Kohl's Ruined My Wife's Mother's Day

Your letter of complaint makes no sense to me what-so-ever. I won't
go into the date confusion, as it appears that several other readers
have made your mistake known.

The impression the I receive from your complaint is that you want
something for nothing.

Having a receipt when doing any type of return/exchange makes things
so much more easy to complete. By not having that, you basically have
provided the store with nothing to tell them when the items were
purchased, the amount paid, or the form of tender. This leaves you in
a situation where you must exchange the item for something identical
(with the exception of size and color) to keep the face value of your
item. If that is something you should choose not to do the next
option would be to receive store credit for the lowest selling price.
You may not think that getting the low price as a return amount is
fair, but when you fail to produce a receipt, the store has no idea
when your purchase was made. There is something wonderful that Kohl's
offers to customer's who purchase things as a gift ... it's called a
GIFT RECEIPT. By having this, the 'gift-giver' will have confidence
that should the recipient choose to return their item, that the store
will return the item for the amount that was tendered when purchased.

I don't think that you can hold any store responsible for the amount
of time you or your wife would spend trying on clothes. That appears
to be something that is totally out of their control.

You mentioned in your complaint that the manager was 'rude and
condesending [sic] ... harsh and lacked customer service skills'.
Maybe you should take a look a yourself and how you handled this
situation. By using this manager's name, you have indicated yourself
that you fit into these same exact characteristics. What you did is
considered as libel. Libel as defined in Black's Law Dictionary is 'A
method of defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, or signs.
In it's most general sense, any publication that is injurious to the
reputation of another. A false and unprivileged publication in
writing of defamatory material. A maliciously written or printed
publication which tends to blacken a person's reputation or to expose
him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule or to injure him in his
business or profession.' It's nice that you seek the comfort in
remaining anonymous while attacking someone who does not have the
ability to defend themselves.

In the end, your wife's happiness is most important. If giving her a
$250 gift card to Target makes her happy, then you should give her
daughter shopping advice. Let her know that her mother would be happy
receiving $250 worth of disposable items from Target.

This is why it's so important to keep receipts...! This whole thing
could have been avoided.

Agreeing with you though, you should have sought out the customer
service associate who said she would give you an in-store credit and
made her process the transaction. It was very rude of them to say one
thing and then do the complete opposite.

I hope you called the corporate office and complained about the
incident.

My mother would have kept ANY gift I'd given to her. A lot of your
letter doesn't add up. Firstly, why didn't your wife just get the
right size and color instead of try things on? Hmmmmm.

I bought three of the Croft & Barrow short-sleeved shirts as Mother's
Day gifts. They were regularly-priced $18.00 and on sale for 50%
off.

I do not know if the letter writer's wife was given the exact same
shirt, but all of the Croft & Barrow shirts were on sale.

From the way your letter reads, Teri told you they could be exchanged
for the exact same shirts (except in a different color) but not other
shirts (different brands or styles, maybe?).

For that reason, I wonder if your wife chose the exact same shirts as
an exchange and that's what caused the problem. Your letter is a bit
vague on that subject.

If indeed the manager was as you claim, that was wrong and should be
addressed. The Early Bird special at Kohl's was held the day before
Mother's Day and I can only imagine was expected to provide Mother's
Day gift ideas. To imply that the shirts were cheap gifts when that
was obviously the intent of the store in the first place is a bit on
the lame side.

"My wife's Mother's Day was ruined today (May 14th, 2006)...The next
day to comfort my wife I gave her a $250 gift card to Target." But yet
you're writing this letter on Mother's day? Sounds both melodramatic
and dishonest.

Hmmm, sounds like this is also a case of the merchandise not being
carried. I'm not sure I understand where the amount of sixteen-dollar
shirts came from. If the shirts are not in the store, and you have no
receipt, how do you know the price?

JR, you owe Kohls an apology.

I won't re-iterate the excellent points raised by other posters, but I
do have a question.

It was your wife, not yourself, who deal with the store when she
attempted the return. Why are we hearing this as a 3rd party account
from you and not from herself?

And just how do you know the managers full name? Usually people who
deal with the public do not give their last names out. I know that I
never did.

This sounds like a personal vendetta to me.

Yet another letter for the files of "Letterwriters Using A Person's
Full Name In Their Complaint."

I stopped reading at the first line. If you don't have enough class to
leave someone's name and place of work off a publicly viewed letter, I
honestly don't care what your complaint is. You probably deserved it.

Respect is a two-way street, chief.

1) Please, please, please, have some sense of personal security.
Would you like it if someone saw fit to put your full name and a
location where you could be found on the internet? Probably not, and
yet you seem to think it is ok to put this manager's personal info
online. That is just not safe, and should never happen. There is a
place where you can edit your letter, after it is sent to the company
but before it is posted online, for just such information.

2)They told you you could exchange the shirts for the exact same
shirt, but then your wife "spent a long time trying on some other
shirts and then took them up to the return desk?" How long could it
take to find the exact same shirt and then get the right size/color?
It sounds like you were trying to get a different style shirt, and
that is why you were told no.

3)If I had given my mother even the ugliest shirt for Mother's Day,
she would have worn it. In fact, she has done just that. Never mind
exchanging it for a different color, her child gave it to her, and
that made it special. If your wife didn't like the shirts her
daughter gave her, why would it make her cry when someone else
allegedly called them a "cheap idea of a Mother's Day gift?" She
obviously had a pretty low opinion of them herself to return them.
Not that I believe for one second that anyone working for Kohl's made
that comment.

4)If what someone at the store says to you can ruin your Mother's Day,
you need to work on thickening your skin. Seriously, just go home and
get over it. All this melodrama just makes you look silly. If the
manager was rude, just say so, don't make up little dramatic
monologues and attribute them to her. If you are unsatisfied with
Kohl's return policy, say so, don't just whinge about how your
Mother's Day was "ruined."

Bottom line, the return policy was explained to you, you didn't like
it, and decided to write this letter in hopes of having the rules bent
just for you. Good luck with that.

The way I'm reading this is that you started out wanting to exchange
the three shirts for different colors but because you didn't have a
receipt you were told that you need to exchange them for the exact
same items. Then you go on to say "that was fine and we would be
happy with a gift card" - - nothing was said about a gift card - - you
were told you could only exchange them for the exact same item. Then
you and you wife proceed to "try on some other shirts" which means
that you were trying to exchange the three given as a gift for
different shirts (another style) which was not what you were told to
do by customer service - - you were not told you could exchange the
shirts for any store merchandise - - you were told they had to be
exchanged for the exact same item.

I'm sorry but I honestly don't believe that anyone implied that "the
shirts were someone's cheap idea of a Mother's Day gift".

This is not a matter of bad customer service - - you were told what
they were willing to do without a receipt and you tried to do
something different and were told "no".

I agree that it is ot right to use the manager's actual name, but I
also think that you have a point; there is no reason why a credit
could not be issued. I'm unfamiliar with Kohl's polocies but I think
if the tags were still on the shirt, a credit could have been issued.
I also think it's highly likely that the manager was rude. It
happens.

Yes - - there was a reason why they couldn't get a credit issued for
the full tagged value of the items.

It doesn't matter if the tags were still on the shirts - - these
people did not have the receipt and the shirts were ringing up at a
price less than what was on the tags. Kohl's policy (which is the
same as most retailers these days) is that if you don't have the
receipt you get the price that the item is ringing up on the day you
want to make the exchange. Kohl's was willing to work with these
people and instead of accepting their offer of an even exchange in
different colors, which was their original demand, they wanted the
full tag price applied to a different style which was not what they
were promised.

As far as the manager being rude is concerned - - none of us were
there so we really don't know, but many times rude is defined by
consumers as not getting their way.

Glad I have someone in my ballpark!

Unless I'm misreading this letter (which is possible since I'm whacked
out on cold meds), the writer says, "since they rang up at a lower
price so they needed to be the exact shirts". Teri never said or
promised that the shirts could be exchanged for any store merchandise.
Without a receipt, the shirts could only be exchanged for different
colors of the exact same shirts. I happen to know from personal
experience that the information is correct, and it's also fair.
If you have no proof of what you paid for the shirts, why should they
give you a credit for the full amount when at some point they were
sold at a reduced price?

I do believe your wife could not find the exact shirts in colors she
liked and was annoyed that she was not given a full credit to purchase
anything she wanted. I don't think any of the employees misspoke at
anytime. They were simply abiding by Kohl's return policy.

I would also like to add that if my daughter gave me three shirts that
she picked out herself, I would never even think of returning them,
which is probably why you didn't ask her for the receipt.

HOW are shirts a cheap present??? what is the girls idea of a good
present.. a new car?????

If I take this posting at face value, I agree with the poster and I
find the store manager's behavior to be egregious and unprofessional.
I just feel like something's missing, because two out of three
employees refused to make an exchange.

I think the store manager should have been more flexible about
accepting the shirts for an exchange, given that the tags were still
on the shirts.

I'm not a fan of melodrama ("My wife's Mother's Day was ruined"), and
it would have helped to have been told exactly what the manager said,
("she implied that the shirts were someone's cheap idea of a Mother's
Day gift").

This part was weird: "The next day to comfort my wife I gave her a
$250 gift card to Target." But the next day is tomorrow, Monday, May
15. This posting was written today, May 14, and it mentions that they
visited the store today.