Target Doesn't Want Your Group Of Students To Spend Thousands Of Dollars At Its Store
For several years, an Ohio middle school teacher has been taking a group of about 25 students to a local Target to purchase products that are then donated to a crisis nursery in Cleveland. But this year, when she called up the store to give them the heads-up that she and her charges would be stopping by, the store got all Scroogey McGrinch (an actual clinical term) on her.
In an open letter posted on her Facebook page, the teacher recalls the phone conversation with Target thus:
“Well, you can’t come in. The schedule is made and I just don’t have the cashiers. I need at least two weeks’ notice. Sorry,” Shelly said, curtly.
“We usually spend over $2000… Would you prefer we head over to Wal-Mart?”
“Hold on.” When Shelly returned to the phone, I was told, “Nope. Sorry. We can’t accommodate you.”
I told her, “It has never been a problem in the past, and we have never given two weeks’ notice before.”
“Well, actually, it has been a problem, ma’am, because we can’t check other guests out when you’re here.” She replied, with a definite tone rising in her voice.
“So, we can’t spend our money there on Friday?”
“No.”
“Okaaayy…I suppose we will go somewhere else then. Thank you,” and I hung up.
In her letter, the teacher explains that her students don’t all rush into the store and go nutso on the shelves. Instead, they do their shopping in groups of four. They also show up at the store at the non-peak time of 8:45 a.m. and are usually done and gone by 11 a.m.
Additionally, the group has a purchase order charge account with Target so as to make the entire buying process easier.
“For five years running, we have never gotten a call or a letter from the Target store to discuss any problems with the students, the check out process, or anything else related to the trip,” she writes. “If there were ever any issues, we did not know about them and could not rectify anything.”
An Open Letter to Target’s Mayfield Heights Store [Facebook]
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