Friday, May 04, 2007

We're renting again

Customes seem to have no compunction about flopping a bag full of something nasty up on the counter - be it stinky meat, spoiled milk, an exploded can of children's play goo called Floam or any other sort of disaster.

I even got a toilet plunger that "wouldn't go" once. Of course, the lovely specimen returning said big plastic purple plunger waited until AFTER I picked it up to tell me that the plunger she slung on the counter "wouldn't go."

To this day, I still don't understand the mechanics involved in a toilet plunger not working. The wooden ones can sometimes break, but the plastic ones are all one piece. How is mechanical failure an option? So is it user stupidity by default?

But I digress. The point of all this is nasty things. And I added a new one to the list this week. USED RAT TRAPS.

On my dead grandfather's grave, I kid you not. This chirpy woman in a bright yellow pantsuit and in possession of a Connecticut drivers license returned a box of rat traps, a box of glue strips and an oversize rat trap that still had cheese crumbs on it. I'll take "Snowbirds Cleaning Out the Closet" for $200 Alex!

Sure enough. She set the bag down on the counter, I opened it up and went, "EWWWW." And then she yanked out a receipt dated September 6, 2006. Five will get you ten that's the day after she got to Florida from Bridgeport - or wherever she's from. Sum total of the receipt? Two dollars and six cents. Her gas going back and forth to the Wal-Mart probably cost more than that.

I didn't even argue over the 90 days policy. I just politely asked for her license; she forked it over, I refunded the rat traps, gave her the $2.06 and she left Customer Service with a smile on her face and No-Receipt Return. I'll bet she voted for that tool Lieberman in 2006 too.

Wal-Mart, always low prices on the items you rent the most!

3 comments:

Mercedes Lopez said...

Had a guy return a chain cutter; I saw the nick on the blade and I told him we didn't rent. Yes, I'm not supposed to be confrontational but people annoy me sometimes. He said he had to cut his laptop free after he locked it up. He thought it was a legit thing to do; I just returned it but all I could think of was what a bastard.

Sort of like the guy who used a ladder attachment (creates a standing area between two ladders) because he couldn't drive back home in time and get the job done. So he admitted this and I told him I wasn't going to return the money because one, we hadn't sold this product in years and but he forced me to get a manager and the idiot returned it. THe manager even had the audacity to tell me that I was acting like a return Nazi.

I told him (yup) that he let a guy return an old garage door opener he bought over a year ago which he had no receipt for but our system showed when it was sold last at our store. The item had our store number also. And he returned an item that a customer used for convenience. I said this in front of 2 other zone level managers so I had a nice laugh afterwards at his expense. He was always pretending to be hard on scammers but he rolled up quick.

So when going into a fight I look for a zone level manager that I know will take the correct action. But sometimes when I start hearing the mention of corporate etc. me and the zone just realize that we are whipped.

Meline said...

Just plain laughing, then quietly adds Florida to the list of places never to go. I think I'd be in confrontations with the other people there wayy to much.

Anonymous said...

Well, there are two ways that plungers will just not work.

1. The rubber is too thin and weak to get a good enough suction.

2. The rubber is too stiff to physically push down.

It happens, but you still shouldn't return them..eww.