Well kroger just lost some customers!
 

Wife has loadable phone card from them that has no holding fees. Used it for two years as a back-up just in case. Found out this evening that they CANCELLED the card because we had not added money in more than 12 months.

There was money on the card and they are REFUSING to refund our money!!!!

She is currently arguing with a so-called manager who is locally situated in the United States of India.

MAD!!!! :mad::mad::mad:

Their loss... Lots of options as far as phone companies go.

Give them grief I say.

Yep, working on giving them grief!

"We do not care if you are upset. This is our policy. We will not notify anyone if their card is going to be expired. Go buy another card, we will NOT refund your money."

kroger customer service "there is nothing to do to change the policy, we cannot do anything to reactivate the card and put the money back on, they only keep the money and cannot provide refunds. It is against policy to give customer's money back to them when they expire a card even though the card never had a published expiration date."

That`s illegal, talk to a lawyer friend...

contact your state's Consumer Protection agency - often in the Attorney General's Office

there are gripe web sites also - maybe yelp is one

they may have stuck some fine print in your contract making it legal, but won't hurt to hassle them & it will be there for the next guy

We don't know that...

What does the 'small print' say?

Many cards expire and/or decrease in value over time.

Read it.

Read every phone card or gift card or contract BEFORE you buy it. Some are pretty bad, but legal.

Kroger may not have a choice on cancelling them; the cards are not always Kroger's, they are often from a third party and K gets a fee for selling them.

Sucks.

The rule of thumb is that once you hand over your money to someone else, you must consider it gone - never to be seen again, regardless of what kind of assurances they give you.

I'm getting to the point I don't even trust banks.

BINGO! kroger sub-contracted out. Card has their name on it but is "managed" by a third party with their own rules. Yep, going to file complaints and work at making this more expensive for them. VERY agrivating!

We are not talking huge sums of money but long on principle! Nothing on the card states they will inactive after two years of usage. Nothing in the small print. Just a statement this is "company policy" and they "will not return our money".

For the want of a few bucks kroger loses customers! I'm sure they made more money off us in a year than this card yielded them. And they were a tertiary vendor to us. Now they are on the wallfart list.

Talk to the local or regional manager, not some dufus in India.

Don't know if this would work, but could you make this a small claims action? It's cheap, and you could drag in a company representative, get a judgement against them & threaten to file a lien (& maybe do it) if they don't make things right. If you could do it, it might be fun & cause the most satisfying pain to them.

This is actually your best move for causing them aggravation and possibly getting your money back. But like some previous posters have said, look at the fine print on the card to see if it has some type of expiration language.

I have found that I get the best results when I write a polite but firm snail-mail letter to the CEO. I explain why I'm disatisfied and that because of it, they have lost a customer. I also politely tell them that I will tell others to beware of their company. I don't get manic about it and don't threaten. We know the CEO never sees these letters but 9 times out of 10 I get a really nice reply (or phone call) from someone who has the power to fix my problem.

David Dillon, CEO & Chairman
1014 Vine St.
Cincinnati, OH 45202-1100
Toll free: 1-800-632-6900 (Product Information)
Toll free: 1-866-221-4141 (Customer Comments)
Kroger - Home

Kroger corporate website:
The Kroger Co. - Home Page

You need to be specific and put this up on...Facebook. You need to make it "public" as well.

Many companies are looking for bad info about themselves on social networking sites, and then they try to retrify the issues.

I once had a letter forwarded from an old address.

Seems that the nest-egg(compounding stocks) that my grandfather gave me at birth, and which sat untouched for 30 years, was in the process of being confiscated by the Bank of New York..... and I had 30 days to respond, or else.

This was tens of thousands of dollars. Even my broker had a difficult time with those people.



"The easiest way to rob a bank is to own one."
"All I want is a dollar from every American, but I'll settle for a penny."

Just as a check, Kroger isn't in the reloadable phone card business, just cause they sell them doesnt mean that they manage that business, no moreso than they are responsible for how Bisquick, Cheerios, or Jet Puffed marshmallows are made. They sell the product.

Not saying they're not jointly liable, nor is it bad business, if you're talking with Fred from Mumbai, you're not talking to a Kroger person - most likely the rep from the organization that underwrites teh card. If they are representing themselves as Kroger, I really want to know for two reasons.

PM me details, I might be able to ask around. Need to know the name of the card, the name on the back of it and the number you called. I still got some friends....

Pointless. There's a legal department for a reason. If it goes this route, they'll pull out the fine print, ask for a dismissal and get it with no effort on their part. Only way to get big attention is to build a class action.

Exactly right. I used to have an AT&T "pay-as-you-go" SIM for places where I couldn't pick up my carrier but still needed phone service.

Not anymore - haven't needed it in a while and now it comes up "number not registered". Chances of AT&T giving my unused money back is zero - oddly enough, about the same odds they'll get money from me again.

Iceman,

Agree, they are not necessarily in the business. Card has their name on it... IF we need to I'll PM you with more information.

As it stands, we are filing a complaint with the State AG. Doubt we will ever get our money back. They have lost customers for life! We will not hurt their bottom line any but we will not support them either.

If I am not mistaken that is illegal in CA.