Refund Requests For Guaranteed Vend Snack Machine

[winning123]

Hey All,

I installed vend sensors on an APLCM3 with a VE board about two weeks ago. How reliable are these?    I didnt let the location know just to see how it goes.   Well..... I am getting word of supposed "machine taking my money" and things just arent adding up because the sensors seem to work flawless when testing.  At this point I am suspecting people are lying to get refunds and has since placed clear signage explaining refunds are give instantly at machine with instructions of making another selection or press coin return for refund. 

I  Even had a person who works in the location say people are running trying to get refunds and they dont even touch the machine. My next move is to deny all refunds, pay on very limited  basis, and if those fail or cause friction with higher ups abandon them.  At this point they are slandering the machine in order to get freebies .  Any thoughts and suggestions are and will be appreciated.

[vendcobros]

Those drop sensors don't work for customers. Only works 100% of the time for us when we test then 0% for customers. Story of my life. Bums want a few bucks from you or they walk away from their refund.

[AngryChris]

My rule of thumb has always been to give them the refund and ask them what happened.  The single thing that drives me up the wall is when they say "I put in my money and it didn't do anything."  That just drives me mad instantaneously.  I always have to ask them "What do you mean it did nothing?" and I can tell I sound frustrated even though I am trying to remain calm LOL.  They ALWAYS either stumble over their words (which means they are totally exaggerating) or they calmly tell me what happened.  I'm not giving advice, just venting.

I have had similar problems to what you mentioned.  Once I explain how the drop sensor works, the refund requests disappear.  I have concluded that the cause for refunds is one of few reasons:  the validator is faulty and needs to be rebuilt (this is known to be the fault when people say they put their dollar in and no credit was shown), the coin mech is going bad and not registering all change, there is a coin jam causing people to lose money, some payouts on the coin mech aren't working, they don't know how to WAIT for their refund so they simply walk away when the product doesn't come out and don't even get their money back but someone else does, the drop sensor is faulty, their snacks got stuck on the way down but tripped the sensor, they are lying.

I can pretty much narrow things down depending on what they say.  When they start off with "it didn't give me anything" or "It didn't do anything" then I have to keep asking questions.  If they follow up by saying something like "I put my money in and pressed the selection but nothing happened" then I ask them if it showed a credit.  If they say yes, then I can pretty much conclude that it's either the drop sensor or they are lying.  Most of the time, they give the old "I saw it turn but it got stuck." which somehow translates into "it didn't do anything" when I ask initially.  When it turns into "it got stuck" then I am 90% sure they are lying.  How am I so sure? Because they could have just told me from the get go that the product got stuck, but no.. they claim it "did nothing."  That's a total fabrication of what actually happened.  On the other hand, when they say something like "I put in $1 and only got 10 cents back for a 65 cent item" then I absolutely believe they lost 25 cents.  Who lies about 25 cents?  Plus, it's a very common problem to have a payout fail, but they usually say something like "I didn't get all of my change back" or "i lost a quarter/dime/nickel/20 cents/etc..."  So.. I think the only real way to discourage fake refunds is to DEMAND a detailed explanation of why the refund is necessary.  If they simply say "It did nothing" then maybe they shouldn't get a refund.  Personally, I pay them out UNLESS it's the SAME person constantly asking for a refund.  You never know... the machine might be doing something that you have overlooked.  Maybe a price is wrong somewhere, maybe their chips fell horizontally over the delivery bin but didn't actually fall all the way down, preventing that customer from getting their product.  But when you have the same 2 or 3 people constantly saying they lost $1 every few days, it may be fair to simply tell them that this is the last refund they will get IF they cannot give you a reason that makes sense.  

In the last 7 years that I can think of, I had TWO guys, both from the SAME account within the SAME 2 weeks.. these guys just had my gut telling me they were lying.  One guy said he lost $1 one day because his "chips got stuck" and $1 the next day because his "honey buns got stuck."  Thing is, the chips are 65 cents... where did the 35 cents go?  Even if the chips did get stuck, he's saying the drop sensor failed AND he didn't get change back all in one day, while the drop sensor failed the next day too.  Meanwhile, the other 50+ employees had no problems.  The other guy kept changing his story as I tried to get him to explain what happened.  He actually offered to just give me the money back for my trouble lol.  It's not like I was intimidating him or anything.. I think he just felt caught.  He never asked for any more refunds though.  The first guy I mentioned was fired after about 2 weeks at this place.  This happened about a month ago.

[Southeast Treats]

It can be frustrating, but even with drop sensors failures happen.  If customers know you will make good on problems they have more faith in using the machines.  And yes, some few people are crooks and will lie to scam a dollar.  I try to talk to the customer and find out what happened of course, so I can identify and fix real problems; but also to let the scammers know I am not an ATM.  When they realize they have to face me and earn their lousy dollar most lose interest in trying again.

My biggest issue with refunds is when I have to deal with a third party, like a hotel front desk.  Often you are paying off the refund to the clerk on duty, not the one who issued it.  A lot of time spent educating the desk people and front managers about machines, but it does help.  I get the cash out slips when I pay them back - and I keep them for a long time.  I can go back and look for patterns and repeat offenders if needed; it also keeps me from paying off the same slip twice!  Usually I'm just happy when they pay a refund and don't rush back to hang an "out of order" sign on a working machine!!

[Corvus Corax]

I have a retirement home, with some on the spot type gripes. It mostly family and friends of the tenants. The tenants have a sheet at the front desk that gets paid back monthlt. Usually $10-15. It's the on the spot people that see me and suddenly lost a dollar. It's always a dollar, not .35 or.65. I try to only refund product. If they lost it on a candy bar, I give them their snickers, or their bag of chips. I am probably still getting taken, but at least they know they can't hit me for money.