It really is true that money talks in a lot of situations.

Imagine selling an item to a customer at a discount, but they decide they want to return it.

What would you do if the customer insisted on getting a refund for the item’s regular price instead of accepting a refund for the discounted price they actually paid?

That’s what happened in this story, and the owner and the customer’s husband eventually had to handle it.

Let’s read all the details.

No, you cannot get back more money than you paid for this. Oh, you’re who’s wife? Never mind!

This is something that happened not to me, but my mother who works as the head of accounting in a mid-sized interior design retailer. We shall call her Head of Accounting (HoA).

There are many stories I have heard (and some I could tell myself, as I have worked in retail as well) but this one is the most memorable, so I thought it was time to share.

So, imagine this woman. Let’s call her Trophy Wife (TW) for now. TW is the much younger wife of one of the biggest customers the company has.

There was nothing unusual about her purchase…at first.

She had ordered a carpet some time ago. It had been specially made for her, delivered to her and she had paid for it, minus skonto.

(Since I have never left the country for longer then 3 weeks at a time I don’t know if this exists in other countries. Here is how it works: Basically the idea is that if you pay your bill in a certain earlier time frame then you need to, you get ~4-2% off. That can be quite a bit if you, say, get a huge carpet especially tailored to your liking.)

Everyone is happy, right?

Well, no or I wouldn’t be writing this.

Here’s the problem.

Shortly after she had purchased her carpet, TW decided that she didn’t like it for some reason and she wanted to return it.

That in itself, would have already been problematic (as mentioned before, the carped was especially made for her, with her specifications), but not so problematic that HoA would have needed to be involved. Or so you’d think.

After having talked to three different sales people already, TWs call made it to the accounting department where she was conneted with Timid Competence (TC).

After half an hour of discussion with TW, TC couldn’t take her anymore. She put TW on hold and practically begged HoA to take TW of her hands, in tears. Why?

The customer didn’t seem to understand basic math or logic.

TW wanted to return her carpet, but demanded to be refund the full price. You know, the one she did not pay, as she took advantage of skonto.

In a phone call that had now been going on for 3 hours TW had demanded, first from the sales people and then from the accounting department to be refunded more money then she had actually payed in the frist place and she would not understand that that was not possible.

After trying to explain basic math, logic and the concept of equivalent exchange to this person for an additional 20 minutes, HoA redirected the call to the Big Boss (BB), as in the guy who actually owns this business, who heared TW rant and hung up on her after curtly explaining that she could not be refunded more money then she had originally payed.

Her husband showed up.

End of the story?

Her husband, the big customer came in, walked right into the office of BB and say the following (or as close as I can get while translating):”I do know who is in the right but I love this woman, so you will give my wife what she wants! Otherwise I’ll be taking my business elsewhere!”

Sad to say, he got his will.

At least the woman’s husband admitted his wife was wrong, but it’s too bad he threatened the owner into backing down when he knew his wife was wrong.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person understands why the owner backed down.

It might’ve been an empty threat.

This person thinks situations like this are painful.

Another person has a message for the customer’s husband.

Sometimes the customer gets their way even when they admit they’re wrong.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.