Refund for educational discount and sales tax exemption

[Adam Snyder]

Before signing up, I inquired about educational discounts and sales tax exemption. I was told to first sign up at the full rate, and then submit documentation about our educational/tax-exempt status to get a refund. I suppose I should have realized that was a red flag, but I went ahead with it. Of course, the payment on our end went through right away, but getting the refund has been a nightmare. Trello/Atlassian has been sitting on our money and our paperwork for a month and we still haven't gotten our refund! I've been contacting them at regular intervals through the help-ticket system and email, and at first they were responsive at telling us "we're busy, things are a little backed up" (of course, that didn't stop them from taking the payment up front instantly), but for the last couple weeks they simply haven't been responding at all (i.e., are basically ghosting us).

Does anyone know a way to get ahold of someone on the phone about this? Do I have any recourse other than just canceling everything completely (I'm not optimistic about that going smoothly now either)?

All my colleagues in my department are also interested in project management solutions, and it was my job to investigate different options and report back to them. What am I supposed to tell them about this experience now? I certainly couldn't recommend Trello unless this educational discount thing is managed much more smoothly. As it is, I've basically been scammed into giving Trello an interest-free loan!

[Michael Pryor]

Can you give me a ticket number so I can look?  (As far as I know, we didn't normally do it this way, so I'm surprised you were told to do it like this.)

[Adam Snyder]

We have three tickets: CA-1515025 (our original request from my employee); CA-1534982; and CA-1564515

[Alex Waite]

Hi @Adam Snyder, I'm really sorry you're still waiting for the 50% discount. I'm not sure what's happened here, as this sits with our Advocates team (billing and sales), but I've reached out to the Advocate in charge of your case, and asked them to look into this with absolute urgency, even if it's just providing you an update. I'll be keeping an eye on the ticket to make sure you get an answer, and will escalate it if you don't! 

[Alex Waite]

Hey @Adam Snyder I've escalated this ticket, I log in around 8am AEDT and will be checking first thing if you get a response. Again, I apologise for the rigamarole you've had to go through here - this is not the standard of service we want to be known for. 

[Alex Waite]

@Adam Snyder Good news, I can see they've refunded your whole payment, and given you a free month for Premium as a promo code while they sort out your tax exemption. If you need help applying the promo code, let me know. 

[Adam Snyder]

I just got an email this morning saying our tax exemption was rejected?! There was no explanation except this. Can someone explain this to me in English? We're a non-profit University.

[Adam Snyder]

Now I see it says "The following certificate(s) were not completed to our state and/or local tax regulation compliance standards." Excuse me?! We're a giant organization doing hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions annually and this has never been a problem before. I'm going to need more to go on than "does not meet our standards"

[Adam Snyder]

Sorry, one more thing: a temporary refund of the payment is fine (although not what I asked for), but I need paperwork for all of this. I was supposed to get an updated invoice when the 50% discount was applied; now I need an updated invoice showing this refund. When I go into me trello workspace now, I don't even see a "billing" tab! I have to reconcile all these transactions with the purchasing department, and for that I need the paperwork. Come on people, this is supposed to be a professional operation! What a disaster...

[Adam Snyder]

Nevermind, I managed to find the updated invoice AFTER I applied the coupon code. It would have been nice to be told that up front, or just sent an email with the invoice to begin with. Sorry about all these posts, but I'm just completely flabbergasted about how unprofessional this experience has been...

Edit: No, actually I am confused. I've now got four invoices and three receipts, the invoices don't seem to be adding up. For example, one of them shows a negative balance, so I'm actually even more confused than ever now. Is there no one that can call me on the telephone and explain to me what the heck is going on?

[Alex Waite]

Hey @Adam Snyder I understand the frustration, but can you communicate this on your ticket, CA-1534982? I can't fix these issues for you over the Community and also I don't sit in our billing team - I'd rather our Senior Customer Advocate who took over your case continue to work with you. They also may be able to call you but I don't know what their processes are with phone calls.