How hard it is to tell this story.
I learned something.
I always wondered why a rape victim would
not report the crime. Afterall, it is a
horrible crime and the perpetrator should be stopped to protect others, if not
punished, for it.
There is shame. Plenty of shame.
There is the overpowering feeling that it could have been avoided, that I could have, should have done something to stop it. But I didn’t.
It was an ill-fated weekend. The Good wife was scheduled, at least we thought
she was scheduled, to help out at the Sculpture in the Park event on Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday. We reported to the
park at 2 p.m. on Friday as the schedule that we received directed. She also had times on Saturday and Sunday.
But when we got there, they had no badge
for her. A lady took her name and left
for the tent housing the bigwigs. In
about five minutes, she returned, saying the Goodwife was not scheduled, that
her application had been received too late.
Why did they send her a schedule? She couldn’t answer that one. Oh well.
On Saturday, we returned to the park, paid
our $20, and wandered around among the artists and the wealthy who can afford
to buy sculptures. I turned down the
opportunity to drink a Bud Lite for $9.
(Budweiser should be paying folks $9 to drink the stuff.)
Since our presence on Sunday was unneeded, I
suggested we take in the county fair. All
was well. We strolled along the
pathways, observing the food vendors, the carnival rides. We noted that some of the rides would
certainly separate us from recently-eaten food.
We even took in some of the 4-H kids
participating in the swine show. It was
reminiscent of the old shaved-ice days at the county fair.
We had about finished our stay when I saw
the building where the vendors were demonstrating their wares. According to the fair schedule, there was a
water-skiing squirrel appearing there.
“Want to go see what the vendors have to
offer?” I asked. Boy, do I wish I had
swallowed those words.
When we went in, the local paper had a
booth. I stopped to chat with the
representative, since our subscription had expired. Maybe they
had a good deal. The Goodwife
didn’t stop when I did.
I panicked a little. Did she have her telephone? Would I be able to find her? I interrupted my conversation with the
newspaper guy long enough to see that the Goodwife had been sucked in by skin
care products booth, one LadyLedLuxury, selling Elevare products.
Oh dang.
I knew it was going to cost me something. I just had no idea how much.
By
the time the newspaper guy and I had established that there would be no good
deal for a current subscriber, and walked the short distance to the
LadyLedLuxury booth, the salesman had already applied the wrinkle cream under
her left eye. “See how the wrinkles
under the left eye have disappeared compared to the right eye?”
Yes, yes, yes. How much?
After taxes, $213.40. Okay, if it
makes the Goodwife happy. But wait,
there’s more. The Salesman, Leo, turned
us over to David, the real pro.
Because the Goodwife such a good person
and good customer, she was entitled to a “free facial”. “Boy, they saw us coming,” I muttered to the
Goodwife. Truer words were never spoken.
As we were sitting there, the two salesmen
were having a whispered conversation behind a barrier. What
were they saying?
David, the pro, used this cream on this
spot and that cream on that spot, and treated the spots with some kind of light
gun. He threw a carton of this and a
carton of that into a fancy bag.
How much?
“Mumble, mumble two thousand mumble.”
“No way!’ I exclaimed as I stood up. “Two thousand for that?!” David laughs as if I am making a joke.
“Oh, you want your wife to be happy. You want the best for her.” Not at that price, I don’t.
At that point, I might have escaped, but
the Goodwife chipped in. “You have been
spending a lot of money for things you want”—a reference to the machinery I
have been buying. “Why can’t I spend
some?”
The salesman jumped right on that. When I still refused, the Goodwife says,
“I’ll use my own money.”
My doom was sealed at that point. She began rummaging around in her purse for
credit cards. She pulled out a debit
card, but I nixed that. “It’s not
activated,” I told her. I told David,
“These products will only gather dust on the bathroom shelf. She’ll never be able to figure out how to use
them.”
Undeterred, he took her Discover card and
began the process of running it through his little handheld machine.
And now, comes the regret, the feeling
that I could have, should have done something at this point to stop the whole
process. I had other opportunities
before that, too, I can see now, to avoid the sale.
I could have taken her purse and given her
her phone and told her to call me when her “free” facial was done.
I could have asked her to wait fifteen
minutes. If, after 15 minutes, she still
wanted to pay $2k for those products, I would buy them for her. But none of those things occurred to me.
It’s only in retrospect that I thought of those things.
I did ask David for an address where I
could return the products. He laughed off
my first couple of requests, but after a
third time, he gave me a business card with a Las Vegas address on it.
“Is this where I send the stuff?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. He never mentioned once, oh yes, you won’t be
able to return any products because of fear of COVID contamination.
After the Goodwife signed her name on the
little handheld machine, he whipped out a form and asked her to sign it. “It’s just an agreement that you won’t resell
these products. You got such a good deal
on them, you could make a lot more than we are charging you if you sell
them.” Yeah, right.
I didn’t read the agreement. I should have. Among other things, it stated that we would
NOT be able to return products due to COVID restrictions.
But then, it would not have mattered
much. The credit card transaction was
done. There would be no reversing the
transaction.
Truthfully, at that point, all I wanted to
do was slink out of there, to try to deal with the shock of spending $2K in
less than 30 minutes for products of questionable effectiveness, to try to hide
from. . . . from what? From myself for
having been taken to the cleaners?
No, I didn’t want anyone to know I had been
taken. I just wanted to leave that
miserable booth. And we left.
With our bag of stuff, we wandered around
the place. We did get a glimpse of the
water-skiing squirrel, but I had little interest in it. There were several quilts hung on display. I tried to divert my attention to other
things, other than the high-pressure sale we had endured, by looking at the
name of the quilter attached to each quilt to see if I recognized any of them.
I did see a name I knew, the wife of a
brother of a Methodist preacher we knew in Kansas. We left the fair grounds and returned
home. I sat the sack of goodies on the
counter, a reminder of our afternoon’s experience.
Eventually, I looked at the credit card
receipt. $2987.60. What!
Over three thousand dollars when you add the first $200. When I showed the credit card receipt to the
Goodwife, she went ballistic
In desperation, I called Discover
card. The lady was sympathetic, but no,
they could not cancel a transaction. I
must work that out with the merchant.
Discover would help if I wished.
I have been down that road before. It amounts to a conference call with a credit
card representative and a representative of the company. The company man stonewalls, and in the end,
the only satisfaction is a chance to vent your feelings about the company.
That was Sunday evening. Monday morning, I called customer service to
see if we could return the products for a refund. The first thing I had to do was send a copy
of the receipts. I scanned and sent the
receipts.
Then the salesman, David called. He was sorry, he said, but the company can’t
accept returns due to COVID. They got
sued by someone claiming they got COVID from products that had been
returned. Therefore, no more returns. But he gave us such a good deal, a lot more
products for the price than other people got.
I was using speaker phone. The Goodwife jumped in and told the guy she
had cancer and we couldn’t afford to pay that amount. Well, a little stretch of the truth on our
side. Oh, David was sorry but there was
nothing he could do. COVID. He would call us tomorrow.
After the call was ended, the Goodwife
started putting on her coat. She was
headed back to the fair to get into David’s face. I managed to talk her out of that. Why? I
didn’t want to be part of a scene. Let’s
go through the proper channels to try to right the wrong, I told her.
Shame and guilt. Let’s not expose our shame and my guilt in
public.
I took her to Walmart to lay in
jelly-making supplies. We were planning
a trip to the western slope to visit friends and get some fresh peaches. Soon, she had forgotten all about it.
Later,
she would burst into tears and tell me how sorry she was that she had allowed
that bunch to talk her into spending that much money. I consoled her and told her to try to forget
about the whole thing. She pretty much
has forgotten it, too.
I removed the bag of products out of
sight in the spare bedroom. I found it
one morning near her bathroom, so I hid it my clothes closet. She has not mentioned the products or the
experience. I think she does not
remember anything about her experience.
Tuesday came and no word from David, so I
tried calling him two or three times during the day. No answer.
Then came a text saying, “Hello Steven, your case
is under review and investigation in our office, don’t worry we did not forget
about. Please allow us up to three
business days to return a call. We will
do our best to help you guys, as we do with all of our customers.”
I got a call on Friday, but we were on
the western slope and had no cell service much of the time. It was Sunday before I realized I had missed
the call from customer service. I
called, on Sunday.
I got a man who said he was the manager
and not customer service, that he only answered the phone on weekends. So I stated my case and asked to return the
merchandise. He would only say that they
couldn’t accept returns due to COVID.
I told him that was an outdated policy,
that clothing stores now allow shoppers to try on garments, and if they don’t
purchase the clothes, the clothes are hung in a store room for a few days to be
sure that any COVID viruses are dead. He
would have none of that. Nope, can’t
accept returns, period. That lie would
be revealed later in email exchanges with the real (I guess) customer service.
As the conversation went on, I got angry.
Besides hiding behind the COVID policy, he kept telling me how much he wanted
to help me. I told him, no you aren’t
trying to help me. If you really wanted
to help, he would assist me in getting my money back. Can’t.
COVID.
Apparently, I waxed foul. In exchanges with customer service, they asked me to be more civil. The only thing I remember for sure is telling
Mr. Manager at the end of the call that after dealing with him, I felt that I
had been screwed twice, once when David used high pressure tactics to foist a
bunch of products that are useless to us because the Goodwife would never be
able to follow the use instructions, and again after all his “help.”
There followed a series of email
exchanges with the company in the next few days. Here is the main one:
“Unfortunately due to COVID regulations we cannot accept any returns we extended your exchange policy from 14 days to one year if you have any concerns plus your life time warranty is already registered and cannot be reversed
“With
more investigation we understand you signed three times for the products and
return policy of the vip membership stating you know the COVID regulations and
"We also got a picture of you with the products received happy
“You can still contact Elevareskin.com and ask for reverse from your hand but it's up to them register the life time warranty
“we deeply regret for your unhappiness and will be available to you 24/7 when you need us for guidance or help.”
I asked for an explanation of their
explanation, but I didn’t get much.
There is indeed a picture we took after the $200 purchase. I asked them to identify the salesman in the
picture, who was not the one who sold us the nearly $3000 worth of “goods.”
I
also asked for a copy of the warranty.
Customer service only replied to the warranty request. I must contact the salesman After three or four exchanges with David, via
text messages, I gave up ever getting a copy of the warranty. I still don’t have one.
Eventually, I filed two complaints, one
with the Colorado Attorney General’s office ( a waste of time), and one with
the Better Business Bureau. The Better
Business Bureau sent the company my complaint.
They responded with the usual garbage about COVID and an outright lie. My email to customer service:
“I
have a quote from your reply to my BBB complaint.
‘At
no time did our customer exchange or attempt to exchange the purchase. We are
willing to exchange this purchase.. .’
Are
you willing to accept a return for a refund?”
“Of curse me ottem will be happy to exchange you the products in points or other products you choose for no extra charge !
“Please give us the chance to help you !
“And we do ask if you can please be more easy with the representative you talk on the phone we got some complaints on disrespectful tone and language to some of them thank you !”
So, now it’s okay to return products for
other products or “points” whatever they are?
Wait a minute. What about the
COVID policy? No returns?
So I sent an email and apologized for
using offensive language and asked once again for a refund in exchange for
merchandise, since it had been established, at least to my understanding,
returns were accepted after all.
I received no response, so after four days,
I asked, “May I have the courtesy of a response?” I got the following reply:
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“Yes, of course you can.
Our company lawyers advices us to not contact you until your bbb
compliant will
Be closed and fir the tone our representative experience with
you mr otto
Thank and have a great day
בתאריך יום ג׳, 31 באוג׳ 2021 ב-11:51 מאת:”
I copied and emailed the notice from the
BBB that the case had been closed, and I got this response:
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Aug 31, 2021,
2:24 PM (5 days ago) |
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בתאריך יום ג׳, 31 באוג׳ 2021 ב-12:52 מאת ”
My response:
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“I would like to be happy, too. Would you please
refund $3201.00. I will gladly return the merchandise. And I will
leave you alone forever.”
Lest you think I exaggerate, please know
that I changed nothing in the emails. I
have the entire record of our emails quoted verbatim.
As of now, I am resigned to the fact that
I will never get my $3000 back. I have
few options at this point. I should give
in to the urge to hide my shame and guilt and let this entire experience die.
But there is one other emotion I am
experiencing that I wonder if rape victims experience. It is an overpowering, sometimes
uncontrollable anger when I think of how we have been treated by
LadyLedLuxury. Can I let that go?
Should I be doing something to see that
no other old lady suffering from dementia doesn’t fall victim to the same
treatment we have had from this company?
Or is it merely a selfish motive
compelling me to seek revenge?
