Refund for furniture purchase takes over a month to be credited

2004/08/10

【Reported by Chen Hsiu-chih／Taipei】“It has been a month since the refund was processed, but it still hasn’t been credited. This is outrageous!” Ms. Chen complained that on February 28 this year, she purchased NT$600,000 worth of furniture from the MFI San Shang Mei Fu Furniture Taipei Heping store. That day, she paid NT$210,000 by credit card as a deposit. She made the remaining payment in March, but the two parties later terminated the contract for an unspecified reason. On June 19, the deposit of more than NT$215,000 was refunded to the original card. She said, “I thought MFI would return the money to the bank that day or the next day. I never expected that I would wait a month and still not see it credited.”

Ms. Chen said angrily that she had called MFI’s headquarters several times, but the issue was never resolved. The company told her that it simply took that long. “MFI is deliberately making it difficult for consumers to obtain refunds.”

Holding her order form and refund form, Ms. Chen said that MFI’s refunds take a month and a half, and that she had not been informed of this in advance.

Suspected failure to disclose return timeline

A reporter called MFI customer service in Ms. Chen’s name. A customer service representative said that MFI’s procedure requires the store to return the goods to headquarters before the consumer can be refunded, and that the process normally takes a month and a half. The case was currently being handled.

MFI headquarters said that refunds for individual items can be issued within a week. However, because Ms. Chen purchased a large quantity of furniture and some materials had already been prepared, MFI’s return procedure requires the goods to be returned by the store to headquarters. After confirming that everything is in order, the finance department then contacts the bank to process the refund. The process usually takes four to six weeks. MFI requires all store managers to inform consumers of this when processing returns. The manager of the Heping store may have failed to inform the consumer of the return timeline and also apologized to the consumer.

Refund should be issued on the day of contract termination

However, Ms. Chen said that the store manager had not informed her in advance that the return would take a month and a half. She questioned whether MFI’s refund procedure disregarded consumers’ rights and said that, since she had already paid in March, it was unreasonable to make her wait another month and a half for a refund. She would complain to the consumer protection authority and demand compensation for the loss of interest.

Wu Cheng-hsueh, a consumer ombudsman with the Consumer Protection Commission of the Executive Yuan, said that when both parties agree to terminate a contract, the refund should be issued within a reasonable period. In this case, since Ms. Chen had already made the payment in March, MFI should have immediately refunded the money on the day the contract was terminated. Unless MFI had obtained Ms. Chen’s consent to issue the refund a month and a half later, Ms. Chen could claim that MFI had delayed payment and must compensate her for the loss of interest.

Case No.: C04072801

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