../../../..//2009/04/28/if-youre-seeking-a-price/
If you’re seeking a price adjustment on your Gap clothes, don’t put it off. Heather writes in to warn that the price adjustment period at the Gap and Banana Republic has been reduced from 14 days to 7. Old Navy remains at 14 days.
We’re all about to see more money in our paychecks thanks to lower payroll taxes, but if you want to use the savings to payoff your student loans, you better act on the one day that Citibank will take your money. At least that’s what Citibank told reader Valori, who tried sending the bank a check with instructions to apply it towards the principal on her student loans. The bank instead applied it to her usual monthly payment and told her that the only way to pay down her principal was to “setup an automatic payment on the Citibank website to debit on the same day as [the] automatic payment is direct debited.” Does that seem easy to anyone?
Earlier this month, we noted how a reader was having trouble getting Sears to properly honor the lifetime warranty on his Craftsman tools. Now David Figler, a vice president of the company, has responded and said, “We stand behind the warranty—complete satisfaction—period.” Below is his email, and a portion of the memo he sent to Sears stores on the matter.
A Delta customer service representative assured Grace that her sister would be able to fly, even though she had just lost her wallet containing her identifications. Of course, when Grace’s sister arrived the next morning at the airport, Delta’s counter agents refused to let her anywhere near the gate until she produced a photo ID. After two hours on the phone, Grace’s parents tracked down an old learner’s permit and drove 20 miles to fax a copy to the airport. Now Grace wants to know why Delta’s customer service agents weren’t familiar with Delta’s policies, and what, if anything Delta can do to compensate her for the wasted time.
Not to be outdone by all the negative publicity Office Depot is getting over their “not in stock” lies, Best Buy stores in the New York area have been uncovered refusing to price match TV prices in accordance with their official policy. When pressed, the sales associates said that the TVs weren’t covered due to imaginary exclusions that aren’t included in the official policy language. An employee at one of the stores gave in, but then made up a new imaginary policy that said free delivery would cost $100.
An anonymous Office Depot employee sent us this internal reminder from HQ that addresses this week’s allegations that associates and managers lie about inventory depending on the customer. Now the next time you’re told by an Office Depot associate that the laptop you want is out of stock, you can say, “Are you absolutely sure? Because I know you had a Sales Practices Reminder on March 12th about lying to customers.” And if a manager tries to get all up in, uhm, your grill area, you can say, “Don’t you have some tasks to go check off in your Task Manager?”
Ronny can’t buy a new iPhone for the next 18 months, even though he’s willing to fork over $499 for an unsubsidized model. Ronny swapped his original 8 GB iPhone for a 16 GB version within his first month of service, but recently lost the phone. Now, both Apple and AT&T are telling him that he’s a jailbreaker and he can’t have a new phone for 18 months—unless he’s willing to get a new phone number.
Ryan’s wife is currently traveling alone with their 3-month-old son on the way to an unexpected funeral near Salt Lake, Utah. Despite the fact that she paid for the rental up front as part of an Orbitz package, the local Hertz jerks are refusing to give her the car unless she goes to an ATM and brings back $200 cash, which they say they will mail back in check form a few weeks after she returns the car. Even Hertz says this isn’t their policy, but they can’t seem to stay on the phone long enough to help Ryan and his wife.
We are open to putting the documents up to a vote. The rules people must do when on the site and what we must do, a two way thing. There will be Comment periods, a council that will help on future revisions.
If you’re one of those really smart coupon hoarders, you know to save up for double-coupon offers, because then you can get things for next-to-nothing. Nicole has used this strategy at Kmart in the past without problems, but this time she ran into an assistant manager who refused to honor the promotion, saying, “It’s not our policy. It’s not written down, but that’s the policy.”
Lisa says a Walmart greeter grabbed onto her cart and and wouldn’t let her leave because she refused to let the greeter check her receipt. That, my friends, is not legal. Sure, it would make life a lot easier if people just acquiesced to the receipt-checking, but it’s not the law. It is against the law, however, to unlawfully detain a customer. Here’s Lisa’s account:
Abel’s Copies is standing by their strict “No Refunds” policy even after ordering the wrong course packet for reader David. The workers at the off-campus bookstore near the University of Texas at Austin insisted there was only one instructor for David’s course and that they couldn’t order a new course packet unless David paid in advance. When David got home, he realized that Abel’s sold him the wrong packet. He called the store and learned that Abel’s had the right packet in stock for $25 less than he paid—but Abel’s refused to issue a refund…
Benny wanted to return a baby gift worth $19.98, but Macy’s refused to offer more $2.50. Benny didn’t have a gift receipt so Macy’s understandably refused to give him more than the product’s lowest advertised price—but when Benny tracked the item down on the shelf, it was selling for $19.98. When he asked where the product was selling for $2.50, he was told: “its not, the managers put in the lowest selling price, thats Macy’s policy!”
Returning something to Circuit City? All sales are final during the liquidation, but if you bought it between January 1st and the 16th, you have a 14-day return window. However, if you bought it before January 1st, the original 30-day policy still applies. Your cashier might not know this, though, and try to deny the return. That’s what happened to Jason today when he tried to return a hard drive.
It must be pretty easy to shoplift at Whole Foods because if any of their employees touch you, they’ll be fired.
Jetblue charged Carl $50 to check a small box. If Carl hadn’t mentioned that there was a small foldable bike in the box, his package would have been checked for free…
As part of their multi-pronged effort to fight the financial Godzilla besieging the world economy, the European Commission today proposed a 14-day no-questions-asked return period for any online purchases made within the European Union. The “two-week cooling-off period” is designed to give consumers a chance to shop across borders for the best prices without worrying about return policies. The practically adorable European decision to respond to a financial crisis with consumer protections made us want to look inwards at some of the onerous return policies Americans face.
Look, if you’re going to call your store “Mattress Giant,” and you’re going to have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, then don’t specifically exclude mattresses.
Part of 
