Caveat Emptor

I've been following the coupon and savings blogs regularly and have found some incredible bargains for which I thank you, savvy blogging mommies, for alerting me to deals. My pantries, refrigerator, freezer, and cupboards have been stocked with enough toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and personal care items to last my family for several months. The food staples are now sufficient to hold the normal family through another visit of a hurricane like Ike, or in our case, enough to feed the Bear for another week or so. And I stayed well within my budget.

In my quest for bargains I came across a disturbing trend. It matters where you shop. I mean, specifically it matter which store location of a certain chain you shop. I have been cheated at the same store twice in a week. I'm sure that it is a managerial problem as I have not seen this type of thing company-wide. And I have shopped in 3 different locations of this chain in my metropolitan area within the last month.

I believe my daughter, Karen, had this happen to her at a certain drug store sometime last year. I am not going to take the time to find the link but I'm sure she'll enlighten you if you want to know which W.a.l.g.r.e.e.n to avoid in the Cincinnati area.

Well, I now know which store that promotes itself as having "higher standards, lower prices" to avoid. I suspected foul play last Thursday when I took advantage of a long day of basketball tournaments to do some shopping at the store nearest the tournament, not the one closest to where I live.

Last Thursday I had several coupons worth $1 each and some that should double to $1 automatically. Since I do a lot of printing from the Internet I usually have multiples of the same coupon and buy several of the desired item. I saw the cashier shuffling through my coupons while she was scanning them. I wondered at the time why she didn't scan one, then lay it down. If she had, there would've been a pile of coupons laying in front of her. There wasn't. That was my first clue. She gave me the total and I paid for the purchases. It wasn't until I got home several hours later that I looked at my receipt. There were no coupons taken off worth $1 anywhere. She didn't ring them. Either she was going to keep them for her own personal use (now there's a novel way for getting free coupons!) or the store pocketed the money when they turned them in to the issuing company for reimbursement.

Yesterday I was in the same neighborhood for a different reason and decided to stop at that store again since the one closet to my home is really not that close anyway. The company provided within their sale fliers a coupon for $3 to used for general merchandise purchases over a certain amount. I bought items that the Bear needed that were well over the cost mentioned on the coupon. The coupon was the only reason I bought these items there and not somewhere else like JCPenney or Sears.

This time I watched to see how this cashier worked with the coupons. Even with me watching carefully she managed to cheat me. It seems that there were a few times when the coupons didn't double automatically and if I didn't catch this immediately she would not push the keys to make them do so. Consequently, I had a 60 cent coupon that didn't become worth $1 as store policy advertises.

The real insult didn't hit me until I got home. Although I'd watched her scan the $3 coupon it didn't deduct. The reason? Nothing showed as General Merchandise. I guess everything in the store this week came under the heading of grocery items. How convenient.

Fool me once: shame on you! Fool me twice: shame on me! There will not be a third time. Some of you, my dear family, live near this store. Be forewarned.

"Higher standards," indeed.