Several years ago I would occasionally stop by the Manassas office of Almost Heaven water and buy 5-gallon jugs of water.  The first time I paid for both the water and the bottle deposit.  I would load them in my car and go home.  At later dates I would return the empties and buy more full bottles and I would then pay for only the water when returning empties.

A few years ago  my wife and I moved, and at our new house we installed a water filter so we didn't need bottled water.  But we still had 4 full 5-gallon jugs that we put in the basement for "emergency zombie attacks", and we had 5 empties in the garage.  Just a few weeks ago my wife was going towards Manassas and took the empties back to the Almost Heaven Office.  The person at the office when the bottles were returned gave us a written receipt for the 5 empties, took our name and address and said that they would mail us the $30 bottle deposit refund.  

Now, after a few weeks we called Almost Heaven to ask where the deposit refund check was and were told that because we didn't have an "account" they would not send us a refund.  My wife offered to just take back the empties (for a craft project or something?) and Almost Heaven also refused to give back the empties.  When questioning this logic, my wife was indirectly accused of stealing or scamming the empty bottles (somehow?).  After asking to speak to a manager she was hung up on.  She called back again, and spoke to another representative who suggested that if we had a receipt for the original payment it might help, but then when my wife said that we might be able to generate credit card statements with record of payment to Almost Heaven she was told that it didn't matter, they still wouldn't refund our deposit.  I have filed a BBB complaint, and will be pursuing the matter further.  I don't really need $30 or $300, but I really dislike being accused of thievery.