Crap

CSI was in full force today.  I think I mentioned the CSI investigation that has been under way at K9 Kaos this week.  The case is still open and we had some major activity today.  A very new customer came in on Monday and left without paying, we believe accidentally.  The tab was for $126.72 a relatively large purchase.  Judy and I figured out her name by matching up her credit card sales from her only 3 visits.  She does not bring her dogs to daycare or grooming so we had no contact information whatsoever.  She has only recently starting buying dog food and supplies from us. 

So we have her name, we do the obvious and look on the internet and in the phone book for a number or address.  NOTHING.  Call 411 and they have nothing in the surrounding areas for that name.  There is no one with that last name anywhere near NH .. CT is the closest. Today I decided to call the credit card company to see what my options are.  Basically none.  I can’t charge her card, I have two different credit card numbers on file from her past purchases, and they can’t tell me any information about her.  So on the advice of my policeman customer I finally break down and call the Dover PD.  They were very cool and said they had found her address but no phone number.  So they could not give ‘me’ her address so they said that they would just stop by her house and ask her to call me.

Call me she did. HYSTERICAL …  SCREAMING … CRYING … TRAUMATIZED … did I mentioned HYSTERICAL? She told me that she paid with her credit card.  I told her she hadn’t.  She would not let me explain anything, told me she wanted to call the credit card company before paying me and she would call me tomorrow.  She wouldn’t let me explain and hung up on me.  Wow.

I understand that having the cops show up at your door could be intimidating.  I wish I had even one minute to explain myself but I didn’t get that. I get that she was mad or taken back or whatever, I totally understand.

My question is this.  Should I (K9 Kaos) be held to a different standard than any other store because we are small?  If I ran a PetCo franchise and I helped someone carry out their products and they drove off mistakenly without paying would PetCo say “oh well”?    I waited 5 days before doing anything, she thought she had paid, what if she didn’t return to K9 Kaos for a month… was I to say then… ‘oh by the way you didn’t pay the last time you were here a month ago and you owe me over a hundred dollars’?  I would have been told to go pound sand and that is, of course, if we even recognized her when she did return. 

So I am feeling badly about the whole thing and I wish I could have just found a phone number or something that would have allowed me to contact her myself.  But, I do suppose that it is a good thing that the police don’t just go around passing out information like that and they do protect our privacy.  I’m sure she does not see it that way.