn’t take it back. They then asked for her manager. Every time they got a ‘no’ they asked for the manager above. Eventually it got to our store manager. He came on down to the belligerent couple who were causing a scene because our customer service was apparently SO poor.

After inspecting the item and removing their iron cover (which none of us did before, the item was that appalling we really didn’t want to touch it) he finds the date stamp. It was from 2002. The couple got real silent because the entire time they said they’ve had it for less than 3 months. Our store manager said in the calmest voice I have ever heard in my life, ‘I think it’s about time you leave my store’.