| About InfoWorld : Advertise : Subscribe : Contact Us : Awards : Events : Store |
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
||||
|
|
|
||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 COLUMN
Delayed refunds walk a thin ethical line I'm going to go out on a limb here and continue my argument that there are -- in the grand scheme of things -- e-commerce practices that cost me more than spam. When I first raised the spam issue some months ago, I was pounded by the anti-spam activists, but I'm game to try it again.
On the other hand, there are practices that are costing me money. Real money; money that comes right out of my pocket and goes into someone else's. And if we could eliminate the practice, I'd see a clear and immediate gain. I'm talking about companies -- most of which operate online -- that are quick to charge my credit card when I make a purchase or when they misapply a fee to my account, but are painfully slow to remove the charge if I should cancel the purchase or show them the error of their ways. A case in point: Last summer I moved and cancelled my DSL service. My service provider, however, continued to charge my account. I complained, and the company said it would credit the charge back to my card. When it didn't appear, I called again and was informed it would take "two to three billing cycles." "Billing cycles" is another way of saying "months," but doesn't sound quite so daunting. That was strange. This is a telecommunications giant. Presumably the company has lots of computers and programmers. I couldn't imagine why it would take 60 days to 90 days to reverse a charge they were able to make without even thinking about it. Unless, of course, they didn't want to. Another case in point: Just recently, I bought a ticket online at my favorite airline. Unfortunately, the travel date was in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and I had to cancel the flight. The company promised me a full refund and said it would credit the charge back to my card. I waited patiently, figuring there was enough turmoil, and I wanted to be fair. After five weeks, I called to inquire about my refund. Again, two to three billing cycles would be necessary. This time the customer service person was at least honest and admitted that this was one of the biggest complaints they get: quick to bill and painfully slow to refund. As I write this, we have passed the two-billing cycle point and are well into the third. Now this is an airline with a Web site that will let you see everything, including where any given flight is -- superimposed on a map of the United States -- in real time. But it takes 60 days to 90 days to credit my card. Again, I have to wonder if this airline really wants to do the crediting. I could imagine all sorts of technological reasons why companies don't speed up the refund process, but I am a firm believer in the advice of the 14th century philosopher and theologian William of Occam to go with the simplest explanation that satisfies the phenomena. In this case, I suspect the simplest explanation is "interest." All the time that these businesses have my money in their account instead of mine, they are collecting interest and I am paying it, if I have borrowed the money, and losing it if I had to take it out of my bank account. Either way, they gain and I lose. At least with a brick-and-mortar merchant you can go to the store, ask for the credit, and see it processed it on the spot. When you leave the store, you have the credit slip in your possession. It never ceases to amaze me when online merchants can't do the same thing. In all fairness I must report that in a recent dealing with Amazon, the company was very quick to credit a refund to my account -- within a matter of hours. So not every online merchant seems to have this problem. Is it unethical? Any time that someone takes money out of my pocket and puts it into theirs without benefiting me in any way, the burden is on them to show why it's not unethical. They may claim that there are technological or procedural problems that prevent them from doing things any faster, but I'm willing to bet that if the situation were reversed -- and they had to wait 60 days to 90 days to get their money -- they would find a solution pretty quickly. The money is only part of the problem. I'm also forced to devote a certain amount of time and energy keeping track of who owes me what and whether they actually refund the money. Three months is a long time, and my propensity to forget about it is inversely proportional to the amount. I probably won't forget the $250 from the airline, but I might let $39 from the ISP slip by. I resent being put in the position of having to chase these online merchants to get back what's rightfully mine. If anything stands in the way of vibrant e-commerce it's these sorts of practices -- especially from well-established companies. Do you have other e-commerce gripes? Share them with readers in our Ethics Matters forum at www.infoworld.com/forums/ethics. You can write to me at ethics_matters@infoworld.com. Carlton Vogt is the senior editor in charge of InfoWorld's e-mail newsletters. He holds graduate degrees in philosophy and theology, and has taught ethics at the college level. He also has an extensive background in technology journalism. Discuss this article in our online forums MORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
SPONSORED LINKS
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
