Marshalls / customer service

I am a resident of Puerto Rico. On Sept 14, 2017 I purchased a total of $157.13 of goods at Marshall's at Manati Plaza and charged them to my Mastercard.

On Sept. 20th Hurricane Maria devestated Puerto Rico. Marshall's was closed for several weeks.

On Nov 2nd, I was finally able to get to the store. I later learned from the Manager that they had been fully operational for one week.

I went to the store to return four of the items purchased on 9/14 for a total of $88.05. When the cashier processed the return she gave me a store credit on a gift card. I asked her why she wasn't giving me a credit to my credit card. She told me that I had not returned the items within 30 days.

Seriously?! The store was closed for almost a month. I asked to speak to the Manager and she told me that I could have returned the items by 9/19. Five days after purchase. Not to mention getting prepared for a major hurricane.

I told the Manager that under normal circumstances I would have made the return within 30 days. This was far from normal. Management did not take into account the time the store was closed.

After explaining this to the Manager several times, she finally agreed to credit my master card. A transaction that should have take 10 minutes took more like 45 minutes with a store full of customers looking on.

The decision to give customers a store credit was insensitive and unfair considering the store was closed for several weeks and the extent of damages caused to customers by Hurricane Maria.

This is the first time I have ever filed a complaint against any merchant.