Wherein a SC informs me stores honor sales forever

[CancelMyService]

OK, so my company has an offer where if you sign up for all three of our products you get a Nintendo DS, which is a pretty cool deal. It should also be mentioned this deal can only be done via the web. Us phone serfs have no access to web only promotions.

The fun begins:

SC: When did your offer on the web site for the Nintendo DS begin?
Me: Well I don't know the exact date, but know it hasn't been going on for long.
SC: Well it's not fair, I just got my services installed last week (I checked, she did, she was installed 7/11 but more on that later) but I didn't get that promotion.
Me: Did you sign up for service online?
SC: *some non-answer that basically summed up to "no I didn't"*
Me: You have to have signed up online to get that promotion, so if you just called in to order, no one here would have known about it.
SC: *typical SC blargle about wanting the promo after the fact*
Me: No one here can give you a web-only promo, and since you're already installed there's not much we can do. We have promotions all the time, and unfortunately there's always going to be someone who was just installed before one starts.
SC: WELL IF YOU BUY SOMETHING AND IT GOES ON SALE A WEEK AFTER, THE STORE WILL JUST GIIIIIIVE YOU THE SALE PRICE!




Me: *composing myself after stifling the urge to laugh in her face* I really don't think it works that way.....
SC: *cutting me off*.........OH YES IT DOES, THEY JUST GIVE YOU THE SALE PRICE, I WANT TO SPEAK TO A SUUUUUUUUUUUPERVISOR!!!!


Well. Alrighty then.

I get the feeling whatever store gave her the sale price did so to get her out of the store. At any rate, she's not going to win with us since there's really no way we could honor a web only promo at the call center.


By the way, I checked her order and it was originally placed on 6/29. The promo started at least a week later.

[Kogarashi]

I've heard of some stores that do that, actually. Not many, though.

Hey, I think I know what company you work for! I saw that ad on Snopes! Yeah, it does sound cool. Pity we just canceled our internet service, since the university recently provided wireless to our complex for free. Hubby and I don't have much spare money to spend, since we're living off of his graduate stipend. And we have cell phones so we have no need for the phone package.

::sigh:: Oh well. I don't really need a DS anyway. I need to save my pennies for a Wii.

Luckily, by the time I can afford one, the price will have gone down and the bugs (if any) will have been worked out.

[CancelMyService]

I've heard of that happening so a store manager can get some screaming lunatic out of their face, but this lady reacted as if I was ignoring an established business practice in the retail world.

Most of my friends were female, and they shopped often. My wife could bring gold to the US if shopping was an Olympic event. I've never heard any of them relate something like that happening.

[Boozy]

SC: WELL IF YOU BUY SOMETHING AND IT GOES ON SALE A WEEK AFTER, THE STORE WILL JUST GIIIIIIVE YOU THE SALE PRICE!

I've heard of stores doing that too, which is a real bugger for the majority of stores that don't.

Customers now think those little courtesies are their birth right.

[XXDarrienX]

Since Cancel and I work for the same company, I discovered about that order. Except there is some fine print about that for our Division. We do not honor that promotion......thats going to be LOADS of fun.

[Max]

Oh God, the memories this invokes!

Ugh, that evil practice is called a "price adjustment". There are a few GIANT HUGE retailers here that do this (read: retailers so big that they can--or think they can-- eat frequent SC-related losses in the name of "customer satisfaction"). If something you buy at one price gets reduced in the next two weeks (or 30 days, or whatever), if you bring in your receipt they will refund the difference.

This sucked HORRIBLY for the small independent high-end boutique I used to work for. Every sale season we would get TONS of SCs rant and rave that this was THE LAW, THE RIGHT OF EVERY CUSTOMER EVERYWHERE!! Or worse, they bought it at 30% off and when the one final remaining similar item went 70% off months later, they would screech and wail that they should get the difference. Um...no? You've been using it for months, you got it in the size and colour you wanted, you bought it at a price you accepted...why the heck should you get a big chunk of money months later just because you are OCD enough to keep all your receipts and keep checking the price of things you already bought?!

Also, I once had a customer (with very poor English, unfortunately) argue with me for over an hour that when her receipt was stamped "Final Sale", that meant that the item she bought would be legally guaranteed (!) to never be reduced to a lower price. I had a hard time keeping my cool as I repeated for the 100th time that maybe that's what "final sale" means TO HER, but she should have confirmed that with us before making her purchase. To the majority of the retail world, "final sale" means you don't get to return or exchange it. She was absolutely LIVID with rage, not with our policy mind you, but with ME personally. My only consolation with SCs like that are that I will fight with them to the death before letting them get what they want. If you are nice and polite, I'll bend the rules for you. But when you get abusive to my person, you get a big fat NADA. Keep on yelling, bitch. I've got all the time in the world....

[Imogene]

Had a customer come in today with a stack of old sports games (Oh, yeah, I'm working again, huzzah! Management, kinda, and I hate it.) She got rung up by a coworker, and got through her stack. Coworker lets her know she has roughly $25 in trade in value. Girl and her father (I think 't'were her father...) start getting angry, because the 'Other Store' always trades directly across, one for one. Coworker asks if that 'Other Store' is one of ours? "Yes." Well, they're doing it wrong, and can get in a lot of trouble now that we know about it.

[BookstoreEscapee]

We'd do that occasionally at the bookstore if someone bought something and it went bestseller in the next day or two and the customer asked nicely (yeah, right). Luckily for the most part that sort of thing doesn't come up. We'd also do adjustments for someone who didn't have their member card if we couldn't look it up for some reason (though technically it's against the rules). You can't buy a new card, though, and then get back the difference on everything you bought last month.

[GingerBiscuit]

With the store card I have if something I buy for full price goes on sale within a year, I'll get the difference refunded. This has been handy in some cases, but I've rarely used it.

And would I expect it in a store where I don't have a store card? No. Would I expect it AT ALL? No.
If something I buy goes on sale a week later, I'll just sort of swear to myself a bit and figure I just missed out.

[KaeZoo]

Price guarantees usually mirror return policies. My store has a 30-day return policy on most items, and guarantees the price for 30 days also. Otherwise there's nothing to stop a customer who sees a lower price or promotion from just returning the item and buying a new one at the lower price.

On those few items where the return policy is 14 days, the price guarantee is also 14 days.

Of course, we still get the "double-dippers": say the item came with a free DVD two weeks ago, and is reduced $10 this week, they'll come in trying to get both promotions.

[LadyAndreca]

We do price adjustments at my store, and they're just as nasty trying to get them from us, trust me. The rule says 14 days, but the computer will take it for the two sales weeks after. (Some of my managers will only do the sales week after the purchase, though.) I have once, just ONCE, broken that rule and overridden it for someone, because it was on the 15th day, he was very polite about it, and it was an expensive electronics item I would have had to mark defective if he'd returned it.

However, we can't do special promotions (buy three, get a $5 gift card), and we can't do items that have gone on clearance. And you need to know the items on sale ahead of time, because we have to key in the items by hand. Five item reciept...easy. More than ten, we don't do unless they know what they need adjustments on. Here's some typical SC scenarios:

SC: *hands me a hundred-item, $500 receipt* Can you check and see if any of that went on sale?
Me: *hands them a sales flyer*
SC:
Me: If you can just point out what you bought, I'll be happy to adjust it.
SC: Can't you just do it?!
Me: Not unless you want to be here for half an hour as I key in everything manually...

My managers will fully back me up on that particular brand of rudeness. They've got better things for me to do.

SC2: But I paid $700 for that patio set and now it's $498~~~~!!! (Or $10/$7.48 for a shirt, take your pick, the reaction is the same)
Me: Sorry, we can't do price adjustments on clearance items.
SC2: But I'm losing moneeeeeeeey!
Me: Sorry, we can't do price adjustments on clearance items.
SC2: Then I'll just return it and re-buy it!
Me: You can do that...but you'd have to get a new one from the sales floor, and they're selling pretty fast at the current price. We might not have any left.
SC2: Why can't you just sell it back to me???
Me: Because that would be a price adjustment on a clearance item.
SC2: This is why I hate this store!! I'm never shopping here again, and I'm telling all my friends about how horrible this store is!
Me: Have a nice day. (You'll be back.)

As an aside, I've noticed that 90% of people that yell about our store being horrible are trying to return things without receipts, and most of the rest misread a shelf label or sales flyer and think we should match prices with their fantasy world. Less than 1% of the people who yell that actually have a real reason to say it.

[Jester]

The other night, we were having a special event starting at 8 pm at The Bar, and for that event we were advertising drink specials. The following conversation occurred between me and a patron at one of my tables at approximately 645 pm.

PATRON: "So, what are the drink specials I saw advertised?"
JESTER: "They are [explains the drink specials]."
PATRON: "When does that start?"
JESTER: " At 8."
PATRON: "So, can I get those special prices now?"
JESTER: "Um, sorry, no."
PATRON: "Why not?"
JESTER: "Because the specials start at 8..."
PATRON: "So you can't bring me any of them?"
JESTER: "Of course I can. I can get you any of those drink specials that you want. Starting at 8. Until then, of course, they are full price. Sorry about that."
PATRON: [grumble grumble grumble]

And despite stellar service from for their meal, I was not surprised to see that these people left me as a tip exactly the amount I usually tip my door knob: Nothing.

Folks, when I say the specials start at 8 on Wednesday night, that doesn't mean you can get them on another night or before 8. I can't change policy. If you don't like it, talk to the management.

When I say happy hour is from 4-7 and at the bar only (not in the dining room), that doesn't mean you can get the happy hour specials before 4, after 7, or in the dining room. I can't change policy. If you don't like it, talk to the management.

When I say we can't serve you alcoholic drinks until noon on Sunday, that means that, if it's Sunday, and the time still reads anything am, I can't sell you alcoholic drinks. I can't change the law. If you don't like it, talk to the government.

How difficult is it for these people, the vast majority of which are allegedly native English speakers, to understand this simple English explanation?

I have to believe that a lot of them just have a condition. That one condition, syndrome, disorder, what's it called again? Oh yeah.

Fucked in the Head.

Idiots.