I've said it before and I'll say it again. A FLAT TIRE IS NOT A GOOD REASON TO RETURN A BICYCLE. Apparently, the idiots who purchase bicycles at the world's largest importer of cheap foreign-made disposable crap don't understand the simple fact that BICYCLES DO GET FLATS. DUH!
So this 300-pound man comes up to Customer Service rolling a bike with a flat back tire. I'm only shocked the bike wasn't totally destroyed. And he's only had it a day.
Dude, a flat tire IS NOT a defect. Where did you ride? What did you ride it over? Did you even bother to check that the proper pressure was in the tires? Were you riding on the sidewalk or trail riding? Did you ever stop to think that THIS WON'T BE THE FIRST FLAT TIRE? Nor the last? Dude, owning a bike is WORK. If you want to pack it in now, you need to just give it up and get a Segway.
Anyway. He wants to return it. I inform him of the impossibility of that situation. He escalates to aggression and turns red and a vein pops out on his forehead. Maybe the doctor told him to take up exercise. He certainly has blood pressure issues. Maybe a nice walking regimen would fit him better -- or skeet shooting.
I quietly repeat our policy. No returns on bicycles. Repair only. "What do you mean you won't take it back? I bought it and it's no good."
"No sir. It has a flat tire. Like I said, we'll fix that. But we're not taking it back."
"I want a manager. Right now." Like I said. Issues.
The manager comes up. Looks at the bike, and says "Looks like you've got a flat tire. We'll get that fixed for you. You want to have a seat?" He wheels the bike away and back to the assembly area before the irate fool even manages to start spouting. Classic.
Twenty minutes later, the guy has a working bike. He's really not happy about that, but he's got literally no ground to stand on. I can only assume that he was having second thoughts about purchasing a bicycle. The bike is rolling now. So he rolls too.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
For it being against policy to return bikes, I sure do end up with a bunch of obviously dirty, used, abused, returned bikes on my bike rack. Tonight the front tire *fell off* one of these bikes while it was sitting in the rack. It's a damn good thing it was on the floor-level rack, cause if that'd happened on an elevated rack and someone had been standing under it, not only would we have a(nother) lawsuit to contend with, I'd probably have had the blame placed on me for it. I've gotta find another job if they won't let me move to Claims...
Fat guys should shoot trap. There's much less torso twisting. Especially since there's only one clay to shoot, not two at time, going in opposite directions...
/avid shooter
//working towards getting to where I feel competition-ready
Wow, *that* is a well-trained manager!
300lb guy, flat tire on a Wal-Mart bike...I'm guessing there's a strong probability for correlation there.
Is the 'no bike return' policy a store choice? Curious because our store takes them back. If they have scratches we just give the customer that lovely 10%. I'd love to be able to tell some of the customers that I can't return the bike they bought because their kid is too fat and bent the training wheels, or no you can't return that 10 speed you bought for a 5 year old.
fun stuff.
The corporate return policy says absolutely nothing about bicycles, so it is obviously a store policy. However, I don't disagree with it after the headache we go through at my store with bicycles.
"but he's got literally no ground to stand on"...at 300 pounds, I'd say he literally also has no seat to sit on!
Post a Comment