This has to be a record of some sort...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Forgot this one from yesterday:

Got called up to the service desk to retrieve a raincheck flat-screen TV for a customer. It turned out to be over a $900 purchase.

The customer paid for it with a big ol' wad of $25 gift cards. That works out to about 36 gift cards and change.

Had to wait about 15 minutes at the desk after I got the TV for the clerk to finish ringing him up.

This to me is a lot like paying for your purchases all in change. It takes a long-ass time to get the transaction finished, and if you're being timed on items scanned per minute you're shot for the rest of the day. He was polite otherwise though, and I'm guessing he must've gotten the gift cards as gifts and was spending them now, but it still struck me as being pretty annoying.

[BookstoreEscapee]

My cousin is going to end up in this situation. He got married yesterday, and as an alternative to their regular registry at BB&B, they requested gift cards to Eastern Mountain Sports because they are planning to buy a kayak. The bride got several at the shower, and I imagine some from the wedding as well, plus cash. So they will be making a large purchase with lots of gift cards sometime soon.

[Sorianna]

It's certainly annoying, especially for the cashier, but is it really sucky? I can see why the cashier (and you) would be frustrated, but I don't think the customer did anything wrong...

[Dave1982]

I'll admit to doing something like this once, though not to nearly the extent that this guy did.

I wanted to get a new stereo system for my car, so I asked that all I get for Christmas to be Circuit City gift cards. I ended up with something over $400 worth, though it was spread over only 6 CC gift cards, and one Visa gift card, not THIRTY-SIX. I did apologize to the clerk for it, especially once he discovered that the system set a limit of 5 cards per purchase, forcing him to do quite a bit of extra work to get everything paid for. :o

Irv, I suspect that what might have happened here is he may have made a bulk gift card purchase through corporate. Now obviously I don't know how your company works, but at mine, if you order $x in cards direct from the home office, you actually get a discount on them. I don't know the exact figures, but I think it's something like 5% when you get $1000 worth or more. In theory this is not supposed to allow an individual to buy a huge wad of cards just to then buy a laptop (or a TV) at a discount, but there's not much they can do about it. :cry:

[BookstoreEscapee]

It's certainly annoying, especially for the cashier, but is it really sucky? I can see why the cashier (and you) would be frustrated, but I don't think the customer did anything wrong...

I don't think it was sucky, either. I've had people with lots of cards (though not 36!) and I never minded much. Maybe because I've been the one to ring up a hundred or more gift cards (and paper certificates, way back when) at a time for school orders and such, redeeming a whole stack wouldn't faze me much (and in a bookstore you get a lot of teachers with a lot of $5-10 cards at the end of the school year). I've even offered to combine a bunch of balances onto one card for people if they had several cards (though only when there wasn't a line). The tricky part is keeping track of them all and making sure you give back the right one if the last one has a balance (I used to fold them in half as I scanned them).

[freeatlast]

When I worked in the Call Center from hell, we were awarded "VIP Points" for having a high service level, 100% QC and low ATT each month. These points were redeemable for mall gift certificates (this was before the mall issued Visa gift cards.) These points had to be redeemed in $20 increments for $20 gift certiificates. We could not combine more than $20 at a time. I was having a house built and had my eye on a really nice garage door opener, so I saved up all of my points until I had accumulated $400 of them. When I turned in all of my redemption forms (at $20 each) the guy who handled the paperwork and obtained the gift certificates nearly fell out of his chair. :D He gave them back and told me that just this once, I could combine them for $100 at a time and not to let them build up to that much in the future. Of course, when I received my gift certificates, I received $400 of $20 gift certificates. When I used them at Sears to buy my garage door opener, the poor salesman had to enter each of them separately, as their system didn't allow them to be combined. I felt really bad about it, but since that store was near where I worked, he said they were used to receiving large numbers of certificates for purchases by other people from my work. Once they started issueing Visa gift cards, they could be obtained in much larger increments.

[powerboy]

I also do not see the suck, in that customer.

[Broomjockey]

It's a subtle suck. 1) The customer took more than 15 minutes to get through the transaction. 2) Destroyed the cashier's IPM metric, which can seriously affect reviews. But as Irv said: "He was polite otherwise." So it wasn't a particularly sucky suck.

[marasbaras]

Destroyed the cashier's IPM metric, which can seriously affect reviews.

So, what is a customer who has these cards and wants to redeem them for a TV supposed to do?

No suck at all. None.

IF there is any suck, it is on the part of store management for setting up metrics like this.

[Sliceanddice]

i think all that sucks is that he didn't go to customer service to see if he could compine them, or if he did, they wouldn't

[marasbaras]

To those that think that this customer sucked at all, please explain to me how they're supposed to know about cashier metrics and things like this.

Customers are encouraged to use gift cards much like money. That's what he did.

[cinema guy]

I was told at work that gift vouchers/cards are essentially currency and the rules in the UK were changed to prevent any kind of restriction on them, such as expiration dates.

I know the cinema's gift vouchers changed so they no longer expired. This was a year ago, or more.

[JustADude]

I was told at work that gift vouchers/cards are essentially currency and the rules in the UK were changed to prevent any kind of restriction on them, such as expiration dates.

I know the cinema's gift vouchers changed so they no longer expired. This was a year ago, or more.

Happened in the US as well, and it really does make sense... aaaand, back on topic: The customer, unless he was working a bulk-discount loophole (and that's what it smells like), wasn't really sucky as such. It's just one of those things that happens that you just have to sigh over and let go.

Fortunately for me, my job only considers ATT and CPH as two of nine different metrics, no more important than any others. Having those two in the tank can be made up for just by showing up on time every day and staying logged into your station and working while you're on the clock instead of goofing off.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Irv, I suspect that what might have happened here is he may have made a bulk gift card purchase through corporate. Now obviously I don't know how your company works, but at mine, if you order $x in cards direct from the home office, you actually get a discount on them. I don't know the exact figures, but I think it's something like 5% when you get $1000 worth or more. In theory this is not supposed to allow an individual to buy a huge wad of cards just to then buy a laptop (or a TV) at a discount, but there's not much they can do about it. :cry:

I just looked up the gift card info on my company's website and they offer a 5% discount if you buy $1,000 of gift cards or more.

Otherwise you can choose your value on the gift card up to $1000, I think. At least that is how it used to.

I'll agree the customer wasn't sucky. It's just one of those things that sucks but you have to deal with it. At least my company is not as anal about the IPM scores as other stores can be.

[jam704]

In California gift cards and certificates are not suppose to expire. But, it doesn't stop them from expiring at whatever rate it is that company has set forth in the terms.

[the_std]

The difference I see here is that someone can take a buttload of change to a bank and get it converted into bills, therefore reducing the stress on the cashier, whereas customer service might not be set up to do that kind of conversion on gift cards, so the customer might just be stuck using them one by one.

Yeah, it sucks for the cashier, but sometimes, there just isn't any other way.

[wanderingjoe72]

Sucky situation, but no suckage on the customer's part.

We had a similar situation, our company gives gift card rewards in varying amounts. from $10 to $500. We had a total of $650 in cards with the largest being $100. So when we went into Home Depot to buy a stove, we had a stack to pay with. We did find out that since they are already issued, they couldn't be combined. So, the cashier was very helpful in processing them all. Even when the wrong amount posted on one of them and we searched the list and found the card to confirm the full credit for it.

There is just no way around some situations, as long as the customer is willing to go along with you makes the difference.

[STEELMAN]

As far as buying the cards to get a discount. I have done this a few times around Christmas. Some stores will offer incentives to encourage sales of gift cards, ie buy a $25 card and receive a $5 card. I would then use the cards to make my purchases. I never thought I was being sucky though.

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

I don't think using the loopholes is sucky, but why not get larger amounts than $25? if he would have gotten just a $1000 card that would have been fine, or 2 $500, or 4 $250s, but 40 $25s?

the reason I don't feel using that loophole is sucky is because TVs are a high margin item, and if that 5% gets them to buy the tv at your store instead of another, that's a good thing, and the store still makes a $2-300 profit from it

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

the reason I don't feel using that loophole is sucky is because TVs are a high margin item, and if that 5% gets them to buy the tv at your store instead of another, that's a good thing, and the store still makes a $2-300 profit from it

Really? Then why did my company take away the senior citizen and employee discounts on them, claiming the margins on electronic items are razor thin and those discounts were bleeding the company dry?

Unless TVs really do have big margins and the suits figured it'd just be easier to take the discount away on all electronics instead of picking and choosing.

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

hmmm I could be wrong, but I've seen TVs marked way down in the holiday season, it wouldn't make sense to sell TVs at a loss. selling candy at a loss, or socks, or something cheap like that to get people in the store is one thing, but most people who buy TVs leave with little or nothing else so I'm assuming they still make decent profit to be taking $100 off of a $600 TV, your last comment is probably right

2 more possibilities are that your CEO can't get good prices(it's obvious he cant get the same one as wal mart based on sheer quantity, so that will cut margins), or that corporate lied to you about the reason or a combination of the 3

[Andara Bledin]

In California gift cards and certificates are not suppose to expire. But, it doesn't stop them from expiring at whatever rate it is that company has set forth in the terms.

In California, gift cards and certificates are the same as cash for the store in question and they cannot charge any service fee or set any expiration date.

If you don't think you'll be redeeming one for merchandise in the near future, then just take it in and get the cash back. The store is legally required to do so. I do that with Schlockbuster cards people give me because I don't actually shop there.

^-.-^

[Samaliel]

Around here, most gift cards have an expiration date 1 year after purchase, and I'm pretty sure most shops who will take them have a limited number of cards per transaction policy, probably because they're concerned about a guy with 40 cards would harm the customer experience of those behind him in the line.

[rerant]

Maybe it's just our simple-as-hell gift cards, but I don't see any suck to this at all.
People use fistfulls of gift cards at my work all the time and to be honest I kind of prefer it.
They're faster than any other form of payment.

[Sliceanddice]

i use to sell a service where you could purchase a certain ammount on a gift card, up to so many at a discount
it was like 20-25 5-50 dollar gift card to verious different places, and get 5% back

[drmike]

Considering that most chains and stores no longer have layaway and point folks towards those gift cards (ie buy one a week until you've got enough to cover your purchase), that may be what has occurred here.