A friend of mine related to me the story of his father, Leo, receiving an unneeded piece of software for Christmas. Leo sent an email to the company requesting a refund, to which he received a reply from a representative of the software company:

Dear Leo,

Thank you for your contact and your support to our product. The type of our software is shareware, so you can download and install it free of charge before deciding to purchase our software; it
 is why we go to
 great lengths to produce a trial version with which
 customers can ensure
 their satisfaction and system compatibility.

In order to
 avoid
 misunderstanding happened to trial version, we only limit time while not 
function.
 More important, refund will cause a lot of trouble to our
 agents. So please
 excuse us for refusing your refund request. Hope you can understand our
position.
 Thank you for your cooperation.


Have a nice day,


 Lily M., SuchAndSuch Software Company

 

Leo did not give up here, however. He had an idea:

I realized the person who responded to me from the company was not a native English speaker... My hypothesis was that if I mixed ungrammatical elements (that sounded like I was foreign too) with occasional idioms (very hard for foreigners to interpret) and sophisticated vocabulary (again, difficult for foreigners to grasp), and threw in a few intimidating terms (like CIA), I would get the best response mainly because my message was BOTH impenetrable AND a tad scary.

 

The result of this epiphany was the following glorious email he sent to the software company:

Dear Mr. Lily M,

      A great many thank you for your responding with my request for a refund. I am apoplectic that you say you will not refund payment advanced by my card for a debit . Normal business proceduring to the contrary nothwithstanding, and in order to put a bee in your bonnet, I hereby am being regretful and vituperative in re: your existential deliberashuns. I am tempted to refer my own self to the CIA, Better Business Bureau and the most recently formed throng, the Byte-a-Digit ( formerly Digital Examination) Directorate for their advisements and abutments.

      A million gratitudes for your cute-as-a-button riposte upon me. Pity that a  "refund will cause a lot of trouble to our agents" as you, Mr. Lily M., say with such wrinkly deposits. But as the old proverb says, "It takes a village to raise one child, but one child cannot raise a village or even his own self...at least until he's tall." Please keep this in mind as you reconnoiter my complainings.

      Very truly yours,

      Leo LastName, Ed.D, M.Ed,. B.A.
      husband of Grace LastName

PS- I do not understand your position (as you request) because I am not knowing where you are or what you are doing, what exact position are you in? Sitting? Standing? and etc. My position is seated now.

 

Lo and behold, shortly thereafter, a new message landed in Leo's inbox:

Dear leo,

Thank you for your contact and the information you provided.
 We have refunded your product and please check for this.

 

He also received a confirmation from PayPal saying "Your PayPal payment has been refunded."

 

Looks like a taste of their own medicine was all that was needed.

He should not have received the money back.  He was being an arrogant douchebag.

There is no excuse for treating people like that.

moskie:

I realized the person who responded to me from the company was not a native English speaker... My hypothesis was that if I mixed ungrammatical elements (that sounded like I was foreign too) with occasional idioms (very hard for foreigners to interpret) and sophisticated vocabulary (again, difficult for foreigners to grasp), and threw in a few intimidating terms (like CIA), I would get the best response mainly because my message was BOTH impenetrable AND a tad scary.

That guy is very strange.

Did he ever talk to a non-native English speaker? I know it depends on a culture (there are some specific mistakes some nations make more often than others), but mixing lengthy explanations, stupid questions, misused idioms and proverbs in one mail is just lame.

- Comparing his first message to the second one, you could probably see that he's just trying to sound like an idiot.
- Maybe the company didn't want to deal with such a person any more and just refunded the payment to get rid of him?
- Why does he assume that "foreigners" will like each other? If you assume you get any privileges from a random foreigner for being a foreigner from another random country, you should really look what's going on around you more often :(

I read much worse texts from native English speakers before. One thing that comes to my mind after reading that mail is "Durka Durka Muhamed Jihad!". You just know that the text is fake. Leo's email is TRWTF...

moskie:

A friend of mine related to me the story of his father, Leo, receiving an unneeded piece of software for Christmas. Leo sent an email to the company requesting a refund, to which he received a reply from a representative of the software company:
...
He also received a confirmation from PayPal saying "Your PayPal payment has been refunded."

So really, he didn't receive the unwanted software for Christmas, he bought it - since he received the PayPal refund email. Then acted like an ass to the poor CSR who is quite correct in saying that there's no reason they should offer a refund on "change-of-mind".

Sorry, TRWTF is "Leo", not the software company.

 I, for one, found the story amusing. But Kyanar brings up a good point.

 Thanks, merreborn, I agree. While I supposed there might have been some crotchedyness involved, I can look passed it and laugh at the WTF-ness of it. But lots of party-poopers here disagree!

 For the record, it was a gift from his wife, and they both use the same PayPal account.

moskie:

 lots of party-poopers here!

 

The original email from the company was perfectly understandable English (if a little offish), and a far cry form the bad Engrish joke Leo played.

I'm sorry, but I have little admiration for misguided, humorless, malexecuted attempts at being a "funny" ass, just to get a refund.

You should have called Morbs, and let him write the email.

That would have been funny.

moskie:

 For the record, it was a gift from his wife, and they both use the same PayPal account.

 

I always make sure my wife knows my list of approved software and games so I never get unwanted stuff. Looks like Leo has some training to do.

And I usually approve by using demo and trial software, so I sympathize with poor Lily here.