Introduction
Some of you have read before that I don’t usually like to complain, but when an employee treats me like crap, I’m going to report it to Corporate. Sometimes I will Tweet corporate, but if it’s a lengthy backstory, I’ll go out to the retailer’s web site and contact them via email. And so that’s what happened, but let me tell you the backstory first.
Max limit on gift card use?
So I went to Bed Bath Beyond a couple of weeks ago. I bought 6 items, used 6 20% off codes, and my total came out to be about ~$350. I then gave the cashier my $25 gift cards I obtained from Discover Deals. He was happily running them through 1 by 1. However, by the 9th one, when he ran it through, he received an authorization error. He tried it a couple of times and still no go. The supervisor came over and no go still. I then handed him a different $25 gift card in case that one was bad. Same error.
He then said that it’s probably the gift card system is down. I didn’t think that was plausible since I just ran 8 cards through just fine, so it’d be horrible timing for it to have gone down mid-transaction. That’s when I thought it could be that I hit some kind of max gift card limit (maybe 8 in this case.) Anyway, he then said he’d have to call in the rest of the order. As you can imagine, that just SOUNDS LIKE IT WOULD TAKE FOREVER! I then said, “Forget it. I’ll just pay with a credit card for the remainder” and that’s what I did. On the way out, the rep said I could try a different store and they should be able to let me return the portion to the credit card and then pay the rest with a gift card.
Return and Rebuy?
So a couple of days later, I went to a different store and told the 1st line rep what happened. She couldn’t help me, so she called over the manager. I explained the situation to her, and she said it wasn’t possible and that I should go back to store A. I told her I didn’t want to go back to store A since this should be something that they can resolve. There’s nothing store A can do that store B can’t. After minutes of arguing, I could see she didn’t want to or knew how to deal with this issue. So I thought I came up with a brilliant idea – why don’t I just return the items and then I’d get a gift card back for the amount I paid in gift cards and the rest should go bcak to my card. I could then re-buy the items and split the transactions in case there was indeed an 8 gift card limit. Doesn’t that sound like the best workaround here?
Anyway, she balked at that saying she couldn’t do it because I didn’t have the items with me. Dough! I told her, “It doesn’t matter if I have them with me because I’m going to re-buy it back.” She just assumed I was trying to scam BBB by returning imaginary items. Even if I didn’t have the physical item, I could go grab one of the items from the shelf since it’s all the exact same item. She couldn’t wrap her head around this ingenius idea, once again muttering something about returning to gift cards. I could see this conversation was going nowhere. So I just said, “Okay, fine. Thanks anyway” and left the store.
As I was driving home, my anger was building because I felt she treated me like some kind of scammer. I expect this kind of service at Walmart, not at BBB. Anyway, when I got home, I contacted BBB on their web site and told them about my situation. Twelve hours later, they told me they would forward the issue to the regional manager and that they would need my phone number.
Call from the regional manager
A couple of days later, the regional manager called me up. I told her the situation and she agreed that the store manager should have been able to let me return/rebuy. I told her I didn’t like the attitude from the store manager, and she told me that she’d address that issue with her. She was very understanding and told me to come back to see a different manager who would take care of it. At the end of the call, she told me she’d give me an extra 20% off for my troubles. I thanked her for the call.
Back to the store
I went back to the store a couple of days after that, and a new store manager knew about the situation, and to keep a long story short, he was able to return 3 of the items back to my Discover card, and let me re-buy those 3 items using my gift cards.
Conclusion
The moral of the story is this – if an employee at a store mistreats you, either let management know or let corporate know. Do it through the proper channels; usually social channels won’t get a response. I didn’t want to get the store manager in trouble, but I felt her attitude needed to be fixed and she could use some more training on how to deal with these oddball issues.
Although it does look like the manager should have helped you, I am a bit troubled by the story overall. It just seems like a big waste of time for everyone involved and really, while I understand the overall context (likely reselling for profit), it just seems these sorts of tasks are for people who can’t find better uses of their time (or really can’t earn enough money a better way). My parents own their own small retail store and I can imagine how frustrated they’d be if they had to deal with this more than a few times a year. Large chains undoubtedly see this more often.
You’ve written about how time is valuable and it amazes me how much some of your other stories contradict that belief.
Putting time aside, which was not a lot in this scenario, what would you rather have me do? Just let it slide and go about my business and let the store manager keep treating people this way?
I think since you have family that owns a business, you most likely don’t want to deal with incidents like this. And you know what, if I was treated this way at a small store, I most likely won’t go back there. But in this day and age when customers have social media, Yelp reviews, and ability to write to corporate, then we expect to be treated better at stores or we just take our business elsewhere. Sure I could have decided to never shop at BBB again due to this incident, but I felt it was better to report this manager and have the management there re-trained.
Tough call. On one hand, you got what you want, plus a discount on top of it. On the other hand, this occurrence might not train the manager at all, it might just build resentment in her towards the customer. If she already had a crappy attitude, I don’t know if she will take it constructively. Now her attitude towards future customers might be even worse. And I think most won’t go out of their way to follow up on it through corporate, so she will continue her poor customer service.
But I continue to have faith in people, that they will take these learning opportunities to grow and become better. It shouldn’t be impossible for someone at management level to understand your problem and agree your solution was acceptable.
Well I’m sure this’ll go on her record, so if she doesn’t change and still mistreats customers, after a couple more complaints to management, she may not have a job anymore. Some people may not have the patience to deal with customers and they should look for a job elsewhere where they won’t have to deal with customers.