When I was in college, I watched a friend of mine buy a copy of a movie I knew for a fact he had just a copy of last week. When I mentioned the fact, his response just about floored me. He had bought another copy, he told me, but that one had a big scratch across the DVD. He had thrown it out, but still wanted a copy of it. He didn’t try to take it back or exchange it. He just paid for the same movie twice — and trust me, the movie was barely worth buying in the first place.
I’ve seen plenty of people doing the same thing — deciding that putting up a bit of a fuss isn’t worth the effort. A surprising number of people seem to feel that it’s better to pay to fix a problem themselves rather than asking a seller to take responsibility, whether it’s a leaking roof on the house they just bought or a hole in a sweater from the local retailer. “It’s too much effort…it’ll take too much time…it’s out of my way.” These excuses don’t justify giving up on getting equal value for your money, though, even if you decide to never shop at the store selling faulty products again.
These excuses just don’t hold water. If you have a legitimate complaint, practically every store will do what is necessary to correct the matter. Companies don’t want to lose you as a customer — and they certainly don’t want you going around telling other consumers that they sell shoddy merchandise. Furthermore, if they do something wrong and don’t fix it, you do have some legal recourse. The same holds true for less official sellers — if you buy a house, for instance, and something goes wrong that was not disclosed when you bought it, many sellers will try to accommodate you. If they don’t you do have some legal recourse.
I know that the words ‘legal recourse’ made dollar signs appear in your head and you’re headed back to “It’s not worth the effort.” Hear me out, though. I’m not talking about hiring some fancy-pants lawyer to sue the seller in question. While there are some situations, when large sums of money are involved, that the effort and expense is worthwhile, in most cases we’re talking about sums of money that even a small claims court judge would laugh at. But there are a whole list of consumer advocacy organizations that you can file a complaint with, from the local Better Business Bureau to the Federal Trade Commission. In most cases, you can file that complaint with a ten minute phone call. ConsumerAction.gov offers in-depth information on the topic.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all. Just mentioning a problem can be enough to ensure that you get your money’s worth. Speak up, rather than throwing your money away on the same product twice.
