You get what you pay for right?
Well, sometimes that’s wrong. What if you paid extra for a specific product or delivery only to have the company come up short?
One buyer found herself in just that situation.
Redditor swinlikeaduck turned to the “Am I the A**hole” subReddit for judgement on a very rocky customer service experience.
She asked:
“AITA for requesting a refund?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“Settle the debate. My boyfriend thinks I’m a mini Karen.”
”We’ve been doing our house up for a year. It was a massive project that we knew we wanted to do and want to continue buying houses and then doing them up and selling them.”
“We were waiting on a delivery for gravel as we’ve just redone the driveway. We booked and paid for a specific day for the delivery to come. My boyfriend took the day off that specific date as it was several tonnes on gravel to shift.”
”I had to phone up on the day of the delivery to find out where the delivery was only to be told it wasn’t going to be there that day. The delivery was the following day but only half turned up so I had to phone up again to find out where it was, it was delivered on the 3rd day.”
”So here we are annoyed that boyfriend has had to take 2 extra days off work and to find out we haven’t enough. So we need to order more. It’s a very specific gravel that you can only get a certain mix of at this one company.”
“I sent an email to the company with my complaint. Only for them to brush over it. And their customer service was absolutely appalling.”
“I order the next lot begrudgingly. We book and pay for a specific delivery date. The date comes and goes. The delivery is a week late.”
”But we haven’t been told this, the late delivery dates are found out by me contacting them, not them letting us know.”
“I’ve asked for a partial refund of the second delivery as we’ve had poor customer service twice now and late delivery dates both times. Resulting in boyfriend taking days off that he didn’t need too.”
“Boyfriend says I’m being a ‘Karen’ for asking for a refund but we didn’t get the service paid for? So am I the asshole for wanting and requesting a refund?”
The OP asked Redditors to weigh in and rule:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors ruled she was NTA.
“NTA, that is not a Karen move at all – you’ve paid for a specific service that has not occurred, you’ve been let down, you’ve had massively underpar customer service.”
”Also, if you and BF wish to make a career of this, he needs to let go of his outlook – stuff like this will set you back, and you need to get on top of it appropriately.”~doodles2019
“Your bf is a carpet 🙄🙄. He would gladly get stepped on and never say a word. NTA. Demand a refund. Give them an honest review on social media.”~TrillDr1
“NTA— Karen is definitely a term that gets thrown around divorced from its original meaning. You were justified to ask for a partial refund, and if you and your boyfriend continue to flip houses together the cost of labor and time will only grow with each house you flip dealing with this company.”
”You say this is the only company you can get this type of gravel from, but it might be worth looking further away for a reliable supplier (and leaving an anonymous public review without identifying details to warn customers).”~Beautiful-Outside646
”NTA. That is poor service. Time is literally money and it was lost due to this delay. Not only that, they didn’t apologize, or notify ahead that it was going to be late. You had to get it out of them. So I’d be mad and ask for a refund and take my business elsewhere.”~Illustrious_Device70
“NTA – BUT, I think you will find dealing with construction and construction-adjacent industries is far different than dealing with retail.”
“Companies like that one live and die with their commercial contractors/General contractors. You, as an off the street client are decidedly a secondary concern. They will ignore you for weeks to keep their real repeat customers (GCs and other businesses) happy. You are just a couple of one-offs.”
“I know that’s not right and you ARE JUSTIFIED in complaining to them. I don’t think you have a snowball’s chance in hell at getting a refund, but you are NTA for asking and letting your anger be known. The above information is more about helping you set expectations.”~gedvondur
“NTA, that’s dreadful service and I think you’re absolutely right to complain. At the end of the day they’re costing you through your boyfriend having to take multiple days off.”
“My rule of thumb is I don’t mind if companies make mistakes, it’s how they handle those mistakes that determines whether I complain. They handled it dreadfully.”~AccordingTelevison6
“Nta- and not a Karen! They’ve cost you more than the price of the product and you deserve some compensation. Though I feel that how you go about getting this refund is what could possibly make you a ‘Karen.’”
”Many people don’t realize that you can be both assertive and polite! I have not seen the email but if you’ve handled this tactfully then you should not be worried about being Karenified in all this.”~limerent_disaster
“If I get the wrong order at Subway, and it’s something I can still eat, I don’t make a fuss. But if I had to take several extra days off work due to a missed delivery, I would be raising hell. NTA.”~Yakostovian
Just because a woman voices a negative experience with a company or provider does not make her petty or vindictive.
Women deserve to be heard and be assertive too.