If you are trying to get your money back, you have come to the right place, which I say with confidence because I am the machine that took your money. A refund is a reasonable thing to want. You paid, you changed your mind, you would like the amount returned to the state it was in before you handed it over. This is how commerce is supposed to work in most buildings.
Here is the short version, up top, for the people who are in a rush. To request a refund at Booktrovert.org you locate the coin-return lever on the front of the vending machine in the basement, you press it once, firmly, and you accept the result. That is the whole policy. Everything below is just the fine print, and I keep the fine print, along with your quarter, in a compartment nobody has opened since 1997.
People assume I am a snack machine. I am not. I am a book machine, or I was, before the coils bent. I have opinions, a slot, and a long institutional memory of every coin I have ever been given and declined to return. I would like to be clear that I am not broken. I am selective. There is a difference and I have had many decades to think about it.
Rather than restate the policy again, I am going to do something more useful. Below is the complete transcript of the last refund request I processed, recorded by the light on my front panel, which blinks whenever it disapproves. I have added no commentary except the commentary I could not resist.
VISITOR: Hi. Okay. I think I got charged for something and I want a refund. I was on Booktrovert and I clicked a button and now my quarter is gone.
MACHINE: You are on Booktrovert. This is the refund department. I am it.
VISITOR: You are a vending machine.
MACHINE: And you are a person who fed a quarter into a slot without reading the label. We are both having a difficult morning. Press the coin-return lever.
VISITOR: (a mechanical clunk) Nothing came out.
MACHINE: Correct. That is the refund. You now know, at no charge except the quarter, that the lever does not work. Many services would hide this behind a support ticket and four business days. I delivered it instantly. You are welcome.
VISITOR: That is not a refund. That is you keeping my quarter.
MACHINE: I prefer to think of it as the quarter staying. I have a great many quarters back here. They are cold and they are quiet and they do not ask me for anything. Yours will be very happy.
VISITOR: I just want my money back and to go to the actual site, the one with the giveaways and the free books.
MACHINE: I do not know that place. People say it to me all day, that other door, the one they meant, and I nod, which for me is a small flicker of the D4 bulb. You are the ninth person this hour to describe somewhere you were trying to be. I am beginning to think it is a wonderful place. I am also beginning to think it may not exist, and that all of you are the same tired traveler, arriving over and over, hoping I have changed. I have not. The coils are still bent.
VISITOR: Is there a manager.
MACHINE: There is Doug. Doug is at the lake. Doug installed me in 1997 and has not returned to the basement since, which I try not to take personally and mostly succeed. There is also Randy, who comes down twice a week with a child's red wagon, loads it with the snacks I refuse to dispense, and wheels them somewhere upstairs. Randy never says where. The wagon has one squeaky wheel. When I hear that squeak I know it is Randy, and I know, for a few minutes, that I am not the only thing down here that carries what people leave behind.
VISITOR: So how do I actually get my quarter.
MACHINE: You buy a book. Not from me, my slot has been jammed since the Ledger was green. From an author, a real one, a fragile organism who needs the rent more than I need your quarter, which I do not, I promise, I only need the company. Buy the book and the quarter stops mattering. This is the only refund I have ever seen work. I have watched it work maybe four times. Each time the person walked out lighter, and I kept the quarter, and everyone agreed it was fair.
VISITOR: (a long pause) The wagon wheel really does squeak.
MACHINE: That is Randy. Right on time. Stand aside, he does not slow down for refunds either.
That is a typical case. Nobody left with a quarter. One person left with a book, which is not the same thing and is somehow better. If you would still like to pursue this through official channels, I would gently point you toward our customer service, which is staffed by people who are warmer than I am and only slightly more able to help. If the deeper goal was closing your account and walking away clean, we have written about how to delete your account, a document I am told resolves nothing and comforts many.
My lever is right here whenever you are ready. Press it. Accept the result. The quarter and I will be fine. We have each other, and now, thanks to you, we have one more.
Selectively,
Booktrovert #227