Your Christmas Shopping Horror Stories!

[Disneyland Daddy]

Now that it's all overwith, what was your worst experience Christmas shopping this year? The crowds? The rude people? Finding a parking space???

Do share your Christmas Shopping Horror Stories.

Mine?:

Probably our worst thing was the first few times we went to H&M in South Coast Plaza they never had boxes - so they told me to keep a tally of my gift purchases and when boxes came in, they'd give me what I needed. So, finally, the Friday after Thanksgiving, I went to H&M to use this 25% off entire purchase coupon and when I get to the counter with my 'umpteen gifts' I ask for 10 boxes - and the said, "Um, I don't think we can give you that many." I then said, "Well, the last three times I was here, I asked for boxes, and each time they told me that 'they were on the way' and when they came I could get what I needed." So the associate said, "Well, they don't give us what we need....so you probably won't get them."

I couldn't believe the rude attitude of this person - how dare he talk to me or any other consumer like that.

Well, luckily, I got the boxes I needed, even though they were all the size box needed for a robe -but whatever.

Anyway, that was probably my Christmas Shopping Horror Story for the year....the rudeness of people.

[evil mommie]

Wow, D-land Daddy that sounds tragic. So sorry that happened to you during the most wonderful time of year. That's a total hassle.

The only horror stories I have are about nasty shoppers. Hello?! If you are going to cut me off in the middle of the Target aisle, at least smile and say Happy Holidays. It was kinda comical last week during a trip. It seemed that most of the shoppers were Bah Humbug. Just stay home, I say if you aren't going to be happy and have some holiday fun.

[Rex Dopey24]

Its like everyone is rude these days no more niceness of people.

[Disneyland Daddy]

Let me say.........when I discovered H&M this year, I was overwhelmed with it. And I'd like to say that because of the rudeness of that fellow, I still like the store, but I'm not enthralled by it any longer........I can take it or leave it, they way I feel about it. People at The Gap and other places were FAR friendlier to me.

My guess is that the person had been there since dawn - as the store had opened at 6am and I was there at 11:30am.......that can be taxing I guess, but I still don't see that as an excuse. My thought is 'you have your job, so do it and don't complain'. If it's that bad, quit.

When I was in High School, I worked in a grocery store......and I must say the week prior and Thanksgiving Morning were THE WORST - but having a bad attitude doesn't make it better.

Attitude is everything.

[knittingknerd]

I am trying to think... I did 90% of my Christmas shopping online. My online shopping though... irk. I heart amazon.com I do... But give me a break sometimes. I put these Gillete (sp?) razors (30 for $15, sweet! Those would fill my brothers stocking!) in my cart, decide to finish my gingerbread house, comeback the next morning, they're out of them. So they suggest something else. I get the Preserve razors thinking "I got the Preserve toothbrushes..." waaaaay more expensive for 3 razors. Whatever. The razors and toothbrushes never showed up. I emailed amazon and this is what I got back:
Thanks for writing to Amazon.com to bring this to our attention.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the late delivery of this
shipment. We do take full responsibility for any delays that result
from errors made during shipping.

In an effort to compensate you for this inconvenience, I've
requested a full refund of the shipping charges you paid for this
package.

This refund should go through within the next 3 to 5 business days
and you should see a credit of $5.37 on your next credit card
billing statement.

We will send you an e-mail when the refund has been completed. You
may also view completed refunds by clicking the "Your Account" link
at the top of our web site, then clicking "Go!" next to "open and
recently shipped orders." Completed returns and refunds will appear
at the bottom of the relevant order's summary page.

I'm sorry--it appears that your shipment was lost in transit.

Normally we'd create a replacement order for the item right away, to
be shipped to you as soon as possible at no additional charge.

Please kindly note that the said replacement order might arrive
after December 24, because of this I'm uncertain how you'd like us
to proceed.

We'd still be happy to arrange for a replacement to be sent to you.
If this solution won't work for you, we can simply issue a refund
for the item, along with the associated shipping costs. Please use
the link below to contact us again and indicate which option you
prefer:

Please visit the following link to provide the information we
requested:



I understand that you entrusted us to deliver this order in time for
Christmas and apologize that in this case, we've not met your
expectations.

Please note that, our fulfillment centers and carriers worked hard
to ensure packages are delivered as quickly as possible during the
holidays. Orders with estimated delivery dates of December 24 or
earlier received top priority in each of our fulfillment centers,
but sometimes problem does occur.

I do hope you will understand that occasionally a shipment may be
delayed by circumstances beyond our control.

In addition to a wide selection of items, one of our aims at
Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this
case, we have not met that standard.

I am truly sorry that we were not able to fulfill your expectations
for this level of service. I hope that you will give us another
opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you.

Again, we're very sorry for the inconvenience this inconvenience.
We value your business and hope to serve you better in the future.

With about a million links.

[MollyTrolly]

Wednesday 12/19 I went to Starbucks for some gift cards. I went to one by my work in Pasadena where the Starbucks happens to be next to a Ross and Best Buy; busy parking lot. After making my purchase, I get in my car, turn the corner of the parking aisle onto the main driveway in front of Best Buy (at this point I can't be going more than 5 MPH, I literally had just turned the corner and there were people and cars everywhere) and a lady carrying a newborn baby darts out in front of my car from behind a parked car loading stuff at BB.

I SLAM on my brakes to avoid hitting her and she immediately starts screaming at me that I need to slow down, and I mean screaming...and she will not move from in front of my car (I did mention she was holding a baby that couldn't have been more than 10 weeks old right?)

At this point I have no idea what to do, I have Christmas music on in my car, got myself a frapachino for the drive home and really don't need this anguish. So I roll down my window to ask her to move and she storms towards my open windor in a threatening manner that I could not believe. Mind you I was IN my car, but I felt really threatened, like a car jacker was coming...maybe it was because she had that little baby, so my options were limited on what to do if I needed to defend myself (and yes she made me feel like I was going to be in a position where I may need to defend myself).

Anyway, I was able to go once she got around my car toward my drivers window and I just left. I was sick the whole drive home.

I saw people like this everywhere during my shopping (I really waited till the last minute this year). I just don't understand it. People get so worked up about the lines, and are mean to each other. Its the holidays, time of good will. Normally I try to help others to ease their shopping issues (let them go in front of my if they have a small item count and I am buying the whole store, etc). But with this lady, unfortunately there was nothing I could do...

[MollyTrolly]

I emailed amazon and this is what I got back.

Amazon had a lot of issues this year because they oversold items. I bought a toy for my son and they emailed me that it would arrive around February 4th, 2008 and wanted to know if I still wanted it...

It was a stocking stuffer luckily so I am still getting it, but I was pretty mad it took them a week to discover a toy they already sold me was sold out.

[ladyalmalthea]

*so glad I did 4/5 of my shopping the first week of December...*
I usually have something odd happen, but I must have gone at all of the right times... had really good luck.
MollyTrolly, love the strand of Rudolph stuffies

[Disneyland Daddy]

I heard on KNX 1070 AM that Sears and a few other department stores screwed up their Gift Cards - and when people went to use them on December 26, they weren't able to do so! Can you imagine that!? I'd be irate, quite frankly, because the Gift Card should be usable at time of purchase - no ifs ands or buts.

I think that if those stores were advertising sales on those days, when people couldn't utilize their purchases cards, that they should honor the sale on the day when the person can use their card. OR, for those that were inconvenienced by this, they should get an automatic 25% off.

[evil mommie]

After 15 years in retail, I've learned to go with the flow on both sides of the counter. Make the customer happy, deliver the product with a smile and move on to the next guest. As a customer, I make the purchase; if I'm happy with the overall experience and service, I go back...if I'm not, the store will no longer get money, including Amazon and the likes. There are just too many other retail choices these days.

Honestly, in all my years of Black Fridays and After X-mas Sales the customer has usually been the one that needs a reality check. One year, I watched two women have a tug of war fight over a clearance handbag. They caused the dump table to collapse and it injured a little boy who was standing near by. Crazy stuff...

[SCUBAbe]

Nothing to major:

holisters: I went to buy a gift card . They had three cashiers working the very long line which was moving pretty good, but then two teenage cashiers got calls or TM's on their cell phones (which they pulled out and looked at while working) and they both took off saying they needed a few minutes leaving one guy to ring up the line. The line slowed to a snails pace.

best buy: I placed an online order to pick up in the store. I get an email saying the store I chose did not haver the item. I needed to call the customer service line to either cancel the order within one hour or ask them to look in a different store. There was no way to cancel the order or search a different store online. After trying three times and waiting on hold for 30 minutes each tome before the phone disconnected without speaking to anyone I gave up. The email said it would cancel within 8 days anyway, so I will keep on eye on my statement to make sure the charge did not go through.

I placed another order choosing a different store and picked the item up yesterday.

JC Penney: they don;t keep boxes at their registers and expect people to wait in the forever long slow moving catalog line to get boxes. Holisters gave me boxes. I was not waiting in the catalog line at jC penney. That's crazy.

I love amazon.com. I have never had issues with them. The few things I tried to order and they were out of I knew right away. I check my pending orders a lot to make sure they are progressing. I just canceled the items and purchased them elsewhere. The flash I wanted was in my cart when they sold out, but I knew it could happen since they showed they only had one in stock. No big deal. I was to slow checking out. I got the flash at best buy....see above best buy story.

Samy's Camera: I called then to price a flash. a week ago it they said $239.00. I called yesterday in the morning I was told $259.00 (ok maybe it was on sale last week.) I call again the same day to see if they can hold it and I'm told the price is now $299.00. I asked why I'm transfered to the camera dept. where they say it's $279.00. That's when I decided not to shop at samy's and get it from best buy for $269.00, but since they were slow getting my order they took $10.00 off so $259.00...not to bad, but frustrating dealing with samy's camera.

[TraceCub]

The only thing I experienced was being at Target with 20 something registers with only 4 registers open - one of which was the express limited item line.

I've never understood why they bother putting in sooooo many registers when I have never seen a fully staffed front end.

[PinBrian]

I did most of my shopping online, but my job for Best Buy has me in the store(s) during Dec. (My job with the company involves traveling and working overnights, so I usually do not interact with customers)

The worst:
Do you have any wiis? OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Most stores had signs out front stating we had none, and did not know when they were coming in. People still came and asked. Quite a few stated they "knew" we had a ton stacked in the back, and they were for employees. Ugh.

The best (of the worst) Gentleman comes up and asks "do you have that song by that guy who has a "W" in his name? It was released in the 70's." I guessed Willie Nelson. Nope. I guessed Hank Williams, Jr. Nope. The customer did not know any lyrics, the name of the song, or the genre of the song. But it was "My favorite song." I told him I would need a little more information, and he FLEW off the handle. It was hard not to laugh.

Another one:

A lady asked for "That movie made in the 60's. It does NOT have Robin Williams in it." Which pretty much describes ALL movies made in the 60's! Again, she was rather upset (and VERY vocal) that I could not decipher her clues.

[aimster]

The best (of the worst) Gentleman comes up and asks "do you have that song by that guy who has a "W" in his name? It was released in the 70's." I guessed Willie Nelson. Nope. I guessed Hank Williams, Jr. Nope. The customer did not know any lyrics, the name of the song, or the genre of the song. But it was "My favorite song." I told him I would need a little more information, and he FLEW off the handle. It was hard not to laugh.

Another one:

A lady asked for "That movie made in the 60's. It does NOT have Robin Williams in it." Which pretty much describes ALL movies made in the 60's! Again, she was rather upset (and VERY vocal) that I could not decipher her clues.

I'd be laughing too hard to help them. What a couple of morons.

[Rex Dopey24]

Let me say.........when I discovered H&M this year, I was overwhelmed with it. And I'd like to say that because of the rudeness of that fellow, I still like the store, but I'm not enthralled by it any longer........I can take it or leave it, they way I feel about it. People at The Gap and other places were FAR friendlier to me.

My guess is that the person had been there since dawn - as the store had opened at 6am and I was there at 11:30am.......that can be taxing I guess, but I still don't see that as an excuse. My thought is 'you have your job, so do it and don't complain'. If it's that bad, quit.

When I was in High School, I worked in a grocery store......and I must say the week prior and Thanksgiving Morning were THE WORST - but having a bad attitude doesn't make it better.

Attitude is everything.

you said it d daddy. . ugh the parking lot of grocery is the worst because the drivers are careless and they just want to speed up and their facial expressions are all serious and grouchy looks. and sometimes they cuss at you for no reason. Yeah job is a job lol. I try so many times for transfers but I get denied all the time.