By Cynthia

I have called Sears at the Promenade Mall complaining for the last 2-months that my rug smells . I was told by an employee that her manager said it is the glue that has dried up. When I lifted the corner of the rug up there was all this white stuff (like sand) on the floor.

I have kept calling the manager to call me back and of course no call back. I have left another message yesturday that if he does not call me I will take appropriate action, and I gave him till the middle of next week to call me . This odor is not healthy.

By tmlskk01

I had bought a lamp back in september from my local walmart it was a cheap lamp ( standing, three bulbs with plastic covers) last night I came into my room and all could smell was burning plastic I discovered that one of the covers had come loose and fell onto the bulb and was melting. I called walmart and asked to speak to a manager and explained the situationm I told him that I did not have a receipt but I would like an exchange since the lamp was faulty and could have burned down my home. the manager pretty much laughed and called me a scammer saying I could have gotten the lamp at a thrift store for all he knew and that he would do nothing for me. understand that theres nothing he could do but to make me feel bad for something I didnt even do is unacceptable and he didnt even say he was sorry or anything. I am so fed up with walmart.

By Joe K

I went into the Peterborough xs cargo and was asking about usb chargers for my cell phone. Simon who is one of their Employee’s plugged my phone into one of the universal chargers and fried my Phone. I called the store manager and he did nothing and hung up on me. I then e mailed head office who said they aren’t doing anything. I then contacted the better business bureau and when they tried to contact xs cargo they would not respond.

So now I have no cell phone and they do nothing. I have not shopped there since.

By Prim

I have been a customer at the Bloor and Young Shoppers Drug Store for many years. What I have experienced is the worst customer service ever. To day; Janurary 29 .2011. I went in the Drug Store to purchase 2 hand liquid soap. I approched the counter upon doing so I observed the staff a dirty blond lady talking to three men, they look like venders they were not customers.

She looked at me and ignored me, I then beckened to her I would like some service; she came, But clearly was not happy with me. She proceeded to cash my purchase during which she said” This counters is for cosmetic customers” I said to her there is no sign saying where customers should or should’t cash out. I said to her what am I. This was clearly a woman who has no idea what good customer service is. I was upset and ask to speak with the manager. After relating what bad service I was given; the manager said that was not what she said….I told him I am not surprised what she related was different , that’s what people like her do. The manager tried to apology which I felt was not sincere and said he will be looking at the tape . I said you do that and you’ll see I was alone at the counter. What he was saying if their were customers who were buying cosmetics then she the rude staff was in the right. Nasty and rude people should not be allowed to service the public.

By Lanny

I got my flyer from Real Canadian Superstore on Thursday January 27 for a sale starting Friday January 28. The 2 items that I wanted to purchase on sale were bulk cheese for 8.49 and frozen pizza for 4.97. Either my wife or I have been in there all 3 days since the sale started and have yet to see the cheese (empty shelves with little signs saying restock me) and the pizza choices are limited to 2 or 3 kinds as opposed to the 15 different varieties shown. When asked what is going on with these items, we have been given more excuses than a 6th grader who did not do his homework. Everything from sold out(that was day 1,2,and 3 of the sale)the stock is in the back and will be restocking shelves in the evening(this is at 10:30am Saturday) and the ever present standby excuse the trucks are late. I am a long haul trucker for a major company here in Canada. To satisfy my curiosity I called my dispatcher to ask how the highways are both east and west of Manitoba. All trucks with our company are on time and there are no delays. We are talking about upwards of 500 trucks. This leads me to believe that Superstore will not be putting have these items on the shelf while the price remains this low. They refuse to give out rain checks and will not substitute another item even though there are comparable sized (but higher priced) cheeses and pizzas now occupying the spot where these deep discounted items should be. This is not the first time I have encountered this problem with R.C.S.S. and I would go so far as to say it is being done on purpose. Get the people in the store with unbelievable low prices on one or two items, never have them in stock for the period of the sale and know that once we are in the store and have a cart half full of items we are going to follow through with our purchases. I know this letter is going to have zero effect because by the time anyone acts on it the sale will have come and gone with superstore pulling the same stunt just with different items and again the simple excuse of the trucks being late cannot be proved wrong. However any other grocery store that I shop at will have the decency to put their flyer on the front door with said items circled and explain that they are not available. Rain checks available at customer service. Superstore will not do this, they wait for you to find out for yourself, usually when you are half way through your shopping trip and too late to go any where else, so you purchase the higher priced item, grumble about it and then forget about it.

By Graeme

I reserved a vehicle through Hertz.com for a recent trip to Liberia - Costa Rica, the car was picked up December 5 and returned on December 12. The reservation was for a sub-compact at a weekly rate of $105.97 (that included license charge and service charge). I decided to rent from Hertz as the price was cheaper than the other companies and I figured it was a large well known company.

Issue #1 : Rental Cost : When I went to pick up the vehicle, I was informed that the cost of the rental was $132 / week, plus $13.93 license and $27.93 service charge (a total of $173.86 vs the reservation rate of $105.97). In addition, I was told that the car I had reserved was in San Jose (and not available) and it would cost and additional $5 / day for a vehicle that they had available (now a total of $208.86 vs the reservation rate of $105.97). I have never been to a rental agency where they didn’t honour the reservation rate, and if the vehicle class was not available it would be a free upgrade to the one that was available. When I expressed my concerns with the price I was told if I wanted the car that was the price, otherwise I would have to get a car from somewhere else (take it or leave it). Keep in mind that this is the first day of a week long vacation, and there was a tight schedule to make a wedding at the Tabacon Resort (3 hrs away). I didn’t have the luxury of spending time trying to find another rental car, nor should I have had to.

Issue #2 : Insurance : I had existing rental car coverage for CDW (Mastercard) and Third Party (Monnex), and had paperwork for both. At first Hertz representative wouldn’t except either and insisted I needed to pay both (I was told that neither were opt-outable), finally after a phone conversation with my credit card company the Hertz rep conceded that yes I could opt out of the CDW (which I did), but I could still not opt out of the third party and that it didn’t matter if I had insurance. In doing research when I got home I confirmed that yes you can opt out of it in Costa Rica if you have documentation from your insurance company (which I had). The Third Party Insurance cost an additional $84.

Issue #3: Currency Exchange : The reservation was made in US$, the paperwork at the agency in Costa Rica was in US$, but it was then converted to Colones at an unfavourable exchange rate for final payment (which was never mentioned until I returned the vehicle), an additional 6.4% cost ($20).

When I rent a car, the expectation is that the reservation is honoured, I understand there can additional local fees (like the extra I paid for a road safety kit) or taxes. I feel that in this situation I was taken advantage of because I was on vacation and didn’t have the ability to source another rental car company and it was a “take it or leave it” attitude from the Hertz Representative. At best this is dishonest, I think it borders on criminal (fraud).

Hindsight is 20/20 and now that I’ve had the problem with Hertz I did some searching and found no shortage of similar complaints.

I will NEVER rent from Hertz again.

By ManicMedic

Good day,

I would like to make you aware of a situation that is occurring in the Town of Whitby, for which I have exhausted all other avenues in an attempt to resolve the issue. If I cannot obtain your support on the issue, I would at least like to bring this to your attention as the entire situation has been seen as quite disconcerting to some. I am simply attempting to make you aware, and possibly request your support with this matter.

I have been employed as a Medical Technician in the Canadian Forces Reserves since 2002. That entails training once a week on Thursday nights and some weekends for exercises or refresher first aid courses etc.

I began working with Running Room in June 2010 as Store Manager. They were aware of my commitment to the CF.

Recently I had some issues with attendance at CF training due to commitments at Running Room. Because of those, I was given a conditional offer of remaining with the CF as long as I attending mandatory refresher training on February 4-6 (Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday).

I brought this forward to my area manager at Running Room. My regular day off is Friday and I was required to work on Saturday. I was not looking to work less than 40 hours that week, I was simply asking to move the Saturday shift to Friday to accommodate training that would determine my continued involvement in the CF.

My request was turned down by the area manager. I wrote an email to John Stanton as his email address is available on www.runningroom.com. I stated my disappoint with the resistance I faced from a company that supposedly ’supports our troops’. I suggested I may go to my CF superiors and advise them that Running Room is not supportive in that it is not accommodating of mandatory training.

I received an email yesterday from Running Room head office saying they were going to terminate my employment partly because of this, but in large part due to performance issues. I would like to make you aware that I had yet to receive a second or third written or verbal warning regarding performance issues. And the issues were not mine, they were sales which are low all across the company. Anyway, I suppose they took the current situation as an opportunity to let me go based on that.

I’ve now also been informed that it’s for the best if I don’t even go into the Running Room in my own town, even if I attend sessions with my family . My question is…..Can they legally do this? I’ve given them no grounds to ban me….I mean I haven’t threatened anything. I’m not a criminal. And if I go in and don’t do anything, are they legally allowed to throw me out? All I’m asking for is to go back to the way things were before I got the job. Running Room was a big part of that, how I relieved stress. Again, I’m not a criminal, I just want to attend session and clinics with my family. They have given me no other reason for this except that I voiced my concern over not being granted time off for military training.

Thank you for your support and I welcome your comments and advice!

By Ian

Went to Crappytire for a safety and asked them to check my headlights that had no low beams……they just took the bulbs out said they werent a body shop and said come back when they’re fixed to finish the safety. Funny they didnt TELL me i had no lights on my car at all cause there mechanics are incompetint so I would caution anyone going to CRAPPYtire for anything

By Ashley

I just dealt with MBNA mastercard and had excellent customer service when I called their 1-888 number.

The young gentleman I spoke to was very helpful with my issue (I forgot my stupid secure code for online purchases since I mainly use paypal) and he was able to quickly walk me through it.

I also asked him a question which I thought was genuinely silly but thought, hey if you don’t ask it, how will you know the answer.

I asked him if I could switch my sony mastercard for a Shoppers Optimum mastercard instead because I would get far more use out of it.

Now due to my somewhat inferior credit score due to an illness and some late payments I was unable to qualify for the optimum mastercard when I applied for it last year so I thought all hope was lost in ever getting to rack up my points even further!

BUT to my amazement I was informed that I was allowed to switch my existing card over!! What a glorious day!! Just when I was about to consent to the change over the phone he paused and said “Just wait one minute. You have enough sony points for $40 worth of merchandise, so why don’t you spend those points on the sony website and then switch your card after so that you do not loose out on those points.”

REALLY!? Someone from a credit card company was actually giving me advice on making money from my account?!

While their interest rate can be quite high, their customer service was indeed excellent today. That card got me through some rough patches and I was able to pay it off. Now I will be able to pay it off in full every month so I will not accrue interest AND I will be able to optimize my optimum points as well!

Thank you MBNA!

By Ana

I work in a remote school with very poor resources as a teacher and I decided that I would supplement the lending library as the selection was sparse. I called a Coles store to get some pricing (internet here can be unreliable) and was told by the customer service clerk that she did not have time just then, but could she get my name and number to call me back. I had told her that I needed ordering information on a list of almost 80 titles so I did not expect a long distance call back. True to her word, though, she called at the exact time she said she would and asked if I would be comfortable sending her an emailed list rather than doing the whole thing over the phone. I got her email address and sent her the list without any real hope of getting the information. I also included a note stating that I would be in the area of the store two weeks from then and would like to purchase as many as possible then.

Three days later I got an email back from her with pricing for both used and new copies, in-store and online options, various different versions of some of the same books, prices both before and after discount (turns out she could save me a bundle by selling me a loyalty card too) and worked out the cheapest price possible through a combination of sources. She asked that I respond quickly as she would have to drive to 2 other stores to pick some of the books up and since it was her day off she wanted to do it then. I responded immediately giving her a green light to do what she thought was best. I trusted her to do this for me, and was pleasantly surprised.

Four days passed and she called me to tell me that she was able to get all but 3 books, but each were available to order online and that with my new loyalty card there was also a coupon I could use. The only catch was that I had to wait and order them when I got there as ahe could not take my credit card number over the phone, which I suggested. She told me it was for security as she would have to keep the card number in the store in case something went wrong and to verify it when I came to get the books. She did however suggest that I order the books myself and gave me the order numbers to place the order and walked me through the ordering process on the phone when I agreed to try it. The books I ordered arrived 4 days later. Miraculous considering I live really remote in northern Ontario.

When I went in to the store, she greeted me with a smile, showed me my books (she had found some in their bargain section and saved me even more money), sold me a loyalty card and sent me on my way with my stack of books in free Indigo shopping bags. I can not rave enough.

I have heard mixed reviews from friends about Chapters, Coles and Indigo, and had skepticism about quality customer service, but this experience made a world of difference to me. Sure, things can always go wrong, but sometimes they go very right.

By M&M

I truly feel the Walton family should have a team of people or person go under cover and monitor how store managers not assistants but store managers and HR people treat their staff they have a possy only because thay are scared for their jobs too they( meaning their possy) get sucked in too, when evaluating other team members, I feel I must of been a real threat to the backroom manager and the HR so called people manager (joke) as they had no reason for letting me go, their answer it’s sll to do with the numbers,because when you see the likes of some they kept on well I guess HR and store managers don’t liked well groomed staff and intelligent ones that inferiates them to no end. All I wanted to do was work there not become a manager or assistant just work there. Another thing that really got their goat was I was very very well liked by other store managers and assistant mgrs, from other stores as well as my collegues that just burned rubber on their end, I must of posed a real threat, because while the coward HR lady was handing out pink slips in her right hand ahe was conducting interviews with her left hand Ha! alot of the people that worked there from head-office affilates to workers were shocked, dumb founded, and allm said to me at different times durning throughout the week it’s wal-marts loss we would hire you in a heart beat, as a matter of fct one mgr. that left our store has offered me work at their store 3 days after I left my store, amazing how things work out and how seriously these simple minded,( these so called ) HR staff and store mgrs.are still there well my dear lets call her “R” and darling miss happy (this person never ever smiles we’ll call her “L” and the store mgr.. we”ll call him”K” honestly you are two faced and I don’t know how (A) you can seriously raise your children properly and (B) HOW DO YOU ALL SLEEP AT NIGHT, KARMA IS COMING ,and when it does I’ll be there for you or should I say clapping for you as someone has caught a brain and sniffed you blood suckers out after all your only there for the $$$ and not the Walton family see ya around you bunch of losers like many have said it’s YOUR LOSS sorry I held such a huge threat over you all, and to the store mgr. maybe you should read before you sign the next pink slip actually allow your own brain to process things for themselves and really make a mature, adult decision all on your own you can do it, yes you can.The next time you all three of you use the cheer “FIRED UP AND READY TO GO” it will be you three leaving, enjoy the free gravy train while it last LOSERS! now I feel real good, because I like who I’am and am quite confident on where I’m going in life and I do sleep very well at night and have raised my children to be “What oh ya use people with dignity and respect” another term these three stooges don’t know the meaning of! M&M

By Liz

Costco has a real no worries return policy.

We bought a LG home theatre system and after a couple of weeks decided we didn’t like the high pitched whiney noise it sometimes made. So took it back and instant refund, no questions asked.

My husband bought some snow boots and the zipper broke after he’d been wearing them for a few weeks. We still had the receipt but not the box, and returned them for full price.

The cashier said that we could have returned them without the receipt, but would have received the clearance price.

I don’t worry buying things at Costco as it seems very easy to return them if you have problems.

By LisaIrish

What a shame… I was such an advocate of shopping online but now? Well now I have the “horror” story to tell. I bought two pairs of boots of Sheepskin and things online, splashing out because I’ve been wearing mukluks for years and they are worth the investment. I spent 400 dollars plus 64.99 shipping.

The boots arrived, I’d ordered a 9 based on the measurements provided on sheepskin and things website. Anyway they were massive on me, like four sizes too big. Really crazy. So I called the company. They said “Sure just pop em back to us and we’ll send new ones out” - thats the usual attitude of american and uk companies which I normally deal with so I thought nothing of it and did so.

Then they emailed me telling me that they had attempted to charge my card with 120 dollars but it had been declined. I was so shocked that this was being done without my permission and said they had no right and what on earth was it for. They said “restocking fee” and shipping. I said shipping is okay but no way was I paying a restocking fee. They didn’t reply and after a couple of months with me emailing a couple of times a week eventually I had to get help.

The BBB in canada got on to them for me and then I got an email saying “We are waiting for your payment” so I of course replied saying I wanted a full refund now. They ignored me again for weeks. Eventually out of the blue, and obviously after the BBB tried again, I suddenly got a refund notice. The refund notice said refund 481CAD but the actual refund I received was only 356CAD. So they have taken the restocking fee anyway of 120 dollars.

So basically it cost me 120 dollars for nothing. Online shopping is never like this, even on ebay. No quibble is usually the way business is done now, but this company hold you to ransom - ie you send the boots back and they want more money whichever route you take.

The customer service is APPALLING, they don’t sign off and say things like “we’re not open 24 hours a day so you can wait” etc. Just acting like assholes, not like a business at all. I get the impression this is a half assed operation from someones dorm room or something. You are not guaranteed to either get what you ordered OR to even get money back. I wish I’d never come across this company. They are criminals.

I am still trying to get my refund, the latest they are saying they will report me to the authorities for harrassment. Harrassment? Yeah trying to get my money back from a gang of thieves. Nasty nasty thieves.

DO NOT BUY FROM THEM. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. NOT A REAL BUSINESS. SOME SORT OF STUDENT RACKET.

By macej

Reliance Home Comfort has terrible customer service on servicing a water heater that we rent from Reliance. First their appointment windows are 4 hour slots on weekdays, 5 hour slots on weekends. So, I made an appointment on a weekday and used a vacation day at work to take the day off. Technician didn’t show up!!!! Called Reliance to discuss and all they did was say “sorry”. Rescheduled appointment for a Saturday 5 hour time slot (8 am-1 pm) because I wasn’t willing to use another vacation day. Guess what? Technician NEVER SHOWED UP AGAIN and NO CALLS to explain. I called Reliance and was livid. They offered me a 5 hour slot on Sunday the next day?!?!? I was disgusted, why would I give up a whole weekend to wait around my house for someone who may not show up nor call. I asked the rep if she would give up her days off for no shows…she didn’t have much response for that. Customer rep actually had the nerve to tell me they were very busy because many customers have no hot water at all. I told her you have to question the quality of their equipment if they are swamped with non-working heaters (I think people just tell them that to get higher priority service). Told her I only have hot water because I restart my heater 2-3 times daily and “hope” the burner ignites. Again, all the rep could say was “sorry”. They couldn’t care less if they waste your time.

By hauck

I just tried to return a 100 pk of defective blank dvds back to Zellers because they were poor quality. today is one day past the return policy stated time limit and they would do nothing, not even an exchange for like product It only goes to show the junk they sell can’t even be returned to the supplier. When I asked to speak to the manager of the department, he too would not help me. the people at the customer service counter appeared to be smirking about my strife with the manager and I indicated to them that,”It’s not funny”

I am so done with this store and the sub-standard crap they sell. I’m not sorry to see them go. Sadly it the situation for the consumer will probably not change much and they will still continue to sell us inferior merchandise. It seem that with so many part-time staff in these big box stores have no sense of caring for the customer. I will be looking for smaller stores to shop in, where customer service is more than just words. People, check things over real good after you buy. Don’t just put it away for later use as I did. Had I been at the store one earlier I might have been helped.

Not only did Zellers lose me as a customer today, but they also lost me entire family but I guess now that Target is buying them their long time customers do not matter any more. Bye Bye Zellers, we won’t miss you!