The Importance of Good Records

I learned a lesson this week. And for once in my life, I didn’t learn it the hard way. It all started in the middle of August. I’ve posted before that my son is a NASCAR fanatic. He’s already talking about his NASCAR birthday party and being a NASCAR driver for Halloween.

I was browsing the NASCAR.com website, looking for a Halloween costume, when I found a Dale Earnhardt Jr. costume on clearance. Perfect! My son gets to be a NASCAR driver, and I get to bug my husband, because he’ll be dressed up as my favorite driver (Junior) and not my husband’s favorite driver (Jeff Gordon). I placed my order on my debit card (aren’t you proud of me?) and waited for it to arrive.

Two and a half weeks went by with no sign of the Junior costume. I called customer service, and they agreed that my package must be lost in the mail. The guy on the other end of the line was very helpful and told me he’d credit my account and then reorder for me. He told me to call customer service for a return shipping label, should both packages happen to arrive.

Three days after talking with customer service, the elusive first package arrived. Two days later, the second package arrived. I checked my bank records, and I had been charged for both costumes, but there was no credit on my account.

I called customer service again, and the lady on the line assured me that I would get credited as soon as they received the return. Makes me wonder what they would have done, had I not received it, but I let it slide. She told me I’d have a return shipping label within 24 hours. 24 hours later, there was no return label.

I called customer service a third time, and the guy I talked to told me that shipping labels can take up to 48 hours to process. Sure enough, later that day I had a shipping label in my email inbox. Now the package is labeled and ready to be dropped off at UPS. I’ll be watching my bank records like a hawk to make sure I get credited.

I’ve learned a couple of things from this experience. First, I need to keep good records. Fortunately for me, I don’t delete my emails, so I had records of my purchases. Dates and purchase numbers are very important. It would have been even better if I had taken down the customer service agents’ names.

Second, I need to check my bank records frequently. If I hadn’t been watching for the refund, chances are I never would have realized it didn’t get credited to my account. Since this was a small transaction, I probably wouldn’t have bounced a check, but I still would have been out $16 dollars. If it had been a large amount, assuming the money was in my account could have been a financial nightmare.

Third, NASCAR.com really needs to train their customer service agents better. I got three different stories from three different agents. Does anyone else see anything wrong with that picture?