It should have been a simple purchase for a father to send a Christmas gift to his daughter but in the case of John Casis (Ioannis Kasidogiannis) it proved a little more complicated. Although the story ends well, it took 110 days to reach a resolution.
Mr Casis lives in Athens and his teenage daughter lives with her her sister and her mother (who did not wish to be named) in New South Wales. The gift for his daughter, who likes to assemble things, was a Lego sports car construction set that he ordered online through retailer Target. To make sure the gift worth $445.20 would reach her in time for Christmas, Mr Casis placed the order on 30 September, 2021.
Two weeks later however, Target informed him by email that the: “order has exceeded our expectation and sold much faster than we anticipated, which means unfortunately we’re unable to complete your order. We apologise for the inconvenience and we’ll process your refund right away.”
And that was the start of the trouble for Mr Casis. The refund was not immediately returned and Mr Casis’ queries were initially met with the reply that there was “high email volume to the Centre” and that his refund would be processed.
On 28 October, he was informed that the “team action refund is instantaneous, meaning we send back to you on the spot.” But that did not happen, instead Mr Casis was informed that the problem lay with his bank in Athens where the 51 year old lives.
The problem continued as did the level of frustration as Mr Casis, upset by the fact that his daughter would not receive the promised Christmas gift, was also not receiving any satisfaction over the promised refund.
He notified Consumer Affairs Victoria who also communicated with Target on his behalf.
On 27 December, Target informed Mr Casis that its Finance Department would look into the matter but warned that an answer could be delayed by a week because of the forthcoming holiday period.
On 19 January, Target advised Mr Casis that “finance team says there had been a problem from their end which we have only just been advised. … They have informed us that this has now been resolved and payment should be with you in your Greek Bank account towards the end of the week.”
A Target spokesperson said in a subsequent statement to Neos Kosmos: “We were sorry to hear about Mr. Casis’ shopping experience. Many retailers are experiencing delays in the fulfilment of online orders at present, but we were disappointed to learn that the refund process had not met expectations. We’ll be reaching out to Mr. Casis to offer a voucher for the inconvenience and will further investigate the cause of the delay in processing his refund.”
By the end of January, Mr Casis was fully reimbursed. The mother told Neos Kosmos that Target had also sent her daughter the Lego set that was at the heart of the problem.
“She will have a chance to put it together once she has done her school work,” she said.
