When Did Oregon Secede?

[kevin_standlee]

I am very unhappy with Circuit City. I bought a computer game from them last week in Salem, but couldn't get it to run on either of my computers without it generating warning messages that "your video driver is out of date." (I checked, and both of the Dell Inspiron 600m machines have the latest Radeon 9000 drivers from Dell's support site.) This, along with other ways in which the game behaves when I try to install it, make me think that the game is under-specified; that is, the system requirements on the box are insufficient, and it really needs a more powerful machine than I have, probably a gaming-optimized powerhouse. Had I known this up front, of course I would not have bought the software.

On Monday afternoon, I took the software back to Circuit City to ask for a refund (ideally) or credit (which at least I could spend on something that would actually run on my computer). The clerk called her supervisor; the supervisor informed me that "Oregon Copyright Law forbids us from exchanging software for anything but another copy of the same software if the box is opened."

Excuse me? Oregon Copyright Law? Since when did Oregon withdraw from the USA and set up its own copyright laws? I told her, "There's no such thing as Oregon Copyright Law."

She insisted that there was. I became angry, and said, "So there's nothing you can do. Fine! Give me back my useless software then!" and snatched the box (and receipt) out of the hands of the startled clerk, who had been standing there while her supervisor (in my opinion) lied to me.

As I turned to storm out of the store, the supervisor called out, "Sir! You're not welcome in this store again!"

I turned around, looked daggers in her face, and said, "I don't think you have to worry about me spending any money in this store again."

She turned to the clerk and said, "Call Security!"

I left the store, so I don't know what happened after that. If they did summon security guards, they didn't follow me. Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have lost my temper, but they shouldn't have lied to me, either. It's not that they refused to make good on this purchase that angered me. The fine print buried deep in their refund policy (which I studied later) says that they won't exchange opened software. Had she simply pointed this out to me, I would have been disappointed, but would have just grumbled and taken it (and complained to the game's publisher). But when someone appears to be making up new laws out of their own imagination to justify their actions, then I get angry, as I don't like being lied to. I'm not sure this distinction is clear enough.

I've written to Circuit City through their web site to complain about this. I've searched the Oregon Revised Statutes, and can find no reference to an "Oregon Copyright Law," and Google searches find nothing useful on the subject of a specific set of Oregon-only copyright statutes. I've told Circuit City that I apologize for startling the young clerk, who knew nothing, but challenged them to cite this "Oregon Copyright Law" that I think the supervisor made up (or else her management made up and told her; the fault is the same anyway).

On the other hand, I don't even know if the message got through. Circuit City's web site, when I submitted the message, closed the form and took me back to their main web page without a confirmation and without sending me a copy of my own e-mail.

Edits, 13:07 and 13:34: Corrected typos noted in comments.

Edit, 17:05: Minor change to add when I went to the store. Re-reading it, I realized that if you read my journal entries sequentially, you might wonder how I returned an item in Oregon when I had said on Tuesday morning that I'd returned to California.

Comments

[danjite.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reminding me of one of the things I hate, deeply loathe, about USistan: The customer is a hinderance to the operation of the business.

Here in the real world, apolgies would be proffered and an acceptable result for the customer would have been worked out, lest the retailer lose face because of a failure of the manufacturer,

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

And Cheryl says that this is the sort of customer-hostile attitude I should expect to see all of the time in the UK. Yet it was the very fact that I found it unusual here that helped set me off. Cheryl has been amazed at how good customer service is in the USA by comparison to the UK. I was expecting Fry's to similarly tell me "tough luck," and was astonished that they agreed to try and make-good on what is really the manufacturer's failure to properly spec their product.

Lisa was also disgusted with Circuit City. While I queued for the returns desk, she looked at digital cameras. She told me later that the salesman managed to "un-sell" two customers who were on the point of buying cameras. And Lisa knows a bit about customer service, having worked in a Radio Shack store in New Mexico -- one of the older Radio Shack "dealer" stores where the staff actually knew something about electronics -- many years ago. While she's not too excited about the flood of badly-made Chinese junk she says is flooding US markets simply because it's cheap, she's capable of selling something if she believes in it.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Cheryl is right: US customer service is generally far better than British. The Brits won't argue with you; they just don't care. There really is no limit to the size of the s--t that they don't give.

But for that reason, and because of the reserved quality of the British national character, meeting their intransigence by getting visibly angry can sometimes work wonders.