By Sela

I bought a treadmill a week ago. On the first hour of use I noticed that the running belt keep coming of center and the equipment makes to much noise. I tried to contact TEMPO the manufacturer. Initially there was a recording saying we are experiencing high volume calls please call us again in the next business days.

I tried again and again when I finally was waiting for the a representative. After waiting for 45 minutes my call was disconnected.In the next day after the purchase I went back to the Canadian Tire that I bought the equipment from. For my surprise the manager said that they wouldn’t do a refund!!!

They said that a RA (return authorization) was needed from the manufacturer and that would take fewdays. Now after many calls they are saying that I should deal this the manufacturer. No return for this item!!!

By Tina

Recently there was a posting on Smart Canucks regarding using the Buy2/Save $5 coupons for the $1.44 Secret or Old Spice anti-perspirant to get them for free. I wanted to warn anyone planning on redeeming their coupons at Rexall that they will not be accepted if they are more than the value of the product. I found this out the hard way at the Barrie location.

I brought 7 items to the register so the total was $11.38, but she would not accept my 2 coupons as she would be “giving me money”. I pointed out that I would be giving her money as the total was over $10 and that Rexall would be re-imbursed the $10, but to no avail. I asked if she could adjust the coupon value to $2.88 instead of $5 so there would be no price difference but she said she couldn’t.  She then stated that taking the coupons for more than the price of the product would be “theft”. When I told her I took offence at being called a thief just because I am trying to use a coupon she said “Oh, not you, Rexall would have an internal investigation, so I would be in trouble”. She offered to help me choose Secret products that were not on sale so that I could use the coupons, which was very nice of her, but by then I had had enough Rexall for one day.

P.S. I redeemed both coupons the next day at Zehr’s. Secret $2.49 X 4 =$9.96-$10 coupon = -.04. I hope Zehr’s does not launch an internal investigation over those 4 cents.

By Suebee

SOLUTIONS: YOUR ORGANIZED LIVING STORE

Their mission is to create a positive, organized and inspiring place to shop & work. While making an exchange, at the new Newmarket location, on Sept 14th, the sales associate handed me a pen to fill out the required paperwork. I removed my yellow leather wallet from of my purse to pay the difference and noticed that my fingers were covered in blue ink. Imagine how alarmed I was to notice that I had gotten ink on my wallet. My wallet was less than three months old.

Their first solution: discount my $24.00 purchase. This does not equal the amount I need to spend to replace my wallet.

Their second solution: a $50.00 in store gift certificate. There is nothing in the store that I needed or wanted. All I wanted was my wallet replaced!

Their third solution: After a week they decided to have the wallet professionally cleaned.

Their fourth and final solution (after two weeks): The wallet could not be cleaned. I was to be given the purchase price of the wallet. My predicament was this — I purchased the wallet in June while visiting an outlet shopping mall in Atlanta, GA. I was able to prove this by providing the original receipt. I paid $29.99 plus tax (USD). To replace the wallet locally, it will cost me $65.00 plus tax for a total of $73.45. The difference is $39.63. So, unless I add another $39.63, I cannot replace my wallet.

Their response to me: They can’t believe I am making such a fuss over an old wallet. It is not their fault that the pen leaked. We are being more than fair by giving you what you paid. My response to them: My wallet is not old. It was your pen. Your sales associate handed me the leaky pen. All I want is my wallet replaced. I am very angry and feel that I have been treated unfairly. I do not feel that Solutions is honoring their mission statement. Many phone calls were made, including to the owner of the company. You would think that when a customer takes his or her dissatisfaction this far, regardless how small, that the owner would surely take this matter seriously. Boy was I disappointed! He was told that I was not happy with this settlement and that the story would be made public. His answer was “Go ahead. I don’t care!”  So, here I am letting you know.

Does this sound like a positive and inspiring place to shop?

By Sheena Smith

I had my battery replaced in my car last night which took 3 hours. I was told that it usually takes around 20-30 mins to change a battery. I had a bar that they had to take off to replace the battery which I was charged extra for and it was only a matter of unbolting it. It took 1 1/2 hours to have the battery checked and then another 1 1/2 hours to put a battery in. This was my first visit to a Canadian tire auto centre and it will certainly be my last. One comment made by a customer service person was that the mechanic did not like to do that particular job and no one would tell him to do it. Great job having staff like that.

By Jenn

Virgin Mobile charged me twice in a month for phone service.  The first time I tried to call their customer service line to get it rectified, I was on hold for over 30 minutes.  I had to hang up.  I’ve since tried calling again and I get the automated message they are very busy and are having long wait times.  I sent an email and got an response 1 month later telling me the best way to reach them is by calling….How on earth am I going to cancel my phone when I can’t even get a hold of them?

By Pokey

My husband and I went to Canadian Tire to return some sandwich makers that you use on the fire.  We used them one time and they melted.  We do have another one that we bought years ago that was just fine.  So we took them back to get our money back as it was obvious that they were defective.  We went to the Customer Service desk and we were given a slip of paper and told to go to the department manager.  We went to the department and the department manager looked at them then and she went to speak to another associate.  She spoke with another associate and he would not come to talk to us but told the “department manager” that they have never been returned before therefore they would not refund us.  My husband asked to speak with another manager.  Another manager came and asked us if we had a reciept and we said no.  He then asked us how we paid and we had paid cash.  He told us that they cannot track cash payments and that they would not take them back.  My husband asked to s
peak with the Store Manager.  The Store Manager came and was totally igmorant yelling at my husband and telling him.  Telling him that if we did not have a reciept he did not know when we bought the item and that we would not be getting a refund on the items.  Needless to say that we are not going to be ever going to Canadian Tire again…..

By Terry

I bought Popeye 10 pieces chicken yesterday at Military Trail.  On the coupon states 5 thighs & 4 legs when I got home there were 7 thighs and 3 legs. The servers did not give me an option plus some of the chicken was raw on the inside( the thighs of course) and it made my mother sick. I will not purchase Popeye chicken ever again.

By kdespati

I love the idea of being able to save a bit of money and reduce our families waste by buying reusable water/sippy cups.  We’ve tried the no name brands, but found that the Rubbermaid ones seem to work best for us.
The only drawback is that my 4 year old always could drink that  amount of water in the sippy box in about 2 seconds flat (especially on a hot prairie day) so we decided to buy the larger  20 oz Sip Bottle.   Perfect - until after 2 uses my children lost the straws.

My quest to replace the straws began with visits to many mass merchandiser with no luck, trying to use a regular straw; not even close to a fit.  Finally I emailed Rubbermaid Canada who said that the straws were available for purchase online at Rubbermaid.com but only for US customers.

Really?  The Sip Bottle is advertised as  ”RefillReuse beverage bottles are the perfect substitute for disposable water bottles so you can drink more and waste less”  I am not sure how it is better or reusable if I can’t replace the straw needed to drink from it.

I guess that unless you are in the US this product is nothing more than a very expensive disposible water cup that will likely last longer in the land fill than a juice box or water bottle.

By Cookie

I went to the store at 1:20pm  this afternoon to purchase a stainless steel microwave oven. There was only one on the shelf so  I went to the head desk and asked if I could get some help over  in appliances.  She told me that the lady who works in appliances was gone to lunch and wouldn’t be back until 2o’clock. I was in a hurry and couldn’t wait that long. I asked her if there was anyone else in the store who could help me and she said no.  Needless to say I was flabbergasted!!!   Canadian Tire will not be getting my business again!!  In 2010 this is the service we are getting????

By Robert Rohloff

My wife and I was having problems with a strange squeak beneath the hood of our 1996 Chrysler caravan.  We bought some belt dressing from Canadian Tire at
1655 Leckie Ave, Kelowna - (250) 860-5744. Once out in the parking lot, I sprayed the stuff on the belt and the belt came off.  We went back into the store and complained what the dressing did. They said they would bring in the Van and have a look. After about an hour they informed us that the Belt Tensioner was bad and needed to be replaced along with the belts needed cleaned of all the belt dressing. We gave them our go ahead to do the job. Cost us 216.00 dollars this was on September 16, 2010.

We don’t drive the car much but the squeak started again a few days later, and we put off taking it back hoping the squeak would go away. October 18, 2010 we decided to go back to Canadian Tire for the squeak was getting worse. They took in the car, inspected it and came out and said now it needed a new water pump that would cost over 800 dollars. I asked maybe that’s what it was in the first place instead of the Tensioner, They said that was impossible and the tensioner and water pump was two different things. I told them to give me back the van for I felt I had been not treated right and talked to as if I was a child.

Today, October 21, 2010, we took the van to a different mechanic. He said he could not help us about if the Tensioner needed replaced or not when we got it done for he never seen if the tensioner was wore out, but he checked over the Van and informed us that there was nothing wrong with the water pump. After cleaning the belts that Canadian Tire said they cleaned, the van ran real quiet, the squeak was gone. Cost us 30.00 dollars saved ourselves over 800 dollars. We are wondering if this is how Canadian Tire does business. We feel we were ripped off, and when we went back to complain, they tried to rip us off again.

By HA

Decore Art Furniture store in Fairview mall is with really bad services, I Bought sofa from them they are really cheater that I pay them the whole amount they  send me floor model, when i complain, they said they will exchange with newone and now its almost 4 months they are hanging me next week next week………… So be careful when you buy stuff from Art Decore Furniture you should be really care ful.

By Mil

We purchased a gift card at Danier in Kingston, ON, which needed to be returned since it was not needed. The manager, Lisa, informed that she cannot return a gift card “because it was probably issued due to a return”. I had the purchase receipt in my hand. I asked her to cancel the gift card and return my money. She made several phone calls to no avail. She finally called Danier’s Customer Service number, who enforced to policy to not return the gift card. However, I talked to the customer service rep and told her that I would enforce my credit card company to return the funds and that there was no “no gift card returns policy” as per Danier’s receipt. She finally relented. I have purchase several thousand $$$ worth of items at Danier - no more. No thanks.

By Hilda

I had picked up the right Schick Hydro razor for the rebate, and carefully checked the UPC code, and mailed the receipt ($9.98+tax), the rebate form with the UPC to them.  Unfortunately, I did not photocopy the receipt  So, I did this on July 17, 2010, and today on September 20th, I called Schick Rebates @1-800-284-8073.  The person I spoke to asked my name and address, and said, we’ve not received anything yet (9 weeks later!).  I asked her how often does mail get lost in your pile there, and she said “this is the first time we’ve encountered this problem, I’m sorry”.  There was nothing they would offer, even though I told her that I will never purchase another Schick product again.  I had purchased this razor because of the rebate.  It’s not right that they could not offer me some kind of coupon/voucher to get a free razor, just to keep their customers happy.  I had purchased this product just because of the rebate, and I will never buy anything from Schick again!!!

By Shoppingirl

I am an avid shopper at Wal-mart and yesterday I looked at my receipt and saw that they were requesting that you take a survey for a chance to win $1000 in Cdn Wal-Mart Gift Cards. So I jumped at the opportunity to take the survey. As I was nearly finishing the survey they asked me questions about my gender age, and race. The question that threw me by surprise was the first question that asked “Are you of Hispanic or Latino decent?” I was stunned. What kind of question is that? How dare they ask me such a question!I am a proud Hispanic Canadian citizen however I do not feel that any customer should be asked a question like that on race. What purpose would it serve? Will that better their customer service? No I doubt that. So why have it there? I found it completely offensive at that being the first question they ask. Then ask you continue it asks if you care Caucasian or other races. Why would they even think about having such a question? I quickly emailed the head office demanding to know for what reason they needed an answer to just a question as that. Has anyone else taken the survey and questioned why that there?

By CentrallyCalm

We recently moved further north, to a remote little area not well populated.  In fact, my house doesn’t even have phone jacks and the township doesn’t even plow to my driveway on my road in the winter!  Enough said.  I opted for a Rogers Rocket Hub, to provide me with both telephone and internet capabilities.

Thankfully, we are on enough of a hill, that the service works (not too bad, but with some more tweaking at the company level, we’ll get this working even better).  It’s not bad though.

The first bill arrived yesterday.  It was over $300!  I just about ditched the van!  I was in shock!

The breakdown, so you can keep up to speed with me:  $20 for unlimited long distance.  So, I wasn’t charged for anything like that.  And, my regular Flex-Rate plan for internet, depends on usage.  But, what’s this DL (download) with a company which offers ring tones!  Over $117.  And text messaging?  I don’t have text messaging and I don’t have ring tones. (the balance was for part of one month, and advance on the next).

So what happened?  The phone number assigned to me, only a few weeks ago to my Rocket Hub phone number, was formerly somebody else’s cell phone number.  Believe it or not, the cell phone number which the former person had, was only out of service about THREE WEEKS!

This meant, that every service, premium or otherwise, which the person had before me subscribed too, was following the number!  It went right to the next owner of the phone number, which is ME!

Believe it or not, it is true.  I have the bill to back it up.  It is even written on the actual Rogers bill, the third party (a website and 877 phone number) to contact them.

When we contacted the 877 number, the lady on the other end was VERY helpful and acknowledged that there ‘could be’ an error, and she was ‘refunding me $20 to cover the cost.’  But wait a minute, the cost was over $117, how was $20 going to cover the cost?

She simply said, that was the best she could offer, but what she couldn’t understand was ‘how it could be $117, because their services only bill at a rate of $10 to $13 per MONTH!’  So, the best she could refund, was what she considered about two months worth of services, at $10/month.  Just trying to please the customer.

So, back to Rogers.  We called them back, and to this point, they were only willing to reduce the erroneous charge by 50%.  I said to the very patient Rogers employee, “you don’t understand, YOU (meaning Rogers) and I, are being billed, by a third party company, for charges YOU can’t explain and you are not wondering who, what, when, how, and why this could be happening?”  I said, “you know Rogers may be able to take a loss of $50 odd dollars, but that’s groceries for my family! and I can’t afford to have this happen or be repeated!”  He was patient, I have to admit.  I was not yelling at him, but I was very frustrated.  When we called back, the Roger’s employee, ‘this time’ we called, KNEW EXACTLY about this type of charge (how interesting, that one employee knew and the other had me on hold for near an hour, trying to get some help, in order to assist me!).  The second employee, QUICKLY gave me a complete reversal of ALL funds from the third party.  AND looked to next month
s bill, and found charges that would be added to then, as well.  (she took next months third party charges off already!)  Then, I requested my phone number be changed to one that has not been in use for a longer period of time.

Bottom line #1:  when being assigned a phone number, ASK when it was last in use.  Get one that is VERY old, to avoid this nightmare!

Bottom line #2: Read your bills very closely!  This third party, appeared like a ‘normal’ charge on this bill.  Had this not been my first bill, I may have not noticed it… but I was waiting to see the cost of operating the Hub; so I was scrutinizing more carefully.

Bottom line #3:  Don’t take the first deal that a company offers you.  The 50% was NOT okay.  100% was what was appropriate… if you are entitled to a refund, get the entire amount, don’t settle because someone isn’t “authorized” to give you more back.  If it’s your money, and there is no doubt about that, then get the supervisor if you need to.  Money is not free, don’t let a big company weasel their way to keeping what is yours.  (and Rogers was not trying to weasel this time, it was simply that this person didn’t have authority to place more of a credit on my bill; so he said.  I try to remain non-confrontational about it).

Bottom line #4:  Share with your friends about this story, because they may be paying for something that they really aren’t using!

I am very happy with the service which both companies provided, both the third party, and Rogers.  I was patient with them both, and they worked to get this fixed.

If you require more information, because you have seen something on your Rogers bill show up and you think that this all sounds familiar; please message me, and I will be happy to confirm if that is the same company.  I don’t want to give them extra press or advertise their name.

Best wishes, happy saving!

P.S.  The first employee at Rogers also admitted, his findings into this matter proved that this service wasn’t even able to be utilized on the Rogers Hub.  That’s because it was for a cell phone number!  Not, a regular phone number.  The thing is, that the Rocket Hub, is wireless.  So, that means you are being assigned a number which ‘could have been’ a cell phone number in the past… because technically; it’s not a land line.

If you are considering a Rocket Hub, I can tell you that it works and I am in the middle of no where.  I run my computer (wireless) off of it to power the internet and my cordless phones.  They plug into the Hub itself and everything is cordless (except where it plugs the main parts into the Hub and wall outlet).  So, there is alternative to long distance for phone calls.  All Canada, $20 a month, unlimited.  not a bad deal; given that EVERYONE is now long distance to me!  LOL