Monday evening near closing time, I brought my 9 selections to the register. There was a customer before me with, what seamed to be two, piles of merchandise on the belt . I looked around for a divider rod to lay between my stuff, and the customer in front of me, but I didn't see any nearby, so I just put as much space between my pile and the one in front of me. I watched as the cashier seems to have finished the previous customer fearing that mine might accidentally be co-mingled with the predecessor. She finished and handed the bags to the customer, who walked away. While waiting, I had made a quick count of my items knowing each would be a $1 + some tax, so I pulled out 2 $5 bills. She scanned my items quickly, and I was mentally counting the beeps for each scan, but I thought I heard 11, so not seeing anything abnormal when she gave me the total of $10.83 I just thought that I much have miscounted.
Shame on me!
I got home and passed out the boxes of candy and started to put the rest away, when I came to a box of C&H sugar. I KNOW I never had that in my hand or on the belt.
I took it in this evening with my receipt, in the original bag. One woman was checking customers, while another guy was standing 2 register down looking at a clipboard. I approached him and ask if he would do a return for me, please. He then said they don't do refunds, just exchanges. I explained what happened as I just wrote above. He said that was their policy and I would have to speak to a manager (reasonable, I thought) so I asked him to call the manager over. He say there wasn't one here now and I'd have to come back at some other (unspecified) time. He went on to explain that he couldn't do refunds, only a manager. I requested that he call a manager. he say no one was available, so I asked that he call a district manager. I mentioned that this was business hours, the store would be open for 2 more hours this evening, somebody should be in charge and a least available by phone.
Finally, he took the box of sugar over to the open register, sort of pushed the cashier aside, and started entering codes. He grabbed the box in a huffy, banging manor, seeming to be very annoyed as he grabbed a dollar bill from the draw and almost threw it at me. I thanked him and walked out.
When I went in and past the registers, I discovered that they do have dividers for the checkout belt, but they have a huge display of merchandise hanging way over the belt and completely hiding access and visibility to the divider bars. I can only guess that the sugar box really belonged to the customer in front of me and likely was put in the bag, the then took the rest of my purchases. I don't know about the 11 beeps I counted, but I'll be paying much closer attention in the next check-out line I'm in. Kicking myself for not checking the bag out before leaving, but I hate to hold up customers behind me because I didn't count carefully enough.
This is still poor customer service, and you need to double check your purchases before you leave the register, even if you have to dump it all out to check it. And go ahead and ask strongly for the cashier to hand you a divider bar before you place any of your items on the belt.
I was also dismayed by the announcement at 8:30 PM instructing that the store would be closing in 30 minutes and please bring all your purchases to the registers now. The announcement was repeated about every 10 minutes. That kind of rhetoric, at that place in time, drives me away from feeling welcomed by that store. Something more like "Customers, our store will be closing in 30 minutes at 9 PM, until then, please enjoy your shopping experience. If we can help you find something, please feel free to ask any of our associates. Thanks for shopping at Dollar Tree. read more