So besides your site, Lifehacker, and a few others, I also follow slickdeals.net. The other day there was an Office Depot item, where you could buy an office chair, set it for in-store pickup, and if your order was over $50, you could use a coupon to take an additional $20 off. Sweet. I placed my order and went pick it up today.
When my turn arrived, I stated I would like to pickup my order I placed online and the clerk asked for my name. When I gave her my name, her attitude changed from pleasant to “Red team Go, Charlie in the trees.” She actually turned away from me, leaned over, and whispered in their little knock-off FBI headsets. She turned back around and said I could not buy the chair unless I had the coupon. I explained that the coupon was entered online and that why would I bring a coupon if the system accepted it and took my order. I also stated that it did not say a coupon was needed.
So we went back and forth, I maintaining my cherub like demeanor.
She again used her FBI ear piece, this time calling a manager, and he was as helpful as well….he wasn’t.They could not give me an answer as to why I needed a coupon if it was placed online.
Love not getting what I ordered.
Love being treated like a criminal.
From the looks of the thread over at Slickdeals there were quite a few people who were treated the same way. One guy was accused of calling people and telling them about the coupon. Oh no!
Bloomington, MN manager seemed pretty upset. Wanted to know if I called a bunch of people about this. Ha! Thanks Slick Deals!
Other people had no problem at all:
There were three others sitting by mine with pens/rulers on them when I went to pick mine up. All the invoices said MUST HAVE COUPON. The gal asked if I had mine I said that I didn’t know I needed it. She slid my cc and off I went.
We examined the coupon and it does say that the “original” needs to be present, but since it was apparently an emailed coupon with a coupon code… we understand how people were confused. Heck, we’re sort of confused.
Slickdeals says that Office Depot has deactivated the coupon code… but we suppose you could try to print it? Just for kicks? You might run into the delightful employee described here:
Went to pick up mine today. Asked for the coupon (shown). The sales then proceed to show me some kind of office depot memo:
“We don’t accept that coupon.”
“Why?”
“It’s been posted on fatwallet, I think you know what I am talking about.”
Curse you, Internet!
DEAD (now $40): Office Depot High-Back Leather Chair or Fabric Chair $30 with instore pick-up [SlickDeals]
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Even though a coupon code was accepted online, you still have to surrender the coupon when you pick up the item, right?!
@DeltaPurser: But that ISN’T what the coupon says. It says it must be presented at the time of purchase. The item was purchased online and the code was entered at the time the purchase was made. It was only being picked up at the store.
If the coupon said you had to present it in person for in store pick up of online purchases, that would have made sense. If the system said to take the coupon with you when picking up the purchase that would have made sense. They did neither of those things, hence the confusion and complaints.
@failurate: I thought it was a series of tubes.
When I gave her my name, her attitude changed from pleasant to “Red team Go, Charlie in the trees.”
That’s funny.
How does one ‘surrender’ an online coupon anyway? That only makes sense for originals. Do you have to give them your harddrive?
so much for trying to help.. posted two comments yesterday explaining in detail why I’m sure (read: opinion) this happened (NOT AN ONLINE COUPON!) and the comments never posted.. surely this website is not filtering comments to only reflect their own views..
What’s worse no Office Depot coupons work in one secion I would by 25+ dollars of stuff… TECHNOLOGY!
I completely understand why Office Depot did this, and although I hate their company, I’m forced to defend them this time.
The retailer I work for was also scammed recently by SlickDeals.com. Someone slipped SlickDeals a draft copy of a promotion we were considering running and did not. SlickDeals posted the coupon (which was never activated) as though it were valid.
The biggest problem came in that we had decided to run the sale without needing the coupon (hey, trying to work FOR the consumer, right?). So the markdown had already been taken on product, and then we had customers coming in trying to use an invalid coupon to cut into already reduced margins and not understanding why, if they got the coupon “from the internet”, we wouldn’t give them the additional percentage off.
Not only did this f-up on SlickDeals’ part cause massive financial loss and customer frustration for us, it also infringed our copyrighted logo (which they printed without permission when they published the coupon).
For once (and probably the only time), I feel Office Depot’s pain. Companies like SlickDeals really need some level of accountability, and they seem to have none.
@lemur: The only time PH has made me bring in a coupon was when I’d redeem their VIP program coupons for free pizzas. I don’t get those anymore. I guess it’s because I actually redeemed them instead of forgetting like a lot of people probably did, so they probably conveniently dropped me from the frequent-buyer program.
@silyolpooh: You can reprint copyrighted materials for purposes of discussion or news reporting. It’s one of the fair use rules.
I worked for an Office Depot in northern Illinois for 5 years. All I can say is: the company is rotten to the core.
My managers ran the gamut from crooked to, in 2 cases, psychotic. We were routinely cheated out of payroll hours/holiday pay we’d worked. Most of my fellow employees were either hopeless slackers or hardcore thieves. The company provided little if any training. There was no interest in basic rules of safety or cleanliness. And nobody gave a flying f**k about the customers. The coupons and rebates were a running joke among the staff, as were the extended warranties we were pushed into selling.
Do yourselves a favor and shop anywhere but at Office Depot. They don’t value your business at all. I wouldn’t go into an O.D. to use the bathroom.
@Buran – SlickDeals is not a news aggregate, it is a business with its own advertising to sell. It, in essence, used our promotion to drive traffic to its website for its business. That is not protected fair use, and we were able to get an uncontested cease and desist order with little effort, as well as recoup some settlement from SlickDeals. I can’t imagine we’re the first.