Worst day ever - walmart unbrag
I just had the worst shopping trip of my life. I spent four hours out of the house, went to two walmarts, safeway, and target and came home empty handed!
First I went to check out the new Target at southdale, I was really disappointed that it seemed like every item that they had on sale for a reasonable price was accompanied by an empty shelf. They also didn't even have a flyer for me to look at which I didn't really like. After about 30 minutes of looking around I decided there wasn't anything I wanted to buy that would warrant me standing in line for over an hour (the lines were very long, I think an hour is a low estimate for how long people were waiting).
Next I went to the Safeway that's close to the new Target just to get some safeway select hamburger and hotdog buns that were on for extra airmiles this week, and here is where the trouble started, they were out of hotdog buns! So I decided I would try a different location.
Then I went to Walmart at St.Vital to get the crest toothpaste/ oral-b toothbrush deal. I only wanted 8 toothbrushes (enough for 1 year in my house) and 6 toothpastes (3 months worth in my house) I didn't think that this was being greedy considering the fact that they were all going to be tax only. However by the time I got there there was not a single toothbrush or tube of toothpaste left anywhere in the store and I was told by the cashier in cosmetics, as well as the staff at customer service that there had been two women couponers who had come in early in the morning and had each bought 150 of each. While I think this number was likely exaggerated, I was very frustrated that a fellow couponer would be so selfish as to buy such a large quantity on the first day of the sale without pre-ordering (I don't even know if you can pre-order at walmart?). This is the reason that I support a reasonable limit per day the way that LD does (though I think a reasonable number would be like 10 or 12 not necessarily 2). After this disappointment I decided to try the walmart on Regent Avenue which is definitely out of my way, but I have had good luck using my coupons there.
Unfortunately they did not have any of the toothbrushes left, but they did have some of the toothpaste so I grabbed my six tubes and then I spent about an hour doing the rest of my shopping for the week. By the time I got in line it was after 9pm and for some reason the store was ridiculously busy. I got in line with my sister who was also shopping at the same time and we waited about 30 minutes before we finally got to the cashier. I let my sister go first and things were going smoothly, price matches and coupons were all being done correctly and in a timely manner and then all of a sudden the customer service manager appears to relieve our cashier for a break. She stops the cashier and begins double checking all of the coupons and then very rudely tells my sister that she is only allowed to use one of the Crest toothpaste coupons ($1 tearpad). When my sister asked her why she says it is because it says one coupon per purchase. Now my understanding, and please correct my if I am wrong, is that this means one coupon per item, and that's what my sister tries to tell her, but the manager keeps interrupting saying thins like "You people always argue about this" and finally says "Just this once I will let you get away with it." Not wanting to cause a scene my sister decided just to go with it, since her coupon was being honoured and so she finished her transaction and then headed straight for customer service to try and get clarification from a different manager.
Then it was my turn to checkout. I always organise my purchases on the belt so the ones at the front are just regular store price, then anything that needs a PM, then my coupons, but she insisted I hand over all of my coupons right away, so I said okay and handed them to her. Then she was taking a very long time to read through every single thing on them, meanwhile the people behind me in line are starting to give me the stink eye. Finally she starts ringing my stuff through and when she gets to the toothpaste she ignores the fact that my coupon is $1 and rings it through at 97cents which was the price of the item on sale. When I stopped her and said excuse me but your store policy says that you give overages so that coupon should be rung in at $1 not 97 cents she rolled her eyes at me and then said, no we just changed our policy and we don't do that any more. And the way she said it made me feel so icky, so I asked her very calmly if she could please call a manager, and she said no I am the manager, so I asked if I could please speak with her boss because I didn't appreciate being treated like a criminal for using a coupon. She continued to refuse to call anyone else or to resolve the issue, we had come to an impasse so I told her that I was no longer going to buy any of my items and I wanted my coupons back (she had already put some in the drawer). So she made a huge show of opening the cash drawer and giving me my coupons back, and I walked away from my purchases.
After all that I went to customer service to see if there was another manager that I could talk to considering how poorly I had been treated. I was able to talk to the floor manager since the store manager doesn't work evenings or weekends. The floor manager was very nice but couldn't really give any clarification since he doesn't deal with coupons, but the customer service employee who was working told me that as far as she knew I was right and the woman was wrong. Since I was at customer service anyway I asked to get a raincheck for the toothbrushes, but I was told that it was not an item that is normally stocked so I couldn't get one. This just added insult to injury, so I came home completely empty handed :( and I will probably call walmart on Monday to see if I can speak to a store manager since I really felt mistreated by the woman who I was dealing with.
I guess I will have to go shopping again tomorrow if I want to eat this week.
