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Basically a new client has lied through their teeth and said they turned up for an appt on a saturday 2 weeks ago when they didn't. I spent 20 mins waiting outside the clinic gates just in case they were lost and rang them on the number they gave to contact them but no reply. I specifically emailed her with the code to get in the gate (that she was allegedly standing outside of for 45 mins) which she received but chose to ignore deciding that when she approached the gates they should open despite my email telling her to use the code.

She has said she waited outside the gates for 45 mins, rang and left messages (impossible as we don't have a message facility on our answerphone - it just gives opening times) and has sent several emails. I rang her office on the Monday after she didn't show and they said she had gone on holiday. Amazingly today is the first I have heard from her - presumably she has got back from holiday and received her bank statement which shows she has been charged for the appt. We always charge for the first one up front to ensure they turn up, and our correspondence to the client (which she acknowledged she received) clearly states that she has already paid as agreed when she made the booking and that there is no refund for a no show or cancellation within 24 hours. (unless we fill their slot obv)   

She is lying so she can make her appt again to come in and not have to pay. I detest liars and don't want to treat her but can't be botherered to argue with her - life is too short. I would prefer to refund her money and be done with her. Let her go to an inferior local clinic where the therapist is inexperienced and works from home with cats wandering in from the garden during the treatment.

Can I get away with sending her the following? I'm looking for suggestions as to how to be lovely to her while subtly insulting her at the same time. I'm obv not looking to get her business in the future but want to phrase this in such a way that I give her her money back, she gets what she wants and I get to tell her what a prize idiot she is.


Hi XXXX - well it gets stranger and stranger because had you been sat outside our gates for 45 minutes as you suggest we would definitely have seen each other.


The number you gave us was a different number from the one you've put on todays email. You gave us XXXX when you made your booking which obviously was not transferring to you. Not a lot I can do about that as it's the number you provided us with to contact you on but you were not contactable on that number on the day.


Our phone has a message on there advising of reception opening times but not the facility to leave a message so I don't know where you were ringing and how you left a message - some poor person is Aberdeen is probably still wondering why you were trying to get hold of them about a colonic appointment!

I've checked the bulk emails and can't find anything from you unfortunately. Very strange that this one managed to get through.

The gates do open automatically during the week but at times when they don't we prefer to let you know the gate code specifically in writing by email rather than publish it on a world wide website as that may be deemed a bit irresponsible but very helpful to burglars!!


You acknowledge that you did receive the email which specifically and clearly stated the gate code for acess, you read that information, you had been made aware that it was required but chose to ignore it.


I will be refunding your payment. I don't feel it would be fair to take payment from you as you were unable to act on the one instruction provided, I will be looking to simplify it to avoid this happening to other clients.

Thoughts?

Why are you refunding her anything?

Just say you prefer to deal with clients who act in a more professional manner and supply her with the details of the cat lady.

Or am I missing something?

Because however much I know she's lying it will always be a case of she said/I said. She has said (in her first email to me today before I had even responded) that she intends to go via her card company to get an enquiry and possible refund which automatically costs me as a retailer £60 whether her query stands up or not. I'm in a loose loose situation - bizarely I can't afford to keep her payment!

im in for £10 5 More blondes ??.. dont refund her plz, saying she is going to the C.C is a threat, and one she may know how much it cost..

Pun intentional??  ;carlocitrone;

I would send the email.....but no way would i refund her payment! If your terms & conditions are clear & you have kept all emails how can she complain?

Apologise, re-schedule the appointment, stick the tube up her arse and then...

To send her this email and refund her is a bad idea imo. She'll be happy with her refund no matter what you write and she will only be left with a bad opinion of you. Not good when she tells all her frends.

She knows she is in the wrong. Send her a nice and simple email saying refund no problem and recommending the cat lady. This way she gets to feel both guilty and rejected while you have been nice and kind  :)

yeah

business 1st


personal shit later

give her a credit note and shove it up the wrong hole ;)

The email looks fine to me but I would leave out the "poor person in Aberdeen" bit, also the last paragraph would sound better if you said something along the lines of ...I will refund your payment as I am fully booked for the for seeable future and am therefor unable to reschedule your appointment. I think she will get the message :-)

Life's too short Tracey, don't send it, just move on.

If you are not careful, these people become like a sponge, soaking up your life with their pithy moans & groans, & self-centred attitude.

Forget her, she's not worth the hassle. She's the loser, not you.

Don't refund, people lie to try to avoid paying for stuff if they can get away with it, accept it as a fact of life. If you end up with a £60 charge from the CC company so be it but don't give her the satisfaction of thinking she has won by refunding her.
Anyway you can't be that much out of pocket can you. How much does an out of hours appointment cost?

dear Tracey,

Ok, We sell loads of stuff on Ebay, hay, straw, nest building instructions etc, but we always get one customer who does not pay after winning an auction and causes trouble. We get people saying the goods never arrived, and we cannot prove we sent it even with recorded delivery as it takes 7 weeks to get a search done . So we always refund the money.Bad feed back cannot be challenged (easily)

We then strike the customer off our list of buyers so they can't do it again. Preserving our 100% positive feed back is worth a loss here an there.

I suggest say nothing , do not let her make another booking , ban her from your customer list, and refund only if you have too

Hope this helps

from The Crow

Sorry Tony but I dont agree.

Tracey has obviously worked hard to achieve where she is today and I admire that. She knows this woman is lying and not only that but she is trying to say that it was her fault for her not making the appointment.

Let the woman know that she is in the wrong, offer her a refund (if you have to) and hope she suffers big time with the next clinic/cat lady she books.

I agree 100% with para 2, but that's not my point.

The lady customer/knocker knows she's wrong, telling her will make no difference.

My point is, Tracey is a genuine & kindly soul, & engaging with low-lifes rarely results in anyone winning. Tracey would waste a whole bunch of negative energy on this half-wit woman, time which she could better spend without polluting herself & her mind by mixing with such time-wasters. Some folks just like to be difficult for difficult's sake, but they can't see past the end of their nose. You can't win an argument with an idiot.

It's just a waste of good time to argue with those who are intent on dodging their bills, & in the greater scheme of things, it's not cost-effective to engage with them. Karma always catches up with them.

But I agree, we'd all approach this differently.

Says the business man who started with nothing and built an empire??

I think age has mellowed you Tony...Happy Birthday X

Thanks Suzanne. Mellowed me? - nah, I'm more crusty & feisty these days than ever I was when I was in business!

I can assure you, I never built my "empire" (a very small Empire, I hastily add) by wasting time chasing lost causes. JNK taught me that - is this individual, or Client, likely to bring in long-term profit to my/Trace's business? No. So no point wasting time on them. We must preserve & focus our energies on where the profits will come from, not on lost causes. Arguing with idiots is lose-lose.

six months ago Iwould have said "fight fight fight". Because you know you are in the right.

now ? as Tony says, channel the energy you woud expend on the fight into something more constructive. Life really is too short to be spent fighting .


a wee story :
Me and my missus bought her a new car last november. a year later, turns out things arent as they should be, and we have been "missold" (dont want to go into details). I have evidence of lying by the sales manager, and my brief says "hey lets go to court and fight them".

Surprisingly I dont want the hassle. We would win, almost guaranteed. And the creep of a sales manager would lose his job. Six months ago I would have taken great delight in that. In fact a year ago I would probably have driven round there and "made him see the error of his ways" personally.

So I chalk it up to experience. We are a few quid down but so what.


you know, sometimes "turn the other cheek" isnt just for the Christians. Its actually not a bad way to live your life, whoever or whatever your god may be.

Okay fair enough I agree that it is no good chasing a lost cause but if Tracey lets this appointment/non payment pass by what does she do with the next one?

Does she let them all pass by or make a stance now?

Isnt this why all GP/Dentist now makes a charge for all missed appointments and rightly so IMO?

Good clients do pay if they miss an appt as they know how important it is top the life of the clinic to keep it going. I think what Tony is saying is that this 'client' will never fulfill a role within my busines of any value and those that do will always pay in any case.

I think I'll refund but let her know she's not an asset to my business by recomending her somewhere else.  ;D

Thanks all for your comments. x

Tracey.....rebook the appointment, apologise for the mix up and take great pleasure in making it a little bit more uncomfortable than it could have been :-)

That I like.

Laz said......

you know, sometimes "turn the other cheek" isnt just for the Christians. Its actually not a bad way to live your life, whoever or whatever your god may be.

Laz is my hero.

Rise above it and move on..............

I find not turning up for appointments v.annoying.  I work on an appointment booking system at work however as I am a paid employee if people come or not is of no consequence to me, still if a customer does not turn up without a message I wont book them an appointment until a convenient (for me) time, sometimes i refuse to see a customer at all unless they provide a valid reason.  The reason provided by this lady is far from valid.

When it comes to this situations although it pains me to say it if you will be financially worse off by not providing a refund (due to bank charge) i would just give her the money back.  She has a small victory but you have the greater victory that she lives a pathetic life that hinges on getting refunds through lying through her teeth!

Gl which ever option you choose.

This doesn't make sense to any sane person, but if it's cheaper to you to refund the money, than not, then obviously a refund is the way to go.   Presumably her payment was less than £60, but is it worth making the refund less a reasonable 'admin charge' , say £10 - £20 ?

I've worked in retail for far too long.  I used to work for a guy that would let people walk all over us, and I felt bad refunding money when it was blatently not our fault.  Later I worked for a guy whose policy was no refunds unless you died ( seriously - and in theory he expected the next of kin to show a death certificate ).

Both of these attitudes caused me more personal grief than the job is worth - it's the sort of thing that you take home with you and spend far too long thinking about.

So now I'm my own boss, I have in my T&C a simple thing that says no refunds except at my discretion.  Which means if someone is being a prat, I just refuse to budge - no explanations needed.  But if someone's nice to me, they get their money back in a jiffy.

BTW

The email.

I definately wouldn't send it.  Why bother arguing with a pain in the arse like her.  She knows shes wrong.  She knows you know shes wrong.  All you're doing by sending that is prolonging the situation.  Sort out the refund ( by cheque or by refunding to card ) - attach it too a comp slip, and just say ''As agreed''.

Then draw a line.

offer a credit note to her personally that way she can choose if she wants to rebook or not.

Both good ideas.

She knows she's lying.You know she's lying. I would not offer a refund., Just offer a credit note to rebook if she wishes.
Given the nature of you're business, if i was her I wouldn't be re-booking in a hurry!

Sound if you don't mind seeing her again, but sometimes it's best not to deal with them again. 

That's exactly what I would do too.  Quick email stating whilst it's not your normal practice, as a courtesy you will arrange a credit at your clinic for her which expires in 30 days.  I doubt she'll ever take you up on it and she can't complain because you've given her the option.

Someone in your line of work should NEVER EVER want to be in that situation ;)

your in a no win situation here, you will loose money if she takes action to recover the fee,do you really want her as a client, she has either bottled out or feeling a lot better.
you know she lied and she knows you know. so you dont have to prove anything to her. just act concerned for her health.
i would just refund her fee,sending her a email
sorry you where unable to attend your appointment,i have refunded your fee, if you are still not feeling 100%, i strongly advise you to see your doctor as soon as possible

I like this option

In my experience, rather than lose the money, people will take you up on the offer of a credit note.  Which is not a problem with a reasonable human being.  But from a personal viewpoint, if someone is a pain in the butt, and tries to get out of paying, they are just as likely to complain after the service/treatment on a total facticious complaint, and try to get a refund anyway.

A few years ago, a chap came into my shop with a sob story about a poorly friend of his who was so ill she could hardly move.   She needed some furniture made to a special size, but was so poor she couldn't afford the brand leader, who specialised in it.  I 'phoned 'round and found a middling manufacturer who was willing to do it as a personal favour to me.

The stuff got deliverered to a lady wearing strangley provocative clothes ( according to my drivers - who know a tart when they see one ), who proceeded to check every square inch of the covering fabric for flaws.  Because of the special size, the fabric was slightly oversize, which the manufacturer, instead of trimming, had folded back and stapled.  She snagged her finger on the staple, so the lads brought the goods back, the manufacturer put it right, and we delivered the now perfect goods back to the poor ill lass.

Long story short, she sued us for the cut she recieved and all the personal anguish we had put her through.  ( it is possible she might have drawn blood on the staple, but the lads didn't see any sign of it when they left ).  She expected a full refund of her money, but expected us to leave her the goods, because they were no use to us, seeing as how they were used goods and we couldn't sell them on.  Yeah right.  Financially she's right, but let her get away with that ? Bob Hope.

Then when the lads went to collect the goods, as arranged, she was too ill to answer the door.

So by falling for the sob story, and trying to do someone a favour, I
a) upset a good supplier of mine
b) lost the cost of the goods
c) spent 4 x delivery charges.

If this 'lady' is giving off bad vibes, sometimes it's best to get out from under, as quickly as possible.

I'll put £10 in with Andrew on the condition we get all comedy correspondence on the thread!

FYP

Should'nt this be on the staking thread?

Well was kinda assuming they would have your input! Lets get Jungle on board as well

Ok - so how about offering her a credit voucher as a goodwill gesture to be used within 30 days for a colonic treatment and non refundable? I don't want to have her book in and subsequently cancel and gets a refund in anycase.

Yep.  That's the way to go about it.  Good will and all that jazz.  30 days non-refundable. 

If she still gives you hassle, then return the money and be rid of her.  Karma will pay her a visit one day, regardless.

If you can stand having her posterior staring at you for an hour or however long it takes, it's got to be the way to go - that way you don't lose financially, and you come out of it smelling of roses as well. But if your gut  says you don't want anything to do with her, then stand by your instinct.