"I'm never shopping THERE again!" Share your story!

[HoneyBee42]

Carrying on the bank theme.

I have been a customer of Bank of America since I separated from my now-ex (a little over 3 years now).  My reason for picking BoA was simple:  I knew where I would be moving once I got legal permission to do so (permission required because of the minor children), and BoA had branches in both old city in NYS and new city here.  So I would not need to do anything more than update my address when I moved, and it would be one thing that I could cross off the "to-do" list with the major move.  I've stayed since moving because it's basically easier to just leave things as they are than to make changes.

So I get an email Thursday evening from my bank, that basically they are being bought by some other bank and my accounts are going to transfer to this other bank in August.  Now, pretty much every other bank in town is a regional bank (thus the reason why they weren't in the other city), and this is another regional bank that wants to "expand". 

Now, if I am going to have to do all the trouble of ordering new checks and updating my direct deposit (not to mention, do I really want to risk there *not* being a snafu when the transition happens?), *I* am going to pick the bank I change to.  So, I reviewed the local banks on line and saw what their account options are, and picked one that works for me.  I went there this morning, opened my account (where they were not surprised ... apparently they've had a rather large influx of new customers since the Thursday evening email).  I opened my account with $200.00, I'll transfer the majority after everything outstanding has cleared, and then close the BoA account once my direct deposit is going into the new account (I just got paid yesterday, so I don't know if next paycheck or the one after will be the one that goes--I'll be faxing the info on Monday to HR).   

[BabyMama]

Olive Garden. Sigh.

On Friday, I got off work at 11. I had to be somewhere at 12:10, and am a slow eater, but was very hungry. Olive Garden was right next to where I needed to be, so I figured I could grab their soup, salad, and breadsticks and be on my way.

Get there at 11:15. There's a party of four that comes in after me. We're both placed in the back room area; they're about three tables away. Right after, 3 people in a party of 8 come in and are sat in our same area. Both tables have a different server, and 3 different hostesses have been back in that area. There were several waitstaff hanging around the hostess' stand and in the waiter's area. My car had been the third in the lot, so it wasn't busy at all.

The party of 4 gets water and they peruse the menu. The 3 people decide to wait until the rest of their party arrives. The party of 4 orders. The other party trickles in, and are brought beverages as they ask for them. The party of 4 gets their salad. I can see both waiters standing in the waiter's area, chit chatting to each other. We're both directly in our lines of sight. I look around, fold my menu, make it clear that I'm ready to order. I don't know if they're ignoring me or what, but IMO it would be pretty hard not to notice that I'm there. Nobody gets close enough to flag down though.

25 minutes pass; the party of 4 is on their second bowl of salad. I get up and leave, and stop by the hostess' station to let them know why. The hostess is appalled. The manager gave me a gift card and offered to bring me some food (at this point I only had about 20 minutes left and didn't really want to be there anyway.)

I suppose I'll go back sometime to redeem the gift card, but it won't be any time soon. I have never had good luck there--I expect because I'm frequently a single diner. I probably should have spoken up/flagged someone down, but it kind of got to the point where I wondered how long they would make me wait. 

[ica171]

I've never been a waitress, but I assume there's some sort of system for the hostesses to tell the wait staff that someone has been seated in their section. I wonder if anyone told your waiter about you, and if not, if everyone just assumed that you were someone else's customer. It doesn't excuse it; someone should have noticed you were sitting there without water and still with a menu after ten minutes and stopped by to ask if you'd been served, but I'd give them another chance. But I love cheap pasta.

[siamesecat2965]

I've never been a waitress, but I assume there's some sort of system for the hostesses to tell the wait staff that someone has been seated in their section. I wonder if anyone told your waiter about you, and if not, if everyone just assumed that you were someone else's customer. It doesn't excuse it; someone should have noticed you were sitting there without water and still with a menu after ten minutes and stopped by to ask if you'd been served, but I'd give them another chance. But I love cheap pasta.

Yes and no. I know from the one summer I did it, you knew which sections was yours, and it was up to you to keep an eye out for any tables that were seated in your section. That being said, sometimes if we were really busy, maybe in the kitchen getting drinks, the hostess would lt us know she had just sat someone in our section.

I also would notice, if were weren't busy, if another server's table had drinks etc. and if it seemed no one had gone to them, I would at least get drinks for them, and let their server know hey, you ahve a table.

[BabyMama]

I've never been a waitress, but I assume there's some sort of system for the hostesses to tell the wait staff that someone has been seated in their section. I wonder if anyone told your waiter about you, and if not, if everyone just assumed that you were someone else's customer. It doesn't excuse it; someone should have noticed you were sitting there without water and still with a menu after ten minutes and stopped by to ask if you'd been served, but I'd give them another chance. But I love cheap pasta.

They had a sheet that they checked, marking which section I was in (not sure what other info was on it, but the hostess definitely checked the seating chart.) I do wish I had known what had happened--nobody really did see me, the waiter was MIA, whatever, just out of curiosity. It was just irksome--really, waitress? You didn't notice after you brought the other table their second bowl of salad that I still don't have a water? Sigh.

At least I got the quiet reading time I wanted   

[Outdoor Girl]

Some friends and I were doing a bit of a driving tour one day.  We decided to stop and have dinner.  We had to wait a couple of minutes and a couple of groups came in behind us.  We were all seated in this one back section, with us being seated first.  Another group was seated a few minutes after the initial groups were seated.

All of the other groups had drink and food orders taken and no one had even stopped by our table.  So we got up and left.  I did tell the manager that we were leaving and I told him why.  He was trying to get us to stay by comping stuff but I just told him, 'No, we are leaving', and we walked out.

We ended up driving over an hour home back to the home city of one of my friends and went to a restaurant there that served the same kind of food we were hoping to eat at the other place.  By this time, it was after 8:00 pm and the restaurant was dead.  In fact, they were about to close the doors when we walked in.  Fortunately, one of my friends knew the waiter and he went back and asked the chef if he was willing to cook for us.  We got a great meal, my friend was able to catch up with the waiter and we left a good tip.

[gingerzing]

Local sports pub.
DH and I were trying to decide on some place to eat semi-close to the house.  Two of the places that we stopped at/drove by were closed.  (one closed on Mondays & Tuesdays and the other was closed due to a family emergency) 
I suddenly remembered that we hadn't tried the pub that was only a few blocks away.  We drove in and it was mostly empty.  The hostess sat us in the dining area.  All booths and sort of blocked off from the other side of the dining room since the middle booths had a higher wall in between middle booths but not in the line of booths.   

  Dining area booths   
 ___  ___|___   ___ ]     windowed wall looking
___   _x_|___   ___ ]     into bar area
___   ___|___   __   ]   
 ___  ___|_us   __   ]   
 ___  ___|___   __   ]   


We were sitting at "us" booth and there was a small boy and his dad sitting on the other side of the booths at about "x".  Besides the hostess, there were 2 waitstaff and at least one bartender in the bar area. 
As we waited for our water, I had decided on an appetizer to split with DH and we both figured out what meal we wanted and we talked about trying a local beer.  Five minutes passed and no water.  Hurmph.  I don't need an appetizer.  At the 10 minute mark, a waitress came over to the dining side, but to check on the  "such a cute little boy".  When she went to leave the area, she purposefully turned her head so she didn't see me try to flag her down.  (Yes, suddenly turning to look at the wall leads me to believe she didn't want to wait on us.)  At my insistence, I gave them another 5 minutes.  Still with no water, we got up and walked out.  The hostess, still at her stand, gave us a chirpy "Thanks for eating with us."  DH had a steel grip on my arm so I couldn't turn back and explain that not only did we NOT eat but we didn't get water. 

[Shalamar]

Why?  I think you or your husband should definitely have let the hostess know that you were leaving hungry and thirsty because you'd had terrible service.

[ica171]

Why?  I think you or your husband should definitely have let the hostess know that you were leaving hungry and thirsty because you'd had terrible service.

POD. Unless you have a history of screaming obscenities at hostesses, I think your DH was rude to grab your arm and not let you tell the restaurant that their service was unacceptable.

[Rose]

Old Navy!

I picked up a cute outfit for my 3 week old grandson. While waiting in line I picked up a cute reusable bag from a rack by the checkout. When I got to the cashier she took my items and opened the reusable bag, looked in it and asked if it was my bag. I didn't think twice and answered not yet, I picked it up from that rack. She finished my transaction and I left. I met a friend and wanted to show him the outfit. Instead of baby clothes I pulled out the filthiest pair of socks you could imagine.

I called the store manager and she was very snippy. So I went to their website and left a message. Corporate called me within 12 hours, apologized profusely and sent me a gift card for my trouble. A couple of weeks later my youngest DD was home from college and needed shorts. I took the gift card to the same ON. They said the card was worth $10. less than I had been told it was worth. Sigh. I had to pull out the letter from the corporate office to show them the stated amount.

I may shop at ON again, but not that store!

[Softly Spoken]

This isn't my story, but my brother came home today and told me he isn't setting foot in our neighborhood Safeway again. I asked why and he told me about the following bewildering experience:

He was standing at the customer service counter to get his lottery tickets. He rang the bell etc. and waited. A staff member eventually came over from the checkout area and said "We can't help you."
...
Not "we're really busy but I'll find someone to help you soon." Not "Sorry the Customer Service (wrongly named apparently!) desk is closed right now." He just said "We're too busy right now so we can't help you." Basically my brother felt he was told to go home because he wasn't going to be served. He said the man made a point of saying the Customer Service desk was NOT closed...they just...couldn't help him...for some reason.

I am still trying to get my brain around it, but essentially as I understand it - my brother went into Safeway to get service that they do all day every day and was told "that will not be possible" with no explanation or alternative given. If something can't be done customers usually have the option to wait or come back later. It was the finality of the exchange, with no apology or options provided, that soured my brother.

I told him he should have asked for the manager, but he has chosen the slightly more PA route of "never shopping there again" even though it is the only supermarket within walking distance.

I still wish I knew what that employee was thinking!

[Slartibartfast]

I still wish I knew what that employee was thinking!

Probably "My boss isn't watching me right now and I want to finish this phone call / game / conversation / drink."  And betting that the customer won't complain up the chain.

[gingerzing]

Why?  I think you or your husband should definitely have let the hostess know that you were leaving hungry and thirsty because you'd had terrible service.

POD. Unless you have a history of screaming obscenities at hostesses, I think your DH was rude to grab your arm and not let you tell the restaurant that their service was unacceptable.

No history of obscenities.     But I do write a mean "Dear manager" letter that are, apparently, glorious to read.   For some reason, can't remember why, I didn't even do that for this place. 
I think that DH just had my arm (escort like, not grabbed) as we walked out.  And stopped me only because he wasn't in the mood to wait around for whatever happened from my chat or to wait for a manager - since it took forever for a mere waitress to acknowledge us. 
He and I were hungry and we needed to find some place else to eat. 

[ica171]

Why?  I think you or your husband should definitely have let the hostess know that you were leaving hungry and thirsty because you'd had terrible service.

POD. Unless you have a history of screaming obscenities at hostesses, I think your DH was rude to grab your arm and not let you tell the restaurant that their service was unacceptable.

No history of obscenities.     But I do write a mean "Dear manager" letter that are, apparently, glorious to read.   For some reason, can't remember why, I didn't even do that for this place. 
I think that DH just had my arm (escort like, not grabbed) as we walked out.  And stopped me only because he wasn't in the mood to wait around for whatever happened from my chat or to wait for a manager - since it took forever for a mere waitress to acknowledge us. 
He and I were hungry and we needed to find some place else to eat.

If you were hungry, I get it. I get cranky without food, too.  And there have been times where I could have spoken to someone right then, but for whatever reason (kids getting antsy, felt too angry to trust myself talking to someone at that moment) I've chosen to go home and call later, then later I just didn't feel like dealing with it so I didn't.

[mmswm]

Sears.  This is what I posted this afternoon on their facebook page:

Sears, you have seriously lost any loyalty I may have had. For the second time in less than a year, the same part on my mother's washing machine broke. When Mother contacted the repair department, she told you exactly what part was broken. The repairman showed up without the appropriate part in spite of knowing exactly what was wrong. He then informed her that it would be more than a week before the machine could be repaired. Now, considering that there are 7 people in her house and the machine had already been broken for 2 weeks, this was simply unacceptable. In addition to that, my mother's brother died unexpectedly, sending the family into a tailspin and bringing even more people, thus more laundry, into the house. Mother called back and customer service agreed to overnight the appropriate parts then instructed her to call back as soon as they arrived and promised her that they would send another repairman out immediately. The part arrived today and she called back. Your company refused to honor their promise. Mother couldn't handle the stress so she put me on the phone. After the second attempt (I was disconnected the first time) I was finally transferred to a supervisor who was extremely rude and condescending. She flat out told me that she refused to transfer me up the line as she had talked to her boss and her boss told her what to say to me. Then when I called her on it, she lied and very rudely told me that I was "hearing what I wanted to hear", with a tone that implied that I must be crazy. I became livid and told her to stop placating me, as that was making me angrier, and really I would prefer she just yelled at me. Then she accused me of accusing her of yelling and when I corrected her she again said I was "hearing what I wanted to hear" with that superior attitude that, if she was my employee, would have gotten her fired on the spot. Sears, you have dropped the ball in a major way. You have failed to live up to your obligations, you have lied, you have cheated and attempted to cover up your mistakes. You failed to listen to your customer and you have utterly destroyed your reputation, at least within this family. I have spent over $200 of my own money doing laundry at a laundromat in an effort to make a family crisis a little more tolerable for my mother while you have done everything in your power to make it worse. I expected more from a company that I have previously thought very highly of. I am extremely disappointed in your actions as a company. You used to be better than this. Unless you can fix this problem immediately, I am sad to say I will have to give up my Craftsman tools, as I will never shop with your company again. Please contact me to work this out, as I really don't want to give up on you, but I'm afraid you might have left me no choice.