Next refund,staff were rude or was I rude? aibu?

[poolboo]

So today I head into town.
I was returning 1 thing I ordered online from next.
So stood in a long queue and got to the front after 10 mins.
The lady said if you just pop your return in the cardboard box next to the fitting room and we will process it in 30 mins.
She didn't ask for my account number or give me a receipt.
I was a bit wary as I didn't have any proof I had returned it and I was worried that anyone got just take it out of this box and I had no receipt to say I had taken it in.

Anyway she told me that was the return process (even tho I had returned things at the till previously)
She said it would be processed in 30 mins and I would get a email.

3 hours later and still no email or confirmation she had processed refund.
I was about to leave shopping centre so I popped back and explained I hadn't received my refund yet and it was well over 30 mins.

She said they had been busy and if I had put it in the box it would get done by end of today.
So I asked if I got it from the box could she just refund me whilst I was here and give me a receipt so I have proof.

She rolled her eyes and said "your making this very complicated"
"This is our returns procedure "

Anyway she did it whilst I was there.

Aibu?
I would have left the shopping centre with no refund and hope that nobody removed my parcel (I know unlikely ) but you never know.

Ours in doing this too. Only they put everything behind the counter not in an open box.
I was very sceptical, returning a dress for £85 But in about an hour I got a text and a refund.
I don't like it at all.

She was rude. We had a system, during lockdown, where you handed it in through the perspex barrier, but didn't get a receipt. I felt a bit funny about that if I'm honest, but it all went well.

@Theimpossiblegirl

Some of the attitudes towards retail staff on this thread are depressing.

It is a Next policy, it works for most people. It's been designed to reduce queuing and minimise time in store (Covid measures). If you don't like it, use the tills or shop elsewhere.

She did try and use the tills - they told her no.

the problem was that op checked and 3 hours later it hadnt been refunded so she went to check-i wouldnt like that system either

I had to ask next for help with a return , they too wanted it left in an unattended box by the front door , but assistant was pleasant to deal with when I queried this

YANBU, they seem to have a similar process for Dunelm Mill Click and Collect returns, but they did let me take a picture of the return reference number on their computer screen.

I’m always wary of returns. I posted things back to Debenhams and they maintained that they had not received them, it took countless emails, the picture of my Hermes return slip and a list of returned items to get my refund, over a month later!

Better to be insistent than sorry.

@OnTheBenchOfDoom

Next spent a huge amount of money on a unique bar code system.

When you order something online that bar code on your clothing tag is your unique Next account bar code, no one else has it. That way someone finding an item cannot just return it for a credit note, it will be refunded back to your Next account. This is why you no longer have to confirm your account number with them.

I ordered and returned some items during lockdown they were just handed through a window. No receipt given.

Oh that explains things. I love the Next returns system, it's so easy. I've previously ordered from Very too but the faff of the return process puts me off. This is online and Hermes delivery/ collection. I can't comment on shop systems.

I’ve returned parcels like this in a few stores now ... including the Asda ‘to you’ system which accepts returns on behalf of many retailers. Scary using it at first but if that’s their system ps now then so be it.

You get a ticket saying you’ve handed over a parcel in the Asda I go to.
OP got nothing.

They were doing this when shop was closed, that's not as bad as unlikelybstaff would steal the items, but no reason to ge still doing it that way now and if the box us easily acceptable, I wouldn't have been happy to leave it either. YANBU

It will be ok OP as they’ll scan your receipt and you’ll get the refund on Tuesday

mummy ... jbae ... if you read my posts, Asda didn’t used to be this way. Now you get receipts but you didn’t used to. Now it’s an enclosed box, but it didn’t used to be.

Next was busy, the worker told OP how to return ... simple. The system might not be to everyone’s liking - but it’s their system.

Yes this is the new system it’s awful i returned 2 separate online orders a few weeks back. They refunded one and didn’t even acknowledge the other, I went back in after 2 weeks and they refunded me there and then. Apparently each item has its own individual code. It’s terrible!

I am so glad our local Next is not doing this, returns to our local Sainsbury’s for TU do not generate a paper receipt but you get an email and I had to chase a refund for items not registered and our local Matalan operates a similar online returns where you leave items with a staff member who processes it later. Again I had to chase the refund as it wasn’t processed.

It’s a new refund system. I wouldn’t be at all happy about leaving a refund in an open box , it need to be something secure and possibly with some sort of print out to acknowledge that you have deposited an item . I have had refunds done this way a few times recently at the till point. However it’s not fool proof and the lady in front of me queried the name after being asked to confirm it by the sales assistant and the items were about to be refunded to the wrong account , the information scanned was wrong. If she hasn’t been there and the item had been left in a box it could have been much more difficult to track and prove that you had a returned an item

Retail staff get a lot of flack , it’s a thankless job at times and especially at the moment. The member of staff was a little out of line and should have been a little more polite and explained the system, but they/we are only human

@Blindstupid not to be argumentative or anything but before my local Asda had the locker with the drawer you handed the parcels to customer service. Your Asda may have expected you to leave the items in a random box but that wasn't the case at all of them.
Completely get what next are trying to do - only yesterday I was stuck behind someone who looked like she had ordered half the website and was now returning. It is frustrating. But a random box isn't the way forward, it's a ridiculous idea.

FFS no wonder retail is on its arse, when all anyone seems to do is order loads of stuff and return it , all at the expense and workload of the retailer , then you cry about inconvenient returns procedures.

@notIntuitanymore I ordered 1 thing and returned it.
Would the retailer prefer if nobody ordered anything?
A refund is a 2 min job
I'm assuming you haven't ever returned a item in your life then?

@poolboo i think @notIntuitanymore is talking about the fact that many order 20+ items and return 90% of them or even all of them.

I was guilty of that at Debenhams. It costs so much money to pack and post stuff, and then process returns. Hence many retailers have started charging for delivery and returns.

It's not really anyone's fault the gradual death of the high street means we're all ordering online more and sometimes things just don't fit / look right. I think retailers charging for delivery/returns is the right thing to do.

mummy ... I absolutely agree it’s a stupid system. I thought my local asda system was stupid when they did it. It later changed which makes me think maybe they found it didn’t work as well as they’d hoped/predicted, and so it was changed. Even when the receipt system was in place, I once returned a parcel and the scanner and receipt machine were broken - I asked a member of staff for a receipt and he just said it’s ok, I don’t need one as there’s a camera above the enclosed box so they’d be able to track that I’d actually put a parcel in bizarre as I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t trawl through thousands of hours of cctv to try to find me dropping a parcel off. As a pp has said about Next, she didn’t receive her refund so she contacted them and they issued a refund even though they couldn’t locate her returned parcel - I think this is their only option given their inadequate system. I assume this is in place due to Covid, I think lots of things are having to change due to this, and there’ll always be teething problems, especially since it’s something we’ve never encountered before or had to work through before. I’m pretty sure Next will change their system though as I can’t see it working out well for them. In the meantime, it is what it is and we have to just get along with that.

No wonder so many retail staff hate their jobs.
Staff are told what to do by management. Management are told what to do by Head Office.
If you don't like the system, complain to Head Office, don't make people at the bottom of the pecking order feel even more shit!

That is such a spurious argument. If no one complains to staff in store, they can’t feed it back and have no evidence to back up any concerns they may express themselves. It’s the ‘But we don’t make the decisions, it’s not our fault’ attitude that’s led to the UK’s reputation for terrible customer service.

YWNBU take no notice OP