The other day I got out all by myself with the twins and it was so exciting. I even got FREE Nivea body wash at Walmart. It was a good day.
Today, I thought I would go to Babies R’ Us to exchange 4 boxes of size 1 large box of diapers with my Mom helping. Note these are Babies R’s Us brand diapers. I got crazy about buying size 1 diapers back in January. I was thinking the twins would need them for a couple months but I was wrong. They are growing and soon will be in size 2. I thought at the time it would be easy to exchange. Life has been crazy and trying to find my receipts was more difficult then I thought. Besides it is Babies R’ Us, I spend a lot there and the sizes are the same price so I should get an even exchange right? Wrong!
The customer service rep and manager said since I didn’t have the receipt (proof of purchase NOTE: they are Babies R Us brand – Where else would I have gotten them?) they would only give me the “lowest” price and I would have to pay the difference which came out to $20! I reluctantly accepted that and headed to the car basically in tears with 4 boxes of size 3 and having paid an additional $20 for them.
After talking to my Mom, I went in and talked to the manager and she couldn’t do anything without a receipt. I was frustrated in tears. Taking care of 3 kids does that to you. So I took back the size 1 and got my $20 back.
Babies R’ Us customer service has been bad for me in the past and I know others that have said the same thing. No point in my calling a rep or emailing since last time it took over a month to get a generic answer. That is a waste of my time and energy. I would have thought Babies R’ Us would be supportive of “mothers” and have great customer service but they don’t. What has happened to customer service these days? The only store that I like when it comes to returns is CVS and Nordstrom.
I’ve made my decision I will give these as gifts or donate them and that will be that. I will use the rest of my gift cards and will no longer be a customer of Babies R’ Us. What a bummer. I have a headache.
Update on 5/17/11
After writing this post and talking to my husband about it. I realized that they were asking me to pay more for the diapers. All I was asking was a different size that was the exact same price. I wasn’t scamming them.
In addition, on their website it states “No receipt. No problem!” See the image and link above. I had all of my purchases on my Rewards R Us card. Understand that it is only for 90 days.
I printed out all of my purchases and I even found a couple of my receipts I went to the store again on Sunday and showed it to customer service The same cashier that I talked to on Friday explained that since it was past 90 days I still couldn’t exchange them but that I could talk to a manager. The manager said the same thing. I then made the arguments that I said above. The diapers are on sale for $20 (buy 2 and get $10 off) and that would be cheaper then paying more for them. Besides the receipt doesn’t say exchanges or returns have to be done in 90 days. Other stores would have exchanged them for the different sizes like CVS or Walmart etc. Then the manager agreed that I could exchange them for no additional cost. I thanked her and the cashier.
I’m sorry this was such a frustrating situation. You might want to consider though that BRU has to protect themselves from people who do intend to scam (not you obviously). Someone I know who is a manager of another type of store was telling me this week that they had just that type of person come in. This lady bought a bottle of cream that normally cost $120 but was on sale half price at $60. She brings it in later that week, hoping to avoid the manager who sold it to her and she tries to return it – with no receipt – and trying to get the full $120 for it – basically making $60 at the expense of the store! Luckily, the manager was on shift and was called to the front to deal with her. With that in mind, you might not want to be so quick to make BRU out to be the bad guy here. Just a thought.
I know what you’re saying, and it is frustrating, but you should file your receipts so that it doesn’t happen again (at any stores). A lot of stores don’t except returns or exchanges without a receipt.