Fred Meyer was the original one stop shopping spot. When I was growing up it was kind of the fancy place--we didn't shop there a lot because it was more expensive than Safeway or Shopko or whatever. It's gone downhill in a huge way, which probably in part started with the acquisition by Kroger.
My mom needed to stop here for something today so I went in to check out the kid's section. They had some cute stuff and a pretty good sale happening so I ended up buying some shirts, dresses, pants, a coat, and some other things. As part of the sale was a $10 off coupon for purchase of $50 or more.
We got to the checkout and I asked the woman who was ringing me up about one of the prices, which hadn't rung up correctly. She said that I needed to have my card and since I don't have one I put in my sister's number. It wasn't bringing up her account so I said I guess I needed to get a card, and the cashier said that she didn't know if she had any at the cash stand. I tried a couple more times with my sister's number with the same result so I said I'd need to get a card and she said the same, like that was the end of it. I mean, I wanted a card of course so I could get the discounts; if they didn't have any at that cash stand, where would I get one? She did find one and scanned it in, so things looked good.
Then came time to scan the $10 off coupon. It wouldn't ring up. She tried it two or three times and it didn't reduce the total by a penny. Again, the cashier was kind of neutral about it and just said I must not have purchased enough stuff. My total was $93 so that was not the issue. The cashier again just was ready to leave it at that until I asked if there was a manager who could help, so she called over the manager. They kept insisting that I hadn't spent enough money or something because the coupon wouldn't work, but they couldn't articulate why and there was nothing on the coupon that said it shouldn't be applicable; in fact, it specifically stated that you could use it with other discounts and coupons. I insisted that they honor the coupon since they couldn't tell me why it wasn't valid except to say that it wasn't scanning. The manager called someone else and I guess was told to just start putting in codes until the right amount was taken off, which they did; first $5 came off and then they entered one that lowered the price to $73. The manager then said that because it had taken off more that nothing in the purchase would be returnable. What?? I was buying children's clothes, and kids clothes are not always the most accurate in sizing (especially with a ~93rd percentile child)! I said that was ridiculous that I couldn't return something if it didn't fit--it wasn't my problem that they weren't able to get it to work properly and that didn't correct it when more came off than should have. She continued to say nothing would be returnable. I don't know how they'd enforce that, honestly, but since I bought almost all of it a size larger than should be necessary it should fit (though of course I'd return it if it didn't; otherwise I'd be out the money with clothes that didn't fit).
To add insult to injury, the cashier apologized repeatedly to the guy who was in line behind us. Yes, he'd been waiting, but there are other cashier stands in the store. And we'd also been waiting at least 10 minutes while they figured out the whole thing! But not a single apology for my mom (who had her own stuff to purchase) or me. Just all around a terrible experience, and luckily for me I don't shop at Fred Meyer. read more