Zero stars should be an option. Our story:
My wife was expecting our first baby, and after her baby shower we had several returns to make. Our adventure to Target started out in a long, long, slow-moving line at the return counter. When we finally got to the front, some of our returns had been given w/o a gift receipt. Don't waste your time--HUGE HASSLE. I understand policies, etc etc. But at Target the new policy was only 3 no-receipt returns/person/year. Now, some derelict wheeling in a TV reeking of booze is one thing. But my wife was 7 months pregnant returning a bunch of baby items still with bits of wrapper taped to the boxes. Allow a little wiggle room for managerial decision-making. Anyway, they put your driver's license on file to track your returns, and they don't even give you gift cards--you can only use the receipt to pick out ONE item of equal or lesser value FROM THE SAME DEPARTMENT (that part is important). The balance is lost, and the receipts cannot be combined. We spent an hour going over this with the return clerk (very nice lady, actually). So, armed with our stack of receipts, plus a gift card for the items that had receipts, we headed over to the baby section. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You have to use the receipts within 24 hours, like you're on some bad reality show. We got to the baby section, and the shelves were at least 3/4 empty! They had almost NO inventory due to a remodeling project. So now our choice was to either pick out NEW stuff we didn't need or go back, wait in line again, and get back the original stuff we didn't need in the first place! We chose the latter.
The following morning I called corporate, since the store seems to be pretty good at shielding its management from the front lines. I spent 90 minutes on the phone, slowly working my way up the Target food chain. I grew increasingly frustrated at their refusal to offer any solution. All we wanted was to exchange everything for store credit. But even the fact that the store had ZERO inventory from which to choose made no difference in their eyes. At the end, I at least got the woman to admit that she would do nothing to help me. Small victory. Ironically, they are really pushing their gift registry service. I explained to them that this situation is going to happen a lot. I also told her that, at their next big meeting when they attempt to figure out why their registry business is sucking wind, point out that their policy sucks. read more