- Report: #1497675
Complaint Review: AdvanceAuto - Raleigh NC
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Author Not Confirmed
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AdvanceAuto
2635 E. Millbrook Road Raleigh, 27604 NC, United States
Phone:
(984) 389-7207
Web:
https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/
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AdvanceAuto Thomas R. Greco Gaming refund policy to force online customers to personally perform returned-shipping labor themselves Raleigh NC
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This company is possibly the worst online auto store in the US. Their "return policy" says nothing about online orders specifically needing to be returned to a physical store, this is monster-sized corner clipping of widely accepted convention.
Yes, the convenience of an online purchase offered by probably 99.99% of online retailers, is null with this company. Instead, "a customer" is "required" to get into his car and drive potentially hours to a physical store — and who knows what thumbscrew antics happen there? I had to discover this only when calling to return. I say calling because all other "customer service" channels have seemingly been gamed to convenience Thomas Greco's operation, e.g. email can be sent, but results in a "we don't do email" response, causing delay, presumably in hopes of pushing you past the return time frame. With chat, someone responds within a few minutes to ask me to hold for 3-5 minutes, only to be auto-booted about two minutes later. Convenient, as this forces transactions to phone where documentation is nullified.
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Customer service seemed to be informed to be gleeful and chipper about offering this non-starter return option, and could not care less, that this was a MAJOR inconvenience — who the hell wants to drive to return an online purchase? Of course, this is a win win for Thomas because if you go, you may just (possibly be stupid enough to) buy merchandise in the store (although, from the customer rage angle, I imagine he's actually losing customers, like me, permanently), and if there's a problem that makes your item non-returnable, whoops, you just drove and sat in traffic for nothing.
As far as the return policy, it seems a very gray area that a purchase made online and shipped should then leave a person with no other recourse than to return the item to a store. It would seem this is unpaid customer labor time and related expense in acting as a courier, and such liabilities incurred in service of this return policy should fall on AdvanceAuto, i.e. a shipping company would be paid for making such an effort. If I bought a product from a physical store in California and they told me I could only return it personally in Alaska, I doubt anyone would see this as legit. At any distance, it still doesn't seem legit, i.e. I'd pay less for shipping than my time is worth.
.... If you're an investor or corporate job candidate considering these clowns, you may want to reconsider, because if they're this slimy on the front end, the back end, could be neck deep in sludge. This is a ripoff because they're not upfront about requiring your unpaid time for the placebo convenience of ordering online without a conventional ship-to-return-option. AVOID!
