Restaurant.com

From: Travis Wiebe
To: Christina Catalan
Sent: Fri, December 17, 2010 3:33:48 PM
Subject: Re: Purchase was not what I thought it was.


Hi Cristina,

I appreciate your response.  I do remember the box that you are referring to.  I didn't think to click it, but after the fact I wish that I had.  I will say that hiding restriction in a separate place from the actual purchase is not fully transparent.  I had literally had no idea until just after the purchase that there were any restriction.  The fact the restriction came up in full view RIGHT AFTER the purchase was final, means that they were an important aspect of the purchase.  Putting the burden on the buyer to find that out is deceptive.  Since you could tell me the restrictions, extremely clearly, after the purchase, you should have done the same before the purchase.  Now you have an unhappy customer with a story to tell about the negative experience they had with your firm; and I'm sure you don't want that.

Based on my earlier email you know that the purchase was gift and that immediately after the restrictions were fully disclosed to me, I asked that the transaction be reversed.  So, I am not interested in an exchange.

I sent my email requesting that the transaction be reversed immediately after the transaction took place, more than a week ago.  Your email below is the first contact I have received from your firm since that time.  Given the way the transaction took place and the lack of responsiveness that I perceived on the part of your firm, I was worried that I had "been taken in " by a fly-by-night internet scam.  Given my concern, I checked my credit card statement the next day, and sure enough, my request for a refund had been ignored and I had been charged for the transaction.  I immediately lodged a complaint with the credit card provider and asked that the charge be reserved for all the reason I stated in my original email.  Yesterday the credit card company sent me a note telling me that they concluded their investigation into the matter and determined my complaint was valid that they would issue a credit for the transaction on my next statement.

As you can probably tell, I am still pretty annoyed at the way I've been treated by your firm.   I have since talked to another customer of your firm who had very nice things to say about the way you conduct your business and told me about some of the great deals they had by using your service.  I can't say the same, but it's nice to now know that you are not a scam and this could all just be due to a poor (I hope not sneaky) design decision on your web page.  At this point I just want to encourage you to (1) Communicate restrictions clearly before transactions are completed (2) Make your refund process is transparent and easy for the user (3) Communicate in a more timely fashion with customer emails.  Finally, I want to be sure you don't do anything to keep me from getting my refund.  

If you to get more feedback from a disgruntled customer, feel free to give me a call my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Sincerely,
Travis Wiebe





From: Christina Catalan
To: Travis Wiebe
Sent: Fri, December 17, 2010 1:38:31 PM
Subject: RE: Purchase was not what I thought it was.


Hello,
I apologize for any inconvenience.   Before you checked out, there is a box that you do manually have to check. The website will not allow your order to go through until the box has been manually clicked. Next to this box it will state:
 I have read and agree to the applicable restaurant or merchant specific restrictions and the standard Restaurant.com certificate restrictions.
"Specific restrictions", and "Restaurant.com certificate restrictionsare links that you can click on to read the conditions of your purchase. By you clicking on the box and proceeding to check, you are telling Restaurant.com that you have read and agreed.
Terms and Conditions:
The special instructions that each restaurant does have also appear on the restaurant listing. Please keep in mind that if the restaurant has more then denomination, the minimum purchase will change. It will change when you click on the denomination that you pick.
We do have an exchange policy that will allow you to exchange your dining certificate at any time for a credit to Restaurant.com that can be redeemed for a new dining certificate of your choice. A Restaurant.com Customer Service Representative can issue you credit to Restaurant.com, in the form of a Restaurant.com gift certificate. If it was given as a gift, please also send me the email address that you would like the credit sent to, otherwise it will be sent to the original purchaser.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please email me so I may further assist you.
Thank you,
Christina Catalan
Customer Service Representative
800-979-8985
Please tell my boss how I am doing by emailing MyBoss@restaurant.com


From: Travis Wiebe [mailto:travis_y_wiebe@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 8:55 PM
To: RDC Help
Cc: Amy Wiebe
Subject: Purchase was not what I thought it was.
Please retract the purchase of gift certificate I just completed.  Once I realized that there were very specific restriction on the usage of these gift certificates, they became an undesirable gift for a family member.  Please reverse the transaction.

The transaction numbers are 37220420 and 37220423.  The restaurant is called the East Side Checker Club and it's in Pawtucket, RI.  The restrictions on the usage of the gift certificate were only made clear at the time of printing.  If they had been highlighted prior to your taking my payment information, I wouldn't have carried out the transaction.  Please contact me directly if you have any questions as to the intent of this email or you have any questions at all.  I appreciate your attention to this matter.