Crazy News - Strange Stuff - Rants and Raves

I will keep this one short n’ sweet. Sam’s Club just had a great deal last week on the Sony 46″ LCD TV - it was on sale for $998 - But they opened this deal up to non-members?!?!?!?!?! Why did I pay $50 for a membership if they are going to open the best deals to everyone in the entire city? That makes no sense and in fact I think I am going to be asking for a refund on my membership and head over to Costco.

Come on fellow ranters and ravers, join with me and cancel your Sam’s Club memberships because they obviously don’t care about their customers.

Well I can’t give you a review on the entire purchase process because their prices were almost 30% higher than a comparable product from Home Depot. Granted Home Depot had a silly long waiting time of 3 weeks or more for installation and Empire can install the next day, IMO it still does not warrant such a huge premium.

The whole ‘free quote’ process started off poorly after I contacted Empire Today after seeing their TV commercials. I went through almost ten minutes on the phone with a customer service rep and she repeatedly asked me if all decision makers would be present at the time of the quote. The appointment was made and the time came and went without anyone showing up nor a call of any type to delay or cancel. The following week I decided to give them another chance because I was hoping their ‘huge’ international presence would translate into a competitive price.

The guy showed up this time and I sort of felt sorry for him, he had a very defeated attitude and after I mentioned the missed appointment the week before he told us he himself takes a lot of abuse with customers requesting quotes and then not being home when he showed up. One of the most annoying things is the ridiculous practice Empire has where they give you this huge initial quote (ours was $5,000) and then they have to call into head-office to get a discount…..how freak’in dumb do they think people are??? Maybe this company is big down in USA trailer park country where that type of dealing comes across as brilliant. So after a few heated minutes on the phone where are Empire rep tried to bargain down the best price for us it came back at $2,599.00, which was only around $700 more than Home Depot quoted us.

What a joke and a waste of time. The rep apologized and left quickly after I showed him the Home Depot quote and told him to maybe stop by and see it for himself on the way back home. He told us he would find it too depressing to do that.

I guess the moral of this story is that if a company has real neat TV commercials on all the time, chances are you are going to be paying for them.

Today was the final straw for a fiasco that has been dragging on for over nine months.  On December 26, 2007 I went into my local Walmart store to get two tires.  After the installation the technician was pulling the car out of the service bay and crashed into the side of a post with the front bumper.  There was deep yellow colored scratches on the right-side of the bumper.  Everyone apologized profusely and I was told they would take care of it.  The assistant store manager came and took pictures with a digital camera and took down my contact information and said someone would call me in the next couple of days.

Eight days passed so I decided to stop in and find out what was going on,  at this time I was dealing with the automotive manager, Dinesh.  He told me it would be a few more days but by the end of the week someone from head office would contact me.  Another week went by and I came in to ask what was going on, he said I had to go get an estimate and they would submit that for payment.  I returned a couple of days later with an estimate and he said it was too high and I needed to submit a second one anyway.  

I went and got a second estimate and brought that in a few days later.  He then told me the estimates were too high and that if I tried to trick them, I would be found out and they would not pay.  I got quite angry at the accusation and stated that he is the one that told me to get the estimates and I did just that, I said, “I don’t care who fixes the car, for all I care Walmart can send it out themselves to whomever they want”.

A couple more weeks go by and I am not contacted, I stop in again and ask what is going on, Dinesh goes to his office and comes back 10 minutes later saying he talked to the insurance company and they would contact me so an adjuster can come out and have a look. A couple more weeks go by and no contact, I go into the store and ask to speak with Joel Breton the store manager.  He talks to Dinesh and apologizes and says it will be taken care of ASAP.

A couple more weeks go by and still nothing….I go back to talk to Joel and he says that I need to call the insurance company to set up an appointment with the adjuster.  I call, the adjuster he gave me the number for is on vacation, I leave a message and never receive a call back.  I leave an second then a third message and still no return call.

I must admit I did get busy just prior to this Summer with a new job so I have not done anything since, but today I had a vacation day so I stopped in to talk to Joel to give him one last chance to rectify this mess before I published my story to the web.  First I got the run-around from a few service people that said he was in a meeting and would be available later.  Then I asked the customer service manager to ask his to come out and see me.  She grudgingly did so and I waited for about ten minutes at the front of the store and he didn’t show.  I then asked the CS manager to have him come into the McDonalds to talk to me so I could sit down and have a drink.  I wanted another 15 minutes and he didn’t show.

I know I am just a small fish and obviously insignificant to a big company like Walmart but to be treated this way has been very upsetting.  All together I have wasted a ton of time and energy on something that could have been settled in just a few moments.  I am greatly disappointed in Walmart and in Joel Breton.  At this point I have pretty much written off getting any fair treatment from Walmart but I will update this post if the impossible occurs.

So here is my little rant about the local Future Shop store in Richmond Hill, Ontario - Canada.  I went in a few weeks ago with my two kids to check out a digital SLR camera.  I was deciding between the Canon XTI and the new Canon XSI.  I was asking a few questions at the camera counter about having them give a free memory card with the purchase (because they were offering that deal online) and the guy was checking with a ‘manager’ if he could do it.  While waiting for him and browsing the xbox360 games with the kids I noticed a couple of titles they had there were the same two I purchased at EBGames earlier on that day for $9.99 each, they were are $50 at Future Shop.  I decided while waiting for the camera fellow to come back I would ask for a price match on the games (it would work out to around $5.90 per game) I would purchase them at Future Shop and because I had the others in the car still new in the package I could return them to EBGames.  I would only save about $8 but it was more on principal.  I took the two copies of the game to the service desk and asked for the price match.  They said they would have to contact EBGames to see if they were new games or clearance, used games.  I told them they were new and factory sealed, I offered to go out to the car and get them.  They told me they still had to contact EBGames.

A few minutes later the person said they contacted EBGames and could not honor the price match because it was only for new games.  I told them the games were new and I had them in the car if they wanted to see them.  I asked to speak with the store manager.  Instead the brought out a guy named Oscar and he told me the price match was only on new games, I said that is ”bull” and I had the games in the car, brand-new factory sealed.  He said I should not swear at him, especially in front of my kids and he could not price match used games.  After seeing that I was angry he called over a fellow employee and asked him to help throw me out of the store because I was causing a scene (I did raise my voice but I was far from causing a ’scene’).

To make a long story a little shorter I asked if he was the store manager and he wasn’t, all the managers were off-site at a meeting.  I asked for the store managers name and they told me it was French and they were not sure how to spell it.  I asked for the number to  head office so I could contact the regional manager, they gave me the call center number.  I called and was told regional managers no longer accepted direct calls but they would fill out an incident report and someone would contact me in a few days.  After around 20 minutes on the phone, case #108845 was complete and I was to expect a call from Laiq Siddiqui (the store manager) or the regional manager.

Well as you might guess, that was over 3 weeks ago and no call.  I tried to find out what was going on last week but they said I would have to wait for them to contact me.  I was upset and did not purchase my camera and will probably end up ordering it from a US retailer online.  I am sure this happens a lot because I have read about similar problems at various forums online and it seems to occur at Future Shop stores across Canada.  I don’t understand why they would bother to put a price matching policy in effect and then do everything in their power to screw people over when they try and use it???  I was there to purchase a camera package for $1000+ and instead of making a sale, they pissed me off by treating me so poorly.

Update: I sent an email to customer service after writing this post (with a link to the post) and I got this reply after a few hours:

Please include the following line in all replies.
Tracking number: CT20080525_0000000702

Dear Jay:

We can understand your frustration with case number 108845.

Please contact us at 1-800-663-2275 and a representative will be able to assist you in receiving a response. We will be able to transfer you to a manager to provide a immediate resolution.

Thank you for visiting Futureshop.ca.

Sincerely,

Amy
Customer Care
Future Shop

I am going to call now and I will update this thread with any resolution I get.

Update: I contacted customer service but the person I got told me that only temporary managers are there on the weekends so I should call back on Monday.

Monday morning I got a message from Bobby Maharaj who is the operations manager at the Future Shop in Richmond Hill.  I just called him back and after 35 rings someone at switch-board picked up and told me he is busy with a customer so I am waiting for a call back now.