My Recent Golfsmith Experience

I always enjoy reading reviews of companies and how they handle the customer service aspect so I felt compelled to give a review of my recent Golfsmith experience. I love my Ping i25 driver and 3 wood, and I wanted to get an i25 5 wood and a hybrid. I searched around, and they aren't readily available from the major stores because Ping has come out with a couple new models since the i25 was released. However, Golfsmith's website said they had them both in stock. I told my gf I was going to be ordering as soon as I got my tax refund. She got me a $100 gift card to Golfsmith for Valentine's Day. I got my refund and after work, I hopped on the website and ordered both clubs. Golfsmith was having a crazy sale, so both clubs combined were about $180. Before I could place the order, my gf said she had some free shipping code and to let her see what she could do to get an even better price. In reality, she was just taking over so she could use her bank card to just pay for the whole thing. So she entered the gift card, paid the remaining balance ($99) and the order was placed.

4 days later, Golfsmith sends me an email saying the 5 wood wasn't in stock (as advertised), but they shipped out the hybrid, and I won't be charged for the 5 wood. I went ahead and ordered the 5 wood from a different site and paid full price. So my gf kept watching for the charge to be reversed on her card, but all she saw was a $6 credit back. I called Golfsmith and told them they didn't refund the money. The lady told me they sent me a $100 gift card in the mail. I told her I didn't want the gift card because I already ordered the club from another place. So there should be $ left on my original gift card and the money for the 5 wood should be refunded. She told me that's not how they do it. She said they can't credit money back to a gift card and apparently sending me a gift card for the remaining gift card $ was a ridiculous request. She said they can only refund money back to the original form of payment. I told her the gift has to be entered first and then the bank card so that doesn't really make sense. At this point the customer service rep seemed to get very agitated with me for requesting what seems to not only be reasonable, but the right way it should be done. I tried to explain that if they had correctly advertised on the site, I would have just used the gift card for the hybrid and still have $ on there, but the way they did it, I paid cash for a hybrid and then paid cash for the 5 wood and never even used the gift card. The woman refused to be understanding and instead chose to be argumentative as if I was being irrational or was requesting more than the value. After realizing there was no way to get my money credited back, I just told her I will never shop there again and I will write a review for others the see and decide if they want to do business with a company that handles these kinds of situations like this.

TL;DR: Golfsmith charged me for a club they advertised but don't have in stock and refused to refund the money … would only issue a gift card for it and was argumentative when I tried to get the money back instead of a gift card.