By Alana

The prepared meals are vile. We bought 12 of them through a coupon deal, and still have six in the freezer months later. We can’t bear to eat them. If they were any good, they definitely wouldn’t be big enough to feed two people, but since they were impossibly bad, we always ended up chucking whatever we couldn’t choke down. Not worth half price with the coupon, and definitely not worth the $12.99 or $13.99 regular price.

By Liz

Called Mr. Electric to look into a melted receptacle, figure out why it melted, and replace it, and check others. Very nice fellow showed up and did a “free” inspection, but spent more time trying to sell me stuff, than focused on the issues I called about. So I spent $385 getting two receptacles replaced, and still had to call another electrician to deal with my original issues. I think their business model is to offer free inspections, so that they can get into your house to sell you stuff you may or may not need.

By Honker

In early November, 2010, I purchased two 18 month size puffer jackets from the Children’s Place for my twins to wear for the winter. In March, I noticed that there was a large void in the back of the coat; all of the stuffing was gone. Finding that strange, I examined the other puffer coat and found the same thing had happened. The care instructions for the coats state to machine wash and dry. We followed the care instructions, and yet all of the stuffing shifted within the coat, leaving my twins backs exposed to the winter for an unknown period of time prior to discovery of the problem.

I brought the coats in to the location where I had purchased them at the end of March, as soon as possible after I discovered the problem. I didn’t have the receipts with me, and I am not able to find them, but I thought that the store manager would recognize that the colours were those of the most recent season. She did recognize them, and stated that she had never seen that happen to the puffer jackets in her 6 years of working for the company. Both of the coats had the same defect, although they came from different lots since they were different colours, so this was definitely a quality issue and not a fluke. This kind of defect is unacceptable in a winter coat!

The manager said that without the receipts, the best that she could do would be to give me a refund for $5.99, the price that the coats are now being sold for! I indicated that $5.99 was not acceptable, but that I would be happy to exchange the coats. She stated that she no longer had any of the coats left and no store in Ottawa did. I was outraged at the idea of a refund in the amount of $5.99.

Although I do not have the receipt for these coats, $5.99 is an unreasonable and unacceptable refund for a defective winter coat that cost between $30 and $40. Furthermore, winter coats from a quality store like yours should not be disposable, no longer useable after less than one season of wear. I don’t think that your return and exchange policy on your website would hold in this situation. I feel that a reasonable resolution would be either a refund for the two coats for the price that they were sold for in early November 2010, or a store credit in that amount. I would happily return the coats for your examination to determine what the defects were to prevent them from recurring in next year’s coats.

So I wrote to the Children’s Place on May 1st, including essentially the same information contained above. To date, I have not had the courtesy of any kind of reply whatsoever.

Moral of the story: BEWARE of the abysmal quality and total lack of customer service at the Children’s Place.

By Steph

thanks for sharing your online shopping experience with people’s. unfortunately i too have experienced similar online return policy issues with other major stores such as future shop. recently i purchased a diamond wedding band and a diamond pendant from people’s to my surprise they do not issue appraisals for their diamonds unless its a diamond solitute ring usually intended for once in a lifetime engagements. what a crooked way of making people pay an extra $50 for an appraisal.

By Jodi Stewart

Last June my older daughters enrolled in the ILC run by TVO and funded by the Ministry of Education. They did it as a trial run, just to see if they liked the program and if it would work for our high school years. Daughter 1 enrolled in grade 9 geography, daughter 2 in grade 9 art. Each course had 4 units to be completed and submitted for marking by an ILC teacher.

Things were going well, work was submitted, corrected and sent back. All went swimmingly until daughter 2 submitted her second unit. It came back with a 72%. Decent mark, but the comments from the teacher made me pause. The teacher had scrawled notes all over Daughter’s work with references to Lesson 16. Notes, charts, diagrams, all with the message that the teacher docked marks because Daughter didn’t use the Art Criticism technique taught in Lesson 16. That makes sense right? Except that Lesson 16 is in Unit 4. The teacher was marking Unit 2.

Honest mistake I thought. But no problem, the ILC has an appeal process, we’ll just send it back with a note clarifying that Daughter hadn’t reviewed Unit 4. We submitted it, and waited. I waited two weeks, not hearing anything about the appeal process and finally emailed. No response. I then called. The receptionists and learner service operators had no answers. Finally after 3 weeks of calling, I got transferred to the manager in charge of appeals. Manager told me she’d have some answers the following day. The following day, there were no answers. A week later Manager still had no answers, someone was going to talk to the teacher.

Finally, I started tweeting about it. I made sure it went to the attention of @tvo. After 2 or 3 days of tweeting my frustration at not being able to even get someone talk to me on the phone, TVO twitter guy got something done. Manager called me. She actually took the time to explain the appeal process, guaranteed me that she would look over the work when the teacher had submitted it. Great. Finally someone had listened.

Well, that’s what I thought. Yesterday I talked to Manager. Great news, they had it all sorted out. The teacher had just made a slight error. She had meant to refer Daughter to Question 16, not Lesson 16. Ohhhh… Except Question 16 is about Ancient Mesopotamia, not Art Criticism.

It appears to me that Teacher not only made a mistake, she lied to cover it. Manager and I both had a copy of Unit 2 in front of us. Manager and I both saw that Question 16 was about Ancient Mesopotamia. Of course the ILC saw that there was a problem with the mark now, right?

Wrong. No kidding. Be flabbergasted. I am. Apparently, despite the notes about Art Criticism scrawled all over Daughter’s work, the Art Criticism technique is now not an issue for them and didn’t affect Daughter’s mark. (Huh?)

So that’s where we stand. I’m still waiting for the principal’s call that was promised to come yesterday afternoon.

By Nora

I am writing this because I am very upset regarding one of the managers in the wal-mart located at Agincourt, 3850 Sheppard Ave. East, . The incident happened yesterday. I don’t remember the managers name but she was the manger of the cosmatic department . I went to buy some clearances chirstmas items off the shelf that had a Yellow big 75% sign off the regular price item, so i found it a good deal. I filled up my cart with whatever items that was on the shelf i like , 2 other people came and asked is this really 75% off, i said well if the sign says so than i think so. i waited in line for about 40 min to pay for my items which by the way is not normal to have like 5 people in front of me and about 8 behind me,, there was 1 express line casher and the one i was waiting at . Anyways my turn came up and the casher told me these items are reg. price. i told him that why is there a big sign that says 75% off these items. He said my manger told me these items are not 75%. I insisted that there was a sign because i saw it with my own EYES. so he calls the manager i’m complaining about ,he talks to her for about 8 min and than gives me the phone, i told her that there is a sign that says on the whole shelf 75% off she said okay i am going to look at the shelf. i waited for a good 10 min and keep in mind the big line up behind me and its the only one opened. she comes to me and tells me where is the sign . I WALK TOWARDS THE SHELF AND IT WAS REMOVED. i was so upset and i pointed where the sign was. First of all she was very rude to me and giving me the worst attitude you can ever give a customer, second she was basically calling me a liar or she is making me a lunatic, third she made me feel that i was pulling a scam of her so i can get these items for 75% off. i know i was played by the manager and she was making me a liar in front of everyone in front of the main doors, I didn’t appreciate that she made me look stupid in front of other customers. also isn’t the wal-mart logo the big yellow smiley face, why doesn’t the employee learn how to use the smile and put them on their face. In wal-mart the employee treat you horrible because they don’t care if their lose customers. Doesn’t the wal-mart’s website say “Wal-mart is committed to giving Canadians the best shopping experience in the marketplace by delivering everyday low prices, exceptional customer service, top-quality merchandise, and extensive community involvement, philanthropy and corporate social responsibility.” Well i didn’t see any of that service at all.

But just to make something clear i went to a different wal-mart and bought the same items i wanted with the same discount of 75% off reg price. but when i saw them I took a picture of the shelf in case it happened to me again and another manager would removed the sign before i came to show them. Now i learned my lesson to when ever i step into walmart and see a discount shelf to take a picture of the sale item with the phone so they wont say I was lying.

I wrote an email and I want an apologyy…