ComplaintsforRichardson Farms

• Initial Complaint

  10/29/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Unresolved

  More info

  Visited Richardson Adventure Farm mid October. Made several purchases at different buildings on site, admission, food, drink etc. While reviewing transactions the following week noted that I had two duplicate charges in amount of $22.09 and $2.69. Reached out to the the farm and left a message on the vm explaining the issue and requesting a call back. Rep from the farm (Owner?) returned my call several days later. Rep r*****ed that the double charging was a known issue, that 20+ people had already called, and that it was the fault of the card processing company. I requested that both the initial transactions and the duplicate transactions be reversed citing frustration that it was a known issue and loss of time spent resolving issue. I requested that rep ***** to card processing company and reversal of original charge requested. Rep agreed to both. Although rep agreed to both requests, he also expressed inappropriate level of inconvenience and hostility, emphasizing his difficulty accessing an appropriate machine/building to reverse transaction, significantly prolonging the call. I requested that rep offer a time that would be conviene to for him to call me back with access system/machine. Rep stated that he would call me back at 1pm, but did not. I called rep again at 1:15. Rep reiterated inconvenience and that he was still busy. I agreed to have rep call me back again 5 minutes later, but when he called back he was still not at the appropriate machine/tender/system to reverse the transaction. Rep offered to create a false transaction with other items to refund a slightly lower amount than original purchase. I requested that the reversal be for the exact amount, rep stated that I could take the said amountor nothing at all and then hung up on me. I called rep back at the same number, hoping that were were just disconnected, we were not. Rep stated that he would not return the funds agreed upon and told me to reach out to his card processing company.

  Business response

  11/19/2021

   

   

  Dear relations department.  Following is my response to the complaint filed on November 10 on our business Richardson Adventure Farm, LLC.

   

  Eventually, over 40 of my customers had the credit machine (PAX) send in unprogrammed batches with customer charges, and those customers got charged twice for the same transaction. We have 21 POS terminals and 21 PAX machines attached to those machines through the Local Area Network (LAN).  Literally tens of thousands of transactions were being run, but on different days, and on different PAX machines, some of the transactions were duplicated.  It was a very difficult and time-consuming process to figure out how this could happen involving all parties in the credit process the POS provider, the credit machine manufacturer, the gateway, the credit processor, and our network provider.  Eventually, 5 machines were identified that had programming errors and that was rectified.

   

  During that time, I was dealing with the people who had duplicate charges.  ALL were very polite and understanding of the complications of the credit process and the potential for goofs in the system EXCEPT this particular customer.  Still, a customer is valuable to us and usually worth keeping.  So, when this customer wanted her duplicate charge refunded back, I immediately agreed, of course, and noted her credit card information so that Celero, the credit processor, could issue a refund.  (I could not issue the refund at our site, because our POS only showed 1 transaction, but Celero showed 2.)  Then the customer told me that she expected a refund of the original charge because she had the inconvenience of having to check her bank statement and call our business (or email in I cant remember which).  Again, to keep customer relations, I agreed to do so, but explained I would have to go to the business location and call her to manually input the credit card information into our POS. 

   

  The POS where the original transaction was made is in a remote location and connected through Wi-Fi to a different network, and was off-line, so I had to run the refund on another POS.  Our system will not allow us to refund a dollar amount, I have to refund an actual item.  So I rang up several items and, through experimentation (after tax),  came to 43 cents short of the customers original purchase amount.  This was not acceptable to the customer.  After explaining the situation here with the remote location being off-line, etc. it still was not acceptable to the person.  And then, after a bit of thought, and in light of the fact that the other customers have been so kind, polite, and understanding, and with the knowledge that I was under no obligation to pay this person $24.78 for her alleged inconvenience, I elected to not give her a refund of her original amount. I thought we had reached a point in our discussions where I had offered all I could (within $.43), with the circumstances I was in, and it was STILL not good enough for this particular person, so I was not going to be able to make her happy, and that was unfortunate, but it had to be the end of our discussions.  I explained that the real  problem was with the credit processor and I asked if she would like the number of the customer relations department, which I gave her. 

   

   

  ******.

   

  *************************** Richardson

  www.RichardsonFarm.com

  Spring:      Tulip Festival

  Summer:  Sunflower Festival

  Fall:          Adventure Farm - Home of the Worlds Largest corn maze

  Winter:    Cut-Your-Own Christmas trees thousands to choose from

  Customer response

  11/21/2021

   
  Complaint: 16074079
  
  I am rejecting this response because:it does not offer any resolution or intent to find resolution. The emphasis continues to focused on the owners inconvenience rather than the reasonability of the request.

  The owner agreed to provide a full refund of the purchase stating that he would call me back at an agreed upon time. Owner did not call me back to issue the refund as stated. I ended up needing to call again. The owner stated again that he would need to call me back again in several minutes when he was in front of the appropriate machine. The owner called me back and said that he was prepared to provide the refund in a slightly lower amount. I responded that I would be more comfortable with the full refund at which point the owner hung up on me. When I called back again the owner stated that he lo longer intended to honor it because he felt that I was not nice enough about it even though the owner initially stated that he would offer the refund because I seemed like a nice lady.

  Although it is a relatively small purchase, it is taking an unreasonable amount of time and energy to rectify the issue. I dont want the other people, at least 40 as stated by the owner and potentially others who did not catch the double charge to be similarly bullied out of a reasonable solution. I totally understand that sometimes fault lies with the 3rd party card processor, but it is ultimately a vendors responsibility to insure that their patrons are actually paying the appropriate amount for purchases with attention to their own bookkeeping. Vendors hold ethical responsibility for self auditing when there is a known issue and for notifying patrons even if the vendor finds the amount to be insignificant. Patrons are less likely to reach out to resolve issues when the monetary recovery potential is small and vendors benefit from this inconvenience.

  Desired resolution remains fulfillment of the agreed upon refund and notification of other parties who were double charged regardless of the amount. 

  Thank you for your continued assistance with this dispute.

  *******************

  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  *******************
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *******************

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩