Ronald printed out coupons from the Ralphs grocery website but store management wouldn’t let him use them. He sent of a letter to Kroger, which owns the grocery chain, and got this response.

Kroger says:

It is true our website is behind at the moment due to a website issue we had a few weeks ago, and we are answering emails as quickly as we can to get caught up. We have been receiving several emails from customers stating coupons are being rejected by stores simply for being printed from the internet. This is against our policy and is currently under investigation. I have actually been working with our divisional office on this matter to determine why store directors are telling customers they are not accepting any internet coupons. It is our corporate policy to accept any print-at-home coupons, provided they fall under the guidelines I provided for you in my original email. The reason I provided those guidelines for you is so you have access to the actual corporate policy. I completely understand your frustration, and we have not yet determined why the coupons are being denied, as this is still under investigation. If you would like, I can forward the case I set up regarding your incident to the store director and request he/she contact you back regarding the matter.

The bottom line remains the fact that this should not be happening. We offer print-at-home coupons on our websites and we completely encourage their usage in our stores, as we understand how hard times are these days and how every little bit helps. The case that I initially set up regarding this incident has already gone through the store director and has been acknowledged, but as I said before, if you prefer, I can most definitely have the store director follow up with you on the matter if you prefer.

It’s nice that Kroger is admitting it has a problem, but inexplicable that the issue is happening in the first place. Have any of you ran into such chicanery at the store?

(Photo: So Cal Metro)

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