Yes. They have an amazing alcohol selection. Yes, the blonde chick is very nice and professional. Yes, their gas prices are great. This review is directed specifically at one employee who has never been professional nor friendly to us (once my boyfriend bought a bottle of Revel Stoke listed at $9.99. She tried charging $15.99 and got very rude when he pointed out what it was priced at on the shelf. It's been nearly a year and the Revel Stoke has NEVER been $15.99.)
My boyfriend has always cashed his paychecks here without incident. Unfortunately today was not one of those days. We came here to cash settlement checks that we received from a class action suit against a landlord in a building we used to live in. First, we were asked if we had the paperwork that came with the checks - which we didn't, but I did have one of the certified envelopes that the check came in. She goes off to verify the checks (all fine and dandy) and after a good 15 - 20 minutes on the phone tells me the checks are fraudulent and she's turning the checks over to the cops. If we want them back, she says, we have to get them from the police station and then proceeds to call the cops to come get the checks. She implies that this is a fake organization (despite us having dealt with them before we moved to Inyo county) trying to scam people. During this, I call the attorney who represented us (and 80 other former tenants) and tell them what's going on. This employee also said she tried calling the attorney first but no one answered - an amazing feat considering their phone number was neither on the envelope nor the check and I never gave her their number. Since this is an organization located in Los Angeles and has no dealings this far away, she couldn't have looked them up or known their number. She also says she tried to verify the checks twice and Citibank told her the account didn't exist.
Right before the officer showed up, she changes her mind and hands the checks back to me saying she won't cash them and to leave (strange thing to do if you think you've been given 2 fake checks totaling almost a grand). The attorney, while all this is going on, has retrieved our paperwork and wants to talk to her - but the employee has gone off talking to someone on her cell phone, completely ignoring me. Finally, she finishes her call and I hand her my phone. She repeats everything she told me (quite rudely, I might add) and wants to hear nothing from my attorney. I'm explaining everything to the officer who has shown up and he's inspecting the checks (and he sees nothing he deems suspicious). At one point, the employee hands my phone back - while my attorney is still talking. The lawyer has to get a senior attorney to help and after he speaks with the officer, tells me to sit tight while they call Citibank (at first he wanted me to bring the checks back, which wasn't an option because of the travel involved and, oh by the way, I'm a week away from my due date and something like 100 miles from my hospital. I don't need this aggravation otherwise there might have been a clean up on isle 1).
The officer, after checking our ids and making sure we're not wanted, gives us the checks back and suggests we sends them back certified. He explains that in the past week or so, quite a number of fake checks have shown up in Ridgecrest because people steal them out of the mailbox and make fake ones from that. Not quite - we don't have that problem. These came certified to our secure PO box, we don't live in Ridgecrest. So we leave and I call Citibank myself. After explaining what I have, I'm given the phone number to an automated check verification line. I have never been in the check cashing or banking business (in fact numbers make my head hurt)...yet in under 10 minutes I was able to verify both checks as valid checks. Not once was I asked for an account number or anything like this employee said she did to 'verify' these checks. Honestly, I don't know WHAT she was doing on the phone but she could not have been doing what she claims or she doesn't know what she's doing. Either way, rather than paying a $3 flat fee per check, we had to go to another check cashing place (that had NO problems with our checks) and pay $16 per check to get them cashed. We lost 2 hours dealing with this nonsense. Sure, 9 times out of 10, this probably won't happen to you, but be warned. They lost 2 regular customers today over this. Someone needs to pull that Hawaiian (or whatever she is) bitch's head out of her ass. read more
