Your worst Retail experience

[jedifarfy]

My worst Retail experience happened when I was 17. My mom had not had a nice, working car for a long time, so we never went to the mall. We finally had a car that would NOT overheat if you turned it on, and she decided I needed some shoes that would last me longer than 2 months.

So, we head to the mall and go to the Bon Marche (now owned by Macys). Their show department entrance at that time was a large curve. All along this curve were Sketchers shoes, 20 different styles at least, Sketchers signs, etc. I stop and look, then grab a style I liked.

At this point, the 3 saleswomen are at the register watching us. We start walking towards them, and one comes to greet us.

Her: "We don't have that in your size."

Us: "Oh. Ok." I grab another.

Her: "We don't have that one either. We only have size 5."

Mom: "In all of them?"

Her: "Yeah, we don't have anything."

With that we left. I wasn't processing anything right (my friend had died just a few days before, so the world was... just there), but my mom realized a few minutes after we left what had happened. She had no idea my shoes size, so how did she know nothing was available? We figured out jeans and sweatshirts gave us away.

We walked down to Nordstrom and bought nearly identical shoes from wonderful and polite sales people. Silly me, I tried them again a few months later while shopping for the Prom. Again, I grabbed some shoes and tried to get help from the ladies, again, at the register. They suddenly became busy (they'd been at the desk since I walked in, since only one other customer was there). When no one came back or offered help, I set the shoes down where I got them and went somewhere else.

Ugh, I still won't shop there. So many people love this particular store, but nothing will convince me to go back.

JF

[AnaKhouri]

My God, my worst retail experience doesn't seem nearly so bad now...

I was 21 and had just come back from a post-college trip to Europe. The day after I came back I dropped my film off to be developed; I opted for the 1 hour service because I was really eager to see my pictures (first time out of the country and all).

I dropped the film off with a male employee and came back in an hour. There must have been a shift change because the person at the counter this time was a woman. She looked and looked and finally found the film- the guy had forgotten to put it in the machine! OK, it happens. The woman was kind of sucky (big deep sighs every five seconds like I was just such an inconvenience...) but she said the pics would be done in an hour this time.

I come back in an hour. As she rings me up I realize I don't have all the photos. Yup, she forgot to put in a couple rolls. Grrr. But I was young and said it was no problem and paid for what I had.

As I wait for the rest of the rolls I look through my pictures and see several (not one or two, more like three per roll) that hadn't come out right- the photo would be half of one picture and the other half of another picture. Does that make sense? I don't know anything about photo developing so...when I went back to get the forgotten rolls I mentioned them to the woman and asked what happened. She rolled her eyes and said it must be my fault. I asked if she knew what I had done and she snapped, "I don't know, ask him!" ('him' being another employee that was standing at the photo kiosk by this time). The guy tried to tell me that when a film roll reaches the end this sort of thing happens to the last frame on the roll (or something like that). I pointed out there were 3-4 pics on each roll that had suffered the same fate. He gave a big martyred sigh and offered to print them out again to show me. The woman sighed as well and did as I asked. Guess what? The duplicates they printed out were fine. I asked them to do it for all the messed-up photos and they sighed and rolled their eyes and finally did it. The woman kept giving me nasty glares. Seriously, it's hard to explain but she just projected bad attitude like an aura of suck...also, I didn't know it then but I was in the beginning stages of an 8-week battle with mono and felt like shit, though I was very polite to the employees. They never once apologized or offered to refund some of my money (I don't want to seem like an entitlement whore but it would have been a nice gesture since my 1-hour photos were now taking 3 hours...they still charged me the 1-hour rate too!).

Anyway, I finally got my 1-hour photos FOUR HOURS after I dropped the film off. I told the story to my best friend and she suggested I call the regional office of the store and report my complaint. It is the only time I have ever complained about service. The GM called me back the back the next day and apologized, and told me to come in and give them my name for a free film development.

So a week later I took in more film (1 roll only) and explained the situation to the guy at the kiosk (a completely different person). He called the GM for confirmation, and the GM came to the kiosk...and he claimed to have no memory of my complaint or his promise. I was firm this time, and he finally agreed to develop my one lousy roll for free.

So that's all. It was a long time ago but I have never set foot in that store since.

[hotelslave]

Well my worst experience wasnt in retail but was at a hotel. Before I moved to LA I worked for a business hotel that sold out at least 4 nights a week and I was the one in charge at night dealing with the problems. This may be a long story sorry.

My sister was getting married in Miami in July and I couldn't get an employee rate room and couldnt afford to stay in the high end hotel sister was getting married at. But she had a second block of hotel rooms set up down the road. So I made the reservations online in March called the hotel confirmed every thing and told them I wouldnt be checking in until midnight. They said no problem. Day of sisters wedding after getting my hair done I step out of the salon and call the hotel just to make sure they knew I was still checking in that night but wouldnt be in until midnight. They promised to make the note and there wasn't a problem with it. So I spent the day dealing with my sister doing the wedding stuff. I got a little tipsy but wasnt stumbling. So after the wedding a bunch of people were going to go out and hit some clubs in South Beach which I wanted to do but said I had to check in first. So my friends husband helped me take my luggage across the busy street to the hotel. I was still wearing my bridesmaid dress had been up since 6 am so I was tired and wanted to change. I go to the counter and the guy behind the desk has an immediate attitude and was like we sold your room so you will have to go to so and so hotel and pay $165 for tonight they have a room for you. Well to begin with this wouldnt work because for my stay at their hotel combined was less then that. I started going off on him my friends husband had to drag me out of the hotel. I ended up sleeping on a friends floor of their hotel room. I did go SC on the manager when I called the hotel the next morning.

[JLG]

My worst experience is the time I went out to dinner with five of my co-workers. We got seated and the waitress took our drink order. She comes back to take our dinner order and brings any soup or salads ordered. Our meals arrive and she brings out everyones but mine and says "Enjoy your meal" and walks away
Everyone at the table looks around and is thinking that maybe she is bringing mine out soon. But I know that this lady for some reason forgot my food. I tell my friends to go ahead and start eating. 15 minutes pass and this lady had not checked on us. We ask another waitress if she can please get our waitress. I tell her she never served my food and she says she will be back.
She comes back 5 minutes later and tells me that my order was never put in and she will do it now. Then she comes back a couple of minutes later and says that it accidentally got sent to another table. I tell her that I would now like it in a to go box. Then she comes back 5 minutes later and says that someone threw it out
Now I was starving. I waited all day for this dinner. All I had was breakfast that day. She then tells me that she can get me a free dessert to make up for it Umm I just want my meal. I tell her no thanks but I don't want dessert if I have not had my dinner. I just wanted to get the heck out of there and get me some food. On the way out I see a manager standing at the front and I tell him that he needs to check on that waitress because I never got my meal. I start to walk out and he calls me back and asks me what happend. I tell him and he gave me a $25 gift card. I went back a couple of months later and this time I got my meal

[smileyeagle1021]

I did go SC on the manager when I called the hotel the next morning.

I'm assuming that you had guaranteed the room to a credit card, in which case the manager would deserve to have people go SC on them if they did such a bad job of training his employees that they give away guaranteed rooms... especially if there is a note about them being a late arrival.

[hotelslave]

Yep I guaranteed with a credit card. I did every thing that I knew should be done since I had worked at a hotel for awhile. That was the last time I will ever stay at a hotel thats not name brand like Marriott or a Hilton property.

[draftermatt]

For the people who are surprised about Sears poor quality... let me say, I'm not....

Sadly I'm not either. Sears (and many other stores) are trying so hard to compete with Wal-Mart in prices that they sacrifice everything else. Quality, pay for employees (which is why the most knowledgeable sales people work for specialty companies now) and services outside of the store.

[sarahj]

I had crappy service yesterday! Usually I just get the silent treatment with only the total of my purchase told to me, which isn't that bad but it doesn't really inspire any customer loyalty. Yesterday I went into a teen clothing store in the local mall. Yes, my hair was on the greasy side, but I had it pulled back into a ponytail and the rest of me was clean/neat. I wanted to try on a shirt but the display was too tall for me to reach. I went over to the register and waited silently while the sole employee finished a transaction with a customer (we were the only 2 customers in the store). As that customer finishes and walks away, I say "excuse me" to the employee, but then he sees that his co-worker has entered the store. He glanced at me and started chatting with the co-worker, and they both went back to the staff-only area! I waited a full minute and neither of them re-appeared! I was thinking 'hey, I could steal a ton of stuff right now, good thing I'm not a thief' and then I left, without the cute t-shirt I wanted. I love that store and the people who work there are usually great. Now I'm sad.

[KellyHabersham]

sarahj - What store was this, just out of curiousity?

[Hyndis]

Worst experience I had was with Verizon.

There was an issue with the DSL billing, though it was a minor one. Just a name switch involved on who gets sent the bill. Multiple people were living at the same residence sharing the same DSL access, and we were just going to have someone else in the residence pay the bill after juggling around finances.

They said they'd need to shut off service for a couple of hours to do so, but I said no biggie.

Turns out a couple of hours meant a couple of months.

Apparently DSL has only a limited number of allowed connections in my area, which is notoriously bad for internet connectivity. The entire San Francisco Bay Area tends to suck for internet access, ironically enough. I called them the next day when my service had not been restored, and they said that instead of simply changing the name on the account, they canceled the account entirely and gave our connection slot to someone else.

The area hub was now full, no more DSL connections could be made for a few more months.

I admit I became a SC right then and there. I was absolutely furious that they did such a thing. It took a helluva lot of time on the phone complaining to various people and many layers of management, but eventually I managed to get DSL restored within a month. They also claimed they kept trying to contact me via my ISP provided email...nevermind that they canceled my account, I never bothered to setup or install the Verizon client (the computers here are on a LAN setup), and that I had no internet access. No one here uses the ISP based email or client, which I assume to be a resource hogging adware laden bugfest that serves no good use.

And no, there were no other options for my area. DSL or dial up. In Sillicon Valley. I don't live out in the boondocks either! Los Gatos isn't exactly in the middle of nowhere.


But this wasn't all.

Prior to this, when first setting up the DSL connection about 6 months earlier, there was an issue where the DSL could mysteriously disconnect at around 6pm every day, coming back online at around 8am. Every day.

I kept calling them about it. I kept insisting that the issue was on their side, but no, they kept having my run pointless tests on the computers here (remember that it was a LAN setup, the DSL modem hooks directly into the LAN hub). He even accused my hardware setup of being the problem, where my LAN hub would fall asleep every night for some bizarre reason.

It took about a week of repeated calls before I finally got it through to them that I simply lost connection at about the same time every day, and connection was restored about the same time every day. Amusingly enough, the connection was only available during typical business hours for Verizon...hmmm...

Long story short, after many hours talking to Turing-test failing techs and listening to muzak on hold, they finally figured out what the problem was.

Someone was turning off the hardware that provided service to my neighborhood when they went home at night!

After that they figured that out, I very quickly got back 24/7 connectivity.

I can just imagine the kind of drama that unfolded there once they realized some moron was turning off the internet hardware every night!

[Pagan]

*Crawls off into a corner wimpering* It burns us precious....the stupid it burns us!!!

[SongsOfDragons]

My housemate Tim had booked a table for 7pm for around 12 of us in Pizza Express. Yes I'm name-dropping. It was for my other housemate's birthday. Now this was to be on a busy night, but we had booked well in advance and the week before Tim kept checking up on our rather huge reservation.

Well guess what.

We turned up to our 'assured' reservation to find that no, we weren't reserved after all. On top of that they flat out told us that they 'would never take a party of 12 students anyway'. Birthday girl, who's a little high-strung at the best of times, ran off in tears; mate's girlfriend ended up likewise a little while after; we never got dinner, as the only place in town we could find to camp and bitch was the basement of our local nerdpub and they'd finished serving food by the time we got there.

I can't remember whether Tim complained to corporate or anything, but we never really spoke of it again, and now we avoid it's crusty biscuit-pizzas like the plague.

[kibbles]

These types of places that treat people like has been posted here deserve all the sucky customers they can get. I can't believe the service some of you have received, it's absolutely horrible!

[bainsidhe]

Well, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and relate a tale of mine also.

One of my lovely experiences was with my local bank. I moved over a thousand miles away and had to set up new banking, car insurance, etc. I got a $101.00 refund check for the unused portion of my old car insurance. I deposited it with two other checks and thought nothing more of it until I received a notice in the mail from my new bank.

The notice showed copies of the other two checks and the handwritten deposit slip. And the letter explained how the third check for $101.00 was not present in the deposit and the money was removed from my account. Wait, what?!

The story is long and involved, but it boils down to me spending much time and anguish talking on the phone with my bank to no avail. I finally got ahold of my old insurance company and they were going to reissue the check so I could get my money.

Two months later....cue dramatic music. I called the insurance company asking what happened, since I never heard anything and never received a check. And I find out....that the original check was deposited. Waaaay back on the date I first deposited it.

Much more time was spent on the phone with management at the bank, yet nothing happened. Keep in mind that by this point, I had the original letter, the original deposit slip from the bank, copies of the check from the insurance company showing the check was deposited by my bank with dates, etc. Basically, the bank deposited my check into someone else's account. But the image of the check was blurred and the bank couldn't tell which account it was sent to. So the branch manager tells me that I need to find out what the blurry account number on the check was, because they couldn't tell which account it posted to and couldn't (as in wouldn't) help me.

Finally, four months after this whole drama began, I called the toll-free number and asked for the district manager's number. I left a voicemail explaining the situation and basically summed up saying "I've spent FOUR MONTHS trying to resolve a mistake YOUR bank made. I have supplied every bit of information I possibly could and then some. I've spoken with both the head teller and the branch manager and have gotten nowhere. The copies I've given them show that my money was deposited into someone else's account. I gave your bank my money and now you won't give it back. I've been running around, leaving messages, and getting copies of everything. Now I'm being told that I haven't given enough information for your bank to fix a mistake YOUR BANK made?! I don't know what other information I could possibly give you. If you can't tell where the money went, it should be your problem, not mine. I just want you to fix YOUR mistake. Please PLEASE help me to resolve this issue because I just want my $101.00 back.

Later that same day, the branch manager called me, apologized for the inconvenience, and told me the money would be back in my account later in the day. Now that wasn't so hard, was it.

In retrospect, I realize a couple things. One, I shouldn've gone to the branch manager much sooner when I didn't get anywhere with the head teller. Two, I should've followed up sooner with my old insurance company to find out why they didn't mail a new check. Three, I should've been much more forcecul with the branch manager instead of acting like a hurt, meek little person who was slowly coming to a boil. A raging arsehole is not a great thing to be, but I certainly could've acted angrier sooner. And when that didn't get me anywhere, leave a message for the district manager much sooner.

End.

[wagegoth]

Sometimes you have to be a raging arsehole to get someone to listen. Sad.


My story. Not the worst, but recent and a real clusterf**k.

I have cable TV and internet through Comcast. They've actually been pretty decent *crossing fingers now* most of the time. (The only problem I've really had was when they kept sending out notices that cable internet was available in my neighborhood, when it wasn't. I kept being told they needed to open a new node, and the date kept being extended. They finally got around to it when they called, signed me up for service, the installer installed everything, but the service didn't work. THEN they opened the node.) Back OT.

Salesmen came out beginning of June pushing cable telephone. Pitches my husband, hubs calls me out to listen to the pitch. I tell the salesman I don't want VOiP. He tells me it doesn't work that way. They'll install the service, I'll pay $18 less a month, get an extra box (I have digital with DVR), and save the $40 I spend each month on AT&T. I doubt him, but, what the hell, save money, service has been great lately since the upgrade.

Day of install comes around and hubs isn't feeling well. He calls Comcast. They reschedule for two weeks. *NOTE: We hardly use our landline. It's mostly for people we don't want to talk to and for kids to call us on our cells.* At the beginning of July, before the install is scheduled, I pick up the phone to call in my cable payment, as I occasionally do. I use the landline because the cable company immediately reads that it's me. Oops, no dial tone. Wha?! I call AT&T; it's Saturday. Automated answering system won't put me through because it says I owe money (I don't) and I have to pay my bill before service will talk to me. I get around it by calling back and requesting the new service department. *I have my sneaky moments.*

Person I get is nice, but tells me they received notice from Comcast to port my number, which they did about a week before. Didn't I get the notice? I tell her that I got a notice that they had been contacted about switching service, but I never gave permission to port the number.

I call Comcast. The CSR at Comcast goes WHA?! She says they never sent the port order. They sent an email to hold the port because of the install date changing. Someone at AT&T misread the email. Comcast doesn't have my number and will need AT&T to hook it up again before they can do the port.

I call AT&T. They say they no longer have the number, Comcast does. *I'm getting upset, feeling like a pinball, and pissed about losing a number I've had for over 15 years.*

I call Comcast. The second woman I speak with says Comcast does have the number, they can do the install, no problem. Reschedules for a day that I will be home. *Husband is paranoid that there will be a problem with the wireless router and he won't be able to fix it.*

Comcast comes out on appointed day. Installer A is very nice. Sets up new modem (yea! it has battery backup), tests internet connection and all is working. Yea! no router problems. TV is working fine, too. Then hooks up phone. No dial tone. Oh, bad. Multiple calls. Two hours pass. Final answer is this: I have to call AT&T to hook up the number again. AT&T never released the number. Comcast has to have a working line to transfer the service. A is very sorry. Also, A tells me flat out that Salesman lied; it is VOiP. However, their service record is now better than AT&T's. Okay. He leaves. I at least have snazzy new modem.

I call AT&T. They are very polite, very eager to have me back as a customer. (No wonder. I pay almost $500 a year for a service I hardly use.) They rush an installer out, and hook me up again in two days. Slight problem. Installer came when I wasn't home. Hubs did not check everything. Installer said hubs needed to switch line from modem back to jack and it would work fine; everything was fine with lines to house. Wrong. Line was in jack. We get a dial tone and can call out. But if you call, the phone doesn't ring and all you get is ringing, ringing, ringing.

So far, I haven't bothered to get someone else out, as I'm enjoying the silence. But it's going to mean another call to AT&T.

I hate Salesman.