Last night I went grocery shopping for 10% Tuesday. The first Tuesday of every month Sobeys and Safeway offer a 10% discount on a minimum $35.00 purchase. They call it "Customer Appreciation Day". Most of the time I shop at Superstore because it is usually cheaper than those other stores with the mood lighting and fancy displays.
I am a single girl carrying a large mortgage and making payments on my Truck. Yes, I would love to belong to that elite crowd who can afford to pay extra to shop in a place where they have on-site butchers, free samples, shorter lineups, relatively clean floors and parcel carryout, but for now I save those special experiences for days when things are a little cheaper.
So yesterday I took Truck out to the western edge of St. James (which smelled like cows, by the way) and browsed the offerings at the Unicity Sobeys. I picked up two pints of blueberries when normally I would only take one, grabbed a box of Ritz crackers because in combination with the Nestea crystals and the Kraft salad dressing it meant I would earn 250 bonus Sobeys points.
I admittedly wasn't paying much attention as the young man rang up my items. I don't really remember where my mind was at. I had already pulled out my Visa and my Sobeys card and placed them on the counter. The cashier did not, to my recollection, tell me my total before taking the cards, but I happened to look up and noticed that my grand total was $34.89.
"Oh," I frowned. "So I didn't make the 35 dollar minimum?"
"No, looks like you were short by like a buck," the astute bagger concluded.
"So I could have made it if I added a pack of gum or something?" I asked.
The cashier just shrugged and handed me my bill to sign.
"Thanks." I said tersely while picking up the pen although the terseness was not caught by the young man cashier.
"You're welcome!" he replied.
I headed home mad. I turned up the volume to sing along with Papa Roach.
"I'm a reckless goddamn son of a bitch!" I sang at the top of my lungs and slammed my hand on the steering wheel. "God save me from this madness!" I didn't look, but I can only imagine the colours my mood ring was turning.
I unpacked my groceries and took a closer look at my bill. The total before taxes was $34.65. I was 35 cents short from being a customer worth appreciating! Would it really have been so hard for the guy to let me add a pack of gum to my purchases? Sometimes they are even so kind as to say, "hey, you're just shy of meeting the minimum requirement, is there anything else you need today?" Yes, I realize the onus is really on me to keep track of these things, and yes, I know I only would have saved $3.50 but I could buy a whole ice cream cone for $3.50! I could go to two cheap seat movies for $3.50! I probably spent $3.50 in gas driving the extra distance to visit that fancy pants store! I was not about to take this laying down. So I opened up Mac, found the Sobeys website and sent them a "comment". I assure you, I explained my complaint in a respectful and calm manner. I have had success before with complaint letters. Why, just last year I believe I wrote to Oral B to complain about my electric toothbrush and they sent me a $10 voucher in the mail for replacement heads.
Today, the manager of the Unicity Sobeys called me to explain how the computer system they have makes it difficult for the cashiers to tell if the discount has been taken off. However, to make it right, he offered me a $10 Sobeys gift card for my troubles.
Thank you Sobeys. That was the right thing to do.
Just call me Jillian B@rr0tt, the Couponed Crusader.
1 comment:
give your head a shake, you knew you did'nt met the threshold, you could have said, wait, I want to add a pack of gum to the purchase. Instead you said nothing then went home and bitched about it on your blog.
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