I have a 83 year old grandmother who has breast cancer that I get together every 1 to 2 months and we do her grocery shopping at this location by passing Stater Bros, Aldi, Target supercenter and ralphs driving an extra 10 mins because she enjoying going to this store based off of the high quality service she has also gotten there. Please keep in mind that she's 83 years old and an african american woman who is old school. She only writes checks, so we know that the store limit on a check is low but because we have been going here for years we know that the managers Paul (he's no longer at that store) and Tammy have to override the limit to allow her to pay with a check.
She was comfortable going into this location, she knows the store like the back of her hand and loves the interactions she always receives with the employees until yesterday 9/28/2021.
As usual when we arrive I walk inside the store to the right and grab an electric cart for her to ride in, bring it out to her, get her in the cart and she's ready to ride all down the isles collecting her items.
Today was nothing normal, until we encountered the new store manager Paul Rodrigez at the liquor cabinet. Paul was kind at the time. My grandma thought it was the old manager Paul and called him by his name. He explained to her that he was the new paul but the old one is his good friend and they continued to have a conversation. After picking out the liquor 2 half gallons of Patron, 2 half gallons of hennessy and the biggest bottle of Grey Goose vodka this store carries he lets her know that he will take it up to the front ( which is store policy and we're aware). She reached out to shake his hand and he just looked at her. I let her know we do live in a COVID world and some people do not feel comfortable.
We then went over to the line to pay for all the items. I noticed that the cashier who was very nice got a phone call and she said " it's the grandma and granddaughter " to whoever she was talking to on the other end of the phone. The cashier then gives the total and I let her know that we are the ones who have the liquor put to the side. She states that she was instructed to do two different transactions. I explained to her that she's writing a check and she will need to contact a manager so they can override the system.
The manager Paul comes over and states " we will not allow the transaction. I walked around and asked the whole store if they knew you guys and everyone said no".
We instantly felt embarrassed and humiliated because of his actions and words. He judged us, he profiled us and that's beyond wrong.
Albertsons states online that they do not discriminate but that's exactly what Paul did.
If he didnt know how to override it she should have reached out to Tammy, the other store manager. I asked to speak with her and she was not in.
I then explained that no one upfront is an old team member, everyone that was on the front line were new hires. If you pull the records there were 2 people there as cashiers who were older. One of them was the one that was ringing us up and the other all the way at the end. So how would anyone know us if your whole team is new including him? How would we know the old manager Paul who has always helped us? and Paul rodrigez walked off leaving the cashier there to handle it.
I paid for the bill with my card and to be honest I should have left every single thing right there on the check out because of how embarrassing that was.
We go into this store every 1-2 months and spend a minimum of $700.00 sometimes $1,800 and every single time she writes a check. (I can provide all banking information if you like!)
Why is it that last month when my BLACK GRANDMOTHER was in the store with my WHITE MOTHER she was able to write a check for $1,100 and had not one problem ?!?!?!!!!!
Someone needs to explain to this new manager it's not what you say it's how you say it and the cashier with red curly hair needs a raise for doing the managers job and handling the situation the best she could
Because of this experience we will no longer support Albertsons. This was beyond disrespectful.
Yes, we live in 2021 but there's still elderly people out there who do not use cards, who writes checks and we as people (PAUL) need's to work on being more understanding. They didn't even allow her to run the check for the total amount because what ? he thought it would bounce? He automatically assumed that it would be a bad check ? read more