Is it Extortion? You bet it is.

I've been having a little customer service fun with a rather prickly customer over the past couple of days who placed an order for a few figures last week, and then waited a couple of days after we shipped it to write in and tell us he felt like we should have applied the Octoberfest 10% coupon to it because he feels he's been a good customer in the past. No mention of any discount was made on the order or via e-mail prior to us shipping it.

At the time he placed the order our Octoberfest offer had been over for more than a week. I mentioned that his order did qualify for his recurring customer coupon (which he didn't use), and went ahead and applied his 5% coupon, but we had to credit him for the amount since the order had already been shipped and closed. He then got REALLY MAD and said he was well aware of those coupons, but did not use it because he expected a larger discount. I looked up his customer history notes and showed he has done this two other times in the past. He threatened to return the order if we didn't grant him the 10% discount, which boils down to about $20 bucks over what we already credited him.

I told him to return it.

He said a lot more than that actually, most of it pretty nasty, but I'm not going to waste time posting it here. I gotta tell you folks I'm pretty easy going when it comes to these sorts of things and will pretty much bend over backwards for any of our customers, but as soon as you start calling me names it's all over.

So the only thing I'm going to say here is that placing an order, letting us fill it, and then holding it hostage threatening to return it or charge it back if we don't grant you a big discount (i.e. refund) after the fact in an amount that is not currently being offered to anyone else is, well, a good way to get banned from the store for life.

Ya got that - Jack?

Boy, I'm glad it's Friday. :-)