My wife bought a toy for our daughter for about $40 from the Australian Geographic shop in Toowoomba. We saved it for several weeks before giving it to her only to find that it wouldn’t charge, no matter how carefully we followed and re-followed the instructions.
Unfortunately, my wife didn’t still have the receipt and when she took it back the store manager refused to consider any compensation (refund or store credit). She had paid cash so there is no credit card record either.
Is there any hope of pressing the issue without a receipt when the product is obviously from the store (though not an “Australian Geographic” branded product)?
I had a similar situation recently with something I bought from Supercheap and the manager was happy to refund the purchase price because he accepted I had bought it from his shop and it was faulty.
(We are both generally better at keeping receipts!)
@Gamekeeper You know I can’t work some of these retail businesses out . Ok to the letter of the law you should have a receipt when you return a defective purchase . What I can 't see about this concerning the " rabbits " that obviously run the Australian Geographic shop is the amount of advertising that $40 would have gotten them . As @phb points out in his post if you can remember the date of purchase and rough time the transaction occurred it may show up on the in store software regarding purchasers for that day . Here’s hoping that is the case and I echo @phb in wishing you good luck with this matter .
Imagine if they had given you back the $40 and you had posted the wonderful service you had been given from them and recommend them to other forum users . That is priceless on a forum like this . Especially one that comes under the banner of Choice ,a respected consumer advocate that appears on the nightly news advising the Government . It honestly leaves me cold the fact that some of these businesses don’t seem to have any lateral thinking ability re marketing and repeat business and as you proved by mentioning Supercheap Auto there are some out there that obviously do . I’m heading up to Toowooba shortly and I know there is one business I will be crossing off my list of where to shop . /
Hope you get to read this Australian Geographic Shop at Toowoomba . Your business acumen is zero .
It is possible to contact AG online…AG Contact webpage. It may be worth taking this path if the store is unresponsive. Give summary of first contact, your disappointment and your concerns about the dud toy in any future contact.
If the product is unique to AG, then I would be asking for a replacement item rather than refund, if you don’t have the receipt.
Do you still have the packaging as sometimes this has date of manufacture or despatch information which can also contain dates…such will indicate that you have bought the toy after this date. Notwithstanding this, if the toy is obviously new (has no wear and tear), then it will be obvious that the product was faulty on purchase.
Try mentioning the above when making next contact. Attach photos if you can of the toy and packaging…packaging on a small toy is not often kept and usually means it has just been opened.
If you also know the exact date and approximate time of the purchase, it is likely that their purchasing system software will be also searched to match and verify the purchase. Ask if they can also do this when making contact.
Good luck.
Thank you phbriggs2000 and vax2000 for your helpful comments. I appreciate your input.
As a next step, I have referred our conversation as a link to Australian Geographic through their “Contact Us” function on their web site.
I’ll let you know if/when/how they respond.
All these stores were destined for closure last year until Myer Family Investments sold the lot off to the Co-Op because they couldn’t make any money from them …
It’s more about weather it was stolen or not. It’s an old ploy by unscrupulous customers swiping something and then claiming they lost the receipt. And no you cannot tell by looking at a customer if they are honest or not. The team at Super Cheap Auto may just have known you as regular customers so did the refund any way. They also have a great rewards system whereby you don’t need your receipt to get a refund they can look it up if you are a Club Plus member. I would imagine having been in The National Geographic stores that they have a huge theft rate so they may well have put their foot down if that’s the case.
I’m pleased to say that the National Geographic customer care service responded to my referral to this discussion. They were very keen to resolve it.
We have received a store credit; however, the local store manager was not impressed!
Good result and hope you are pleased with the outcome!
