Moral Dilemma Summary: Wanting to make sure she had just the right dress, a high school girl in New Jersey buys an expensive prom dress early in the season. Her boyfriend is tragically killed in a car accident shortly before the prom. The girl tries to return the unworn dress to help her boyfriend’s family pay for the funeral expenses. The dress store says no, it is against return ‘policy’, they will only allow her a store credit.
(NewYorkNews) Like most teenage girls, sophomore Jackie Genovese, 16, of New Jersey, was so excited to attend the prom with her boyfriend that she made plans and purchased her perfect prom dress early. But tragedy struck last week when her boyfriend of two years was killed in a car accident, MyFoxNY reported. James Volpe, 17, was killed in a two-car crash on the way home from a baseball team dinner on May 13, only a few weeks away from graduation.
Jackie bought her $1,200 dress at Freehold’s Diane and Co., also known for its popular Oxygen show, “Dress Coutoure.”
She requested a refund for her dress so she could help pay for her boyfriend’s funeral. Jackie’s mom approached the owners of the store for the refund, which is against store policy. Instead they offered credit. But Jackie’s mom said when she showed up to bring the dress back, they were nasty and unsympathetic.
Now her friends have started a Facebook page to call on boycotting the dress store. Diane and Co. denies the accusations. Over the phone, owners said “this terrible tragic situation has been spun out of control. It’s not a matter of being vicious or uncompassionate, but we are faced with tragedy all the time. And we weren’t given a chance to rectify the situation.” Jackie is now left with the $1,200 store credit, which she is unsure she will ever use.
Diane and Co. is standing firm on the no refund policy, but has offered to make a donation to a memorial set up in James name. (article)
This is a tragic example of something that happens as frequently as changing socks. A business restricts transactions to “final sale – one way transactions” in an effort to avoid refunds/returns and possible risk from customer manipulation of their business model.
This is what happens when you create “Policies” or “uniform standards of action” in response to customer interaction. Policies breed “duck farms”. Quack, Quack, Quack. That is all the person behind the counter is empowered to do. Quack, Quack, Quack, enforce the policy – no exceptions, no excuses. Quack, Quack, Quack. Generally annoying to customers, but oh well, they gotta deal…. Then something like this happens. It is an exceptional event, an unusual event, a highly infrequent event, and the Quack, Quack, Quack just does’nt seem to fit right….. Now the business realizes the “risk” from their policy and is attempting quick damage control. Their Public Relations Disaster is about to get a whole lot worse…..and I hope it does….. /SD