Jason wrote us to share a Target horror story he posted on his blog. All he wanted to do is buy a TV from Target and take advantage of a 10% off Target credit card deal. Fairly straightforward. Jason writes:
It was $999 but you got 10% off for applying for a Target card making it $899. Not too shabby I thought. The picture looked good, it sounded good, and I liked the style of it. The sign talking about the Target card said that you just had to apply for the card and that it did not need to be used for the purchase. We said that we had $100 in Target gift cards with us and that we’d take it. They rang it up and we handed them the gift cards. They scanned them through the computer. It popped up on the screen and said that the Gift Cards could not be used as the item was on Sale. Well that’s a load of crap…gift cards are supposed to be as good as cash.
Oh well, we handed them the credit card that we wanted to use for the purchase. They swiped it and it was rejected. Why? Because you had to use your Target card for the purchase. The advertisement was a misprint and the employee lied to us.
Jason’s story doesn’t get any better. Eventually he returned the TV and bought it online for cheaper. Our favorite part of Jason’s story? When they told him that if he used couldn’t pay the TV off before a month’s interest had accrued at 24%. What?
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@chimmike:
actually i worked at kohl’s when they opened in the northeast, in the credit department. we’d hand out 10% coupons to anyone who applied, denied or not. they didn’t even have to use the card. of course, they were trying to get people in the door since it was new, but it has happened!
@jackcrack7: Isn’t taking the scratched dvd back to Walmart a bit unethical? You didn’t buy it there. Did you tell them that you did?
That makes me further question the reliability of your statements.
@jackcrack7: 100%? Really? Because I’d love to see the sign that said you didn’t need to use the card to get the 10% off for applying for said card.
@madktdisease: I need to chime in with MADKTDISEASE here, people are all attacking this guy saying, “well of course you have to put it on the card you just applied for. That’s how it always works.”
Not true. When I purchased my Plasma from Sears the salesperson told me if I applied for a Sears Card I would get 10% off the purchase.
I applied and I got 10% off, but I used my Visa to make the purchase.
My Sears card arrived 2 weeks later in the mail.
So, there are stores that offer you the discount then and there.
@tcp100: The sign was one that had been posted by this store. It stated that “the Target card didn’t need to be used for discounted purchases.” This sign was not one published by Target at a national level but one printed by the local store as a “way to make my shopping experience easier.”
@Psychodad1961: This is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. You don’t shop there because you don’t like their card machines?
Um, for the guy who’s all weird about the credit card machines.. You’re wrong. The card is not YOURS. The card is the property of the card issuer. The card issuer gives their client the right to confiscate the card, which they’d only do in specific circumstances.
I used to work there, and the trick with the target card is to apply, use it for the 10 percent, then pay it off within the next week in full. its easy to accumulate points that way and you’re not being a total idiot and getting yourself into debt. Jason should have read the fine print in the brochure they give you when you apply, and he should have saved up for his TV instead of buying it with invisible Target money. Yeah, the rates are outrageous, but what do you expect people? Its a credit card. I was raised being taught that carrying a balance on a credit card is a sin.
@defectiveburger: Uhh, the who in the what now? I shop at multiple Targets, and I find your story hard to believe. At every Target I’ve been to, cashiers can easily void items, change prices if sale items are ringing up incorrectly, etc., before the customer has paid. Now, there is an issue if you don’t catch an error until after your transaction is complete (then you do have to go to customer service to get it fixed–which is somewhat annoying but not that odd), but that’s not your story.
Either your cashier was new or dumb, your Target is in an area that makes people more suspicious of shrinkage, or you’re jumping on the Target-hating bandwagon with an audacious story for the fun of it.
I read it on the intarnut so it must be true.
Some joker didn’t take the time to read the fine print and then gets all huffy because he can’t pay for something a certain way. If he spent half the time he wasted complaining by actually reading the fine print, he would have seen how wrong he is.
The only problem that Target may have had, assuming the whiner wasn’t lying was the part about not being able to use a gift card in addition to the discount. The gift card should have been treated as cash…
But given all the other outright BS this web-whiner went on about, I doubt Target said he couldn’t use the gift card…
@jackcrack7:
On a side note, since Target wouldn’t exchange our DVD, we took it to Wal-Mart who then exchanged it no questions asked. Say what you want about Wal-Mart but i’ve never had a problem with their Customer Service.
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Wait, did you just admit to fraud? Target wouldn’t take a return on your DVD so you go to another store and claim you bought it from them and then exchanged it?
And you still say your Target story is not BS? All you do is lie!
@jburland:
“And you’ve been to France? And you’ve experienced this behavioural pattern? And of course you’ve been to a number of other countries to be able to make a comparison?”
That is correct.
I don’t like Target, buncha Frenchmen.
Love Nero.
@jackcrack7: wait, so you’re saying wal-mart is better because they believe everything some jackass says and let you return things without a receipt?
Target where I live is much cleaner and more organized than the local wal-mart, about as cheap, and has more knowledgeable employees and better products. I’d take Target over walmart any day.
Current Target employee writes:
“You can pay target cards off immediately after signing up within minutes. And everything that TV guy said is covered in the user agreement. But they obviously weren’t on top of it at that store.”
@madktdisease: I agree. I made a purchase at JCPenny years ago and was offered 10% off just for applying for a card. I paid for my stuff right there with cash and received my card in the mail a week or so later with a zero balance. I know Lowes and Home Depot make you earn your 10% off by using their card (obviously, Target does, too), but not all stores require that.
@Psychodad1961: They installed those atm/credit card machines for the original Target card which featured a smart chip to store coupons. It had to hold the card to read them off of the chip. They’re not intended to keep your normal credit card. In fact they read your card and spit it right back out. I’ll admit it took some getting used to at first, but there’s nothing fishy about how it works.
Home Depot is the same way. I’m not sure if this is an industry trend or not. In order to pay for a sale after using a 10% new account coupon, a customer can only pay using a Home Depot Credit Card. There are no other options available on the register.
So, the poor victim is mad at a kid making $6 an hour because he didn’t explain the details of a credit card application to him? I’m sure sure the kid is just working there until he gets his degree in finance finished.
I got a RedCard from Target and the 10% off was repeatedly labeled as requiring the use of the card at time of purchase. It’s a discount for using their card from their bank. They make up the money by charging you interest on purchases you don’t pay off in a month. That’s how it works. But, the thing is… you can go to [rcam.target.com] and pay off your balance immediately. I have paid off a Target balance withing 24 hours of using the card. In fact, my very first bill was paid 2 days after I made the purchase, about 7 days before I got my actual physical card.
Target is a large corporation and I seriously doubt one store has their own signage about the discount that runs contrary to all the national signage.
If the poor victim did indeed take the DVD to Walmart and exchange it, then maybe Target wasn’t wrong. They stole the price of the DVD from Walmart because Target wouldn’t make an exchange without a receipt.
While I do admit sometimes companies take advantage of people, I also know that people try to take advantage of customer service.
It’s always helpful to remember that the man who popularized the slogan “The Customer Is always right” died penniless and insane.
I had my own ‘fantastic’ Target experience recently.
A couple months ago, my girlfriend bought the wine fridge that they had on sale. After getting it home, we found that it was damaged, and not in a small way either. Sheet metal on the fridge was bent, dents were everywhere, but the exterior box was flawless. We exchanged it with no problems the next day, however the new one was damaged in the same way.
To make this short, the girlfriend and I exchanged the fridge 3 times, and got the fridges from 3 different stores. (What can I say, she really wanted the fridge.) The last time I took one back, I had had it. Obviously the manufacturer was really sloppy with it’s quality control, so I wasn’t going to buy it any more.
I took the last one back, and apparently the computer system had decided that I had returned too many of these, and refused to let me return it. The employee then called their hotline (for when returns are refused, but the system doesn’t tell them why I guess) but the person on the line was an outsourced rep from Pakistan or India, and neither the employee or the rep could figure out what the other was trying to say.
The employee then said she simply couldn’t take the return. I asked for a manager, and was told, “they can’t help you”, but I insisted.
Finally the manager came over, and fortunately was awesome. She called back the hotline, and was able to get them to override the denial. If it wasn’t for her, I’d still be stuck with a useless hunk of metal.
i vote for ignoring all consumer complaints made on myspace blogs. actually, i vote for ignoring all myspace blogs, period.
Most arguments against the consumer here are based on Target’s sign being correct. We all know Targets signs are often incorrect. Not to mention what Target’s staff says, and does.
Now honestly. I used to have a job designing those signs for Target Financial Services…for deals having to do with the Target Visa. The TFS folks go over those signs with a fine-toothed comb to make sure all of the correct legalese is clearly stated on the sign (though it may be in the fine print). There is not a chance in the world that the sign was lying to you.
I have worked at Target for 3 years. The thing with the credit card is that you don’t need to use the DISCOUNT on that purchase when you apply for the card, BUT you do need to use the card to get the discount, always. Don’t get pissed off because you can’t read.
If you apply for the Target card during the purchase of the television, then you have to use your Target card.
-However you can apply for the Target card, get approved, and you get a 10% off coupon printed out thats good for one day of shopping.
-You could then purchase the television and use other means to pay for the item.