Your best route to dispute resolution

Gripe Line readers offered several excellent suggestions on what to do if the goods you purchase turn out to be defective and the merchant doesn’t want to make it right.

The suggestions have come in response to a recent post in which reader Joel received a nonworking external hard drive and was asked to pay shipping for a refurbished replacement (see “Defective hardware, deteriorating customer service“).

Resolving this type of problem often involves a series of potentially painstaking steps. For Joel, it meant persistently contacting Iomega until he found someone willing to help. He also wrote to Gripe Line. Together, this proved to be an excellent, inexpensive strategy.

[ Read more about this disturbing customer service trend in “Defective hardware, deteriorating customer service” | Frustrated by tech support? Get answers in InfoWorld’s Gripe Line newsletter. ]

But there are other ways to go about dealing with such issues. Gripe Line reader Spudly points out in the comments on that post that your credit card company can also help.

“Paying with credit card is the best safeguard consumers have when making purchases,” he writes. “If the [company’s] solution doesn’t seem adequate there is always the threat of a chargeback. It’s something consumers have on their side for unreasonable answers from vendors who force us to deal (in both time and monetary expenses) with shoddy solutions.”

There was a bit of debate in the comments as to whether this strategy works, though, and under what circumstances, so I contacted Visa for an update on a consumer’s rights.

First, I think it’s important to point out that you don’t have to use a credit card to get Visa to help you out. A debit card — at least one from Visa — offers the same protections.

“Visa Credit and Debit cardholders have the ability to dispute purchases when they are not satisfied with the delivery or quality of purchases,” reads a fact sheet Visa sent me on the subject. If you have tried and are unable to resolve a dispute with a merchant, certainly contact your card issuer to dispute the charges to your card. According to the Visa fact sheet, you can dispute charges to your card for a number of reasons, including the following:

• The merchant was unwilling to provide services
• The shipped merchandise was not received
• The merchant did not provide the goods or services described on the documentation that was presented to the cardholder at the time of purchase
• The merchandise was received damaged, defective, or otherwise unsuitable

If you have a premium credit card, it might offer even more resources for managing purchases made with it, including the Warranty Manager Service, which will extend warranties and track and process repairs.

Also in the same comments section, Gripe Line reader MorrisNTex says, “The individual states have consumer protection laws that guard against this type of stuff. Several years ago I worked on behalf of a client to get replacement monitors for three out of ten that did not work right out of the box. The manufacturer/vendor tried replacing them with refurbished units of a different model.”

MorrisNTex’s client asked an attorney if that was acceptable. It wasn’t, so the attorney called and told the merchant he would file a claim with the attorney general unless the monitors were replaced with new equipment.

“The vendor made an about-face in attitude,” says MorrisNTex, “and sent new replacements and pickup tags for the defective units.”

It’s true that the attorney general’s office in your state is a great resource, but the success that MorrisNTex had here is likely due to the intervention of a lawyer. Hiring a lawyer sends a strong message that you are serious, but it may not be cost-effective if your dispute is over a $100 hard drive.

The California attorney general’s office offers a very informative page on resolving disputes with companies. Among the suggestions are going to small claims court and hiring a lawyer. There is also a page that offers links to help you find the right government department for various types of complaints. (I’m providing links to California as an example. Your state’s attorney general Web site should display the information you need.)

You can certainly file a complaint with your state’s attorney general, and if you perceive a trend toward suspect business practices rather than a single-incident misunderstanding, I strongly encourage it. If your state’s attorney general sees a rash of complaints against a particular company or group of companies, it will often file a suit against that company on behalf of consumers in the state; for example, the New York attorney general filed against online retailers that deceptively link unsuspecting consumers to fee-based membership programs back in January. But the AG was unlikely to intervene — at least not quickly — for Joel in the case of one failed hard drive, especially while the company was working with him.

If you bought your goods by phone or Internet, the Federal Trade Commission watches over such matters. The FTC’s Mail or Telephone Order Rule covers merchandise ordered by mail, telephone, computer, and fax machine.

Seeking assistance from the attorney general, FTC, or even the postal inspector is not a trick to save time when trying to resolve a dispute with a merchant, though. All of those agencies suggest you make an effort to resolve the problem yourself first before seeking legal recourse or disputing the charge with your credit card.

And that, of course, is why the very clever Joel wrote to the Gripe Line while also pestering customer support people.

Got gripes? Send them to christina_tynan-wood@infoworld.com.

This story, “Your best route to dispute resolution,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Christina Tynan-Wood’s Gripe Line blog at InfoWorld.com.