How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

Had an experience like this with Lufthansa where it owed me ~600 euros for a cancelled flight. Someone messed up over there and tagged my compensation as delivered, but no money had actually arrived in my bank account. I kept track of the number of emails it took to solve this: >30, 1-2 every week. That's only from me, double that for the total.

The customer service was simply repeating the same thing over and over: accounting says the money was sent. What aggravated the issue, was that basicly every email was replied by a different customer service agent. I pointed out to them that according to SEPA regulations it is the sender's responsibility to ensure that the funds reach the recipient, but they were ignoring it. I didn't think to ask to be forwarded to the legal compliance office. I did take legal action, sort of, by complaining through the EU out-of-court dispute resolution platform, but didn't receive any response through the platform (might have helped anyway, don't know).

What helped resolve it, was looking up SEPA regulations (because until then I was saying "this is your responsibility", they were replying "no it's not"), endurance, and a sense of humour.

"This company is ripping me off, but I'll protect its identity because I feel like I owe it something" is plain misguided and a huge disfavor to other participants in the market.

Being very persistent and calm can go a long way when dealing with organizations in person: most customers, when confronted with a negative answer from a company representative will become irritated, frustrated and will want to terminate the exchange threatening to escalate to some higher authority, a boss (that is rarely available), the courts etc. It's a negative emotional state that most people want to stop.

What you need to do in those circumstance is realize that you still have immense bargaining power with the specific individual, that can, according to company polices present you with a negative answer that is profitable to the company, but in all other respects is severely limited and must behave in a courteous and professional way. You need to reflect that back to them, and repeat your claims ad nausea, bringing more arguments and repeating your point of view with the utmost calm, as if nothing they say is relevant to your problem. Verbally, you state your claims and non-verbally you deliver the message that "I can do this all day and will not leave until you drag me out with security, making a scene". You do not move away from the counter and/or follow the employee calmly, non-threatening continuing to repeat your claims.

The frustration will build up even in the most seasoned customers representatives. All of a sudden, you are no longer the company's problem - a lost or dissatisfied customer; you are THEIR personal problem, a persistent client that demands their rights and stops them from engaging with other customers. Should they make a scene and become rude or verbally or physically abusive, it's their job on the line, for failing to properly handle a demanding client; but if they continue being calm and professional with you, they are failing to do their job and serve other customers. Many representatives will cave under this pressure, if what you are demanding is in their purview, or, a the very least, be very happy to rid themselves from you by producing an actual manager with the power to solve your claim (that would very rarely be disturbed otherwise).

I have successfully used this method to negotiate out of unscrupulous baggage fees at the airport, obtain discounts at advertised prices instead of the "fine print prices" etc. It's a time-money tradeoff, as was this one here. The method is less efective over the phone where the representative has the power to terminate a call. In this case here one company official made a serious mistake by stating in writing something contrary to official company policies. You will usually not be that lucky in email exchanges with an unscrupulous company.

Strong disagree with the sibling comment. I thought it was an easy read and the timeline was clear.

I do think it ran a little long, but no worse than that.

I actually don't know what you mean. The post I responded to said that the money recovered was not enough compared to the time spent. My point is, the money is not a lot, but considering it's a low income blog anyway (there is another blog post about that) it's not too bad, especially in terms of future reward, for which he basically does not need to do anything.