Carphone Warehouse - 8 Days to Refund £500!

[dannyoconnor430]

I am still sane whilst I right this so please bare with me. I went into Carphone Warehouse to purchase a new iPhone 4 to use with my existing Vodafone contract on Saturday. After parting with £510 and waiting for them to register a micro sim, I was then informed that micro sim was broken and as such they would need to refund me and cancel the transaction. After some messing around I was then told their computer had frozen and they wouldn't be able to do the credit in store, and they phoned their support line up and did it over the phone. This is where it went wrong. I was informed that it would take 2 working days to get back into my account - despite it only taking them 3 seconds to remove it. They also couldn't give me any paperwork to prove a credit had been done - luckily I made them hand write out a note to that effect on letter headed paper. During this time none of the 3 guys in the shop actually seemed to put out by the fact they had removed £500 from my account and failed to put it back! So unwhittingly I left and awaited my credit. Tuesday passed and no sign of it. So phoned the shop and was told there had been a mistake and it would take 8 days...fuming. Shop are now telling me to deal with the Customer Services and they are telling me to deal with the shop. Does anybody else think this is simply wrong?

[silverfox1961]

Thread moved to telecoms forum

 

Hi and welcome to CAG. Hopefully the guys will be along shortly

[locutus]

OK not a telecoms issue really, more an inept cashier and the way credit / debit cards work. The funds don't really leave your bank instantly, they're just marked as a transaction of £xxx going through so they "Earmark" the funds so you cannot inadvertently spend the cash again. The funds actually leave within 2 or 3 days. So, once the cashier closed your transaction, they couldn't cancel the earmark, so they then had to wait to take your cash before they refunded it. Absolutely ridiculous! They should've dipped into the till and paid you the cash, and then when they got your cash from the card you'd be all square... common sense seems so... um uncommon