I loathe people who try to screw me over. Don’t even bother trying…I’ll always figure out a way to win.

Allow me to tell you a couple of stories…

When I quit the job I was working at four years ago, the company’s Human Resource department tried to recoup the signing bonus it paid to me by sending me an invoice and demanding that I mail them a check immediately. I refused, which caused the Human Resource department to escalate my “situation” to the corporate Legal department, who also demanded I pay up.

When I notified the Human Resource department and the company’s Legal department that, according to my employment offer letter, if I resigned employment within the first 12 months, the company was authorized to withhold the amount of the signing bonus from my final paycheck, minus the minimum wages required be paid to me under state law…a couple of proverbial light bulbs must have gone off in their collective heads because the subject was never brought up again by anyone at my old employer.

My final check was only for one week, so obviously the company didn’t get all of it’s money back. I’m guessing after that fiasco (which lasted a couple of months as we bickered and faxed and emailed back and forth), the company changed the wording on future employment offer letters.

When the UberHusband and I broke our apartment lease back in 2001 to move into our UberHouse, we scoured our apartment lease to find out what, if anything, we’d be liable for. We would only be liable for the time between when we moved out and when someone new moved into our new apartment. When someone moved into our apartment 37 days later, we received an invoice from the property management company for 37 days’ worth of rent, with payment due within 30 days.

After several phone calls back and forth and exchanged faxes, during which we got the apartment complex to concede some of the ancillary “cleaning charges” and what-not apartments like to charge to make extra revenue (I lived in apartments for 12 years, I know their tricks), we noticed a line in our lease agreement that basically said we didn’t have to repay anything within 30 days. We had to pay it back during a time period mutually agreed upon by Lessor and Lessee. Well, the UberHusband crafted a letter that stated we would pay them $50 a month for the next 18 months. If the apartment complex was agreeable to that, let us know in writing and we’ll begin payment on the first of the upcoming month.

Never heard a thing from them again. Most companies (not all, but most) would rather just end the dispute rather than deal with me and the UberHusband. I’ll poke. I’ll prod. I’ll set up task reminders in Outlook to remind me to send you the daily email reminder about how you owe me money or I don’t owe you money. Methodology has it’s benefits.

I mention these two stories because there have been times in my life when I have eluded pain and misery by being nitpicky and interpreting legal contracts to the letter because hey, I am going to do what is legally required, even if that means that you…person trying to mess with me…will not come out ahead.

This time though, it was personal.

Back when I began blogging I talked about an e-publication called This is True. I’ve been a Premium This is True subscriber for a few years now and a couple of years ago, hooked my dad up with a subscription because he also enjoys the stupid foibles of others.

His subscription comes up for renewal in December (it was originally a birthday gift) and I decided to purchase a gift renewal for him earlier this month. I processed my order online, my credit card was charged $36 for two years and a couple of days later, my dad received his gift renewal notification which also stated that if he didn’t want the gift subscription, to reply back and I (the gift subscriber) would receive a refund.

Turns out Dad didn’t want another two years so he responded back with a “No, thanks.” A couple of days later I forwarded the copy of that confirmation email I received to Randy at This is True and asked when my refund would be processed. No response. I wrote another email about a week later again inquiring as to my refund. No answer. I sent a third email asking what the deal was…finally received an answer.

The response?

“I’ll refund it if you insist, but there is a clearly stated “no refunds” policy on Premium subscriptions, mainly because it costs me SEVERAL bucks to process such refunds.”

I came unglued…as unglued as you can come at one o’clock in the morning.

Here is the carefully crafted response emailed back to Randy this morning:

“If there are no refunds, then why in the world did the gift notification/confirmation email sent to my father specifically say that if the subscription was unwanted, to reply back that he didn’t want it and that you would then process a refund back to me?

If we want to get technical, your website says, “There are no refunds should you unsubscribe for any reason.” Well, I’m not unsubscribing anyone. My dad has opted not to renew his subscription, which is completely different. His subscription will simply end this month. He will not receive a single issue based on the new subscription. Had he cancelled three weeks into the renewal period then I can see not being eligible for a refund, but not before he even receives anything. If I were to unsubscribe from my Premium subscription today, then I would not expect to get a refund…I understand that; however, in this case, there is no unsubscription going on.

I didn’t know my father wouldn’t want another two years of This is True and frankly, am a little irritated that my credit card would be processed BEFORE getting a confirmation from the gift recipient, then I am told, “No Refunds” when he declines.

In the future, it might be a better idea to send out the gift notification to the recipient and once the gift recipient says “Yes, I want This is True“, THEN charge the gift-giver’s credit card. If this is an issue with the way gift subscriptions are processed, that needs to be corrected but I shouldn’t have to pay for it.

But yes, I want a refund, because that is what was stated in your email back at the beginning of December if my dad did not want to renew. The charges you will be incurring for that aren’t my problem.”

Needless to say, I will not be renewing my personal subscription when it comes up in July. I’m not above simply disputing the credit card charge but I much prefer to make people’s lives a little miserable and force them to just do what’s right.

Don’t screw with your reading public…especially me. I don’t have big connections, but I have a big mouth and have no problem exposing people or companies I believe exercise shifty business practices. Just ask anyone who knew me when I was trying to buy a Honda Civic EX Coupe back in ‘96 (like everyone else on the planet) and had to deal with the chauvinistic assholes at Shingle Springs Honda.