I have no right to tell you that your opinion is either right OR wrong...I will agree with you that in my personal experiences, Target is definately NOT the leader in good 'ole Customer Service.

I recently had an electronic item stolen from my car that I had just purchased for my Grandmother as a gift and it did not work (this kind of made me giggle at the expense of the thief!). I was actually on my way to return it...I went to my Grandmothers' nursing home and picked it up, placed the item in my car, stopped at my house to GET THE RECEIPT (Lord knows we don't want to misplace THAT) and while I was in my house the car was broken into. I mean, this thing wasn't in my back seat for 10 minutes, in my DRIVEWAY, and *POOF* it's gone.

So, whaddya do...I called the police, of course, and filed a report. While he's writing all this down, I called my Grandmother to tell her I would be a little longer than expected (she was waiting for me to exchange it and bring her a new one that worked) and told her what had happened. She said "well honey, there was a receipt in the box, I made sure it was in there before you picked it up!"

WELLLL GREAT...NOW the thief has MY $50 set of non-working Philips Cordless Headphones that don't work AND my name and credit card number! Maybe HIS grandma can watch TV in HER nursing home without disturbing her room-mate!

Well, now this just makes me angry. The policeman told me to go to Target, explain the situation to them and let them know that a police report was filed and the item was now considered stolen property, so that if anyone brings it in for a return and produces MY receipt, they may cooperate & call the police to catch this guy since my incident was only one of 18 (EIGHTEEN!) in the last 2 weeks in my immediate neighborhood and they really wanted to catch this person.

Being brand-new to our town, I'm pretty sure it would build a good PR tactic for them to help me AND the police out on this issue, thus gaining alot of confidence from the community.

After explaining all this to a girl of about 18 with multi-colored hair and black fingernail polish, who replied by blowing bubbles with her very obvious watermelon-flavored gum and without doubt wanting to be somewhere else, she referred me to her "manager".

Believe me, it doesn't get any better!

So, again, I calmly explain my situation and relayed the officers' suggestion that they watch for MY receipt and if nothing else, (I mean, your name and last 4 numbers of the debit/credit card are printed on the receipt, how hard can this be?!) DELAY the transaction while notifying the police of his/her presence. That's it. The police would then show up and question the person. Target personnel wouldn't have to do any more than this. Easy, no?

NO. She tells me that this would be against their "policy", to "question" a "guest" about a valid return-with-receipt.

**OKAY** let's pick THAT apart:
"policy" - what about customer service to the actual PAYING "guest"...
"question" - they didn't have to question anything...all they had to do was play dumb (HA!) for a few minutes, pick up the phone and call 911 and "delay" the transaction (come on, don't we ALL usually have to wait 5-15 minutes for "approval" or something like that?!) until the police arrived and took over (small town, wouldn't have taken 5-6 minutes)
"guest" - since WHEN is a thief, producing stolen-property AND someone else's receipt, a "GUEST"?

After reassuring her that I wasn't asking her to break any "company policies", which, excuse me, but isn't RUDE BEHAVIOR on their list of stuff to NOT do? I'm pretty sure that an 18-year old with a bad attitude, rolling her eyes and smacking her foul-smelling gum in my face telling me to have a nice day is not anyone's idea of Customer Service. I would call that RUDENESS.

Anyway, so I talk to this woman for a good 20-30 minutes (would you believe I kept my cool?) and FINALLY talked her into at LEAST writing down my information "just in case" someone came in with my receipt. OK, I didn't expect much but if nothing else, the gesture made me feel a LITTLE better.

Well, ya know those big round bubble mirrors they put on the ceiling to catch thieves (goodness, gracious can you believe they don't want people stealing from THEM?)...well, they catch alot more than thieves...

On my way out the door, I saw her throw that piece of paper in the trash.

And THIS, I wonder, would be in their policy book on how to treat a guest?

Needless to say, I will never step foot into another Target store in my lifetime.

Kimberly Hood
Weatherford, Texas