Remember that bookstore that I was angsting about? Well now it’s truly all-out loathing.
After my entirely unsatisfactory attempt to try to return my books without letting my mom know (I don’t like telling people, “Thanks so much! I’m going to take this back in a few days!”), I swallowed the bullet, screwed up my pride and bit my courage and asked for the gift receipts. Without a receipt, my mom’s money was only going to waste, and that made me feel worse than bucking up and telling her that I was going to exchange her gifts to me. That turned out to be pretty drama-free (there was simultaneous, unrelated massive drama that I can’t and won’t go into, it’s much too raw) and on New Year’s day I had a gift receipt in my hands.
Today I finally had time to swing over to Books-A-Million. Yes, I’m naming the store. I spotted Vaguely-Stoned Woman out wandering the floor, and the people manning the register were much friendlier today. I got in line for my return, one of apparently many, and handed the cashier my receipt. She looked at it, and pleasantly told me that since I didn’t have the original receipt, she would put the returned balance on a gift card.
Okaaaaay.
So it appears that this bookstore will only allow merchandise transactions with an original receipt. Fine. However, an original gift receipt is not quite as valid as an original receipt with prices on it, and therefore can only be used towards store merchandise. In essence, this business has made it so that once a purchase is made, there’s no way they can lose money. The return policy sans receipt of the lowest selling price in the last 6 months makes so much more sense now. This bookstore is not in the business of (gasp!) selling books and magazines, they’re in the business of screwing over people who like to read any way they can.
I knew there was no use in arguing it. Their return policy is written in terms of “an original receipt” and my defining a gift receipt as something else, they have free reign to do whatever they like. I took the gift card because I had no choice, and the one thing I do not want is my mom’s gift to me to be useless, wasted money. But at the same time, I am so livid about this store’s policies that thinking of buying anything from them is making me physically ill. I wanted to return their merchandise so I could take my business elsewhere. Now I can’t even do that. In spite of myself, they have my mom’s money and there’s no way around it.
If I buy anything at Books-A-Million, I’m going to hate it and my mom’s gift will go to waste as surely as if I never returned the books in the first place. If I buy nothing, the money is still wasted. No matter what I do, I’ve managed to ruin a gift my mother chose for me, and it pisses me off nearly as much as it upsets me. I hate crying because of someone else’s asshattery.
My advice is to stop letting it get to you. File a complaint with the manager and use the gift card to buy something you’ve been wanting for a while anyway. If you can’t do anything about it, there’s no use letting it stress you out. Just don’t go back, and, more importantly, don’t LOOK back. Good luck.
I am petty enough that had this occurred to me, I would’ve purchased enough to cover the gift card, and maybe a dollar or so more, just to be sure, then turned around and returned it three or four days later, with the “original receipt.”
Of course, then they’d probably come up with some cockamamie policy that purchases made on a gift card could only be refunded on a gift card.
It’s funny, that’s exactly their policy.
Have you never returned anything retail before? Credit cards go back on the same credit card that was used in the transaction, cash and checks get cash and gift cards get gift cards. Ever heard of people buying a hundred dollars worth of stuff with their bad check or bad credit card then returning it for the cash…that whole thing called fraud? The policies there to protect the company, if anything you should be pissed at the idiots that started scamming them and ruined it for the rest of you.
I completely feel your pain, and really wish there was a store that didn’t behave that way. Every year my grandmother gets me very nice things that I happen not to like, and every year a certain department store makes it harder and harder for me to get anything other than store credit with her original receipt. This year they actually forced me into a gift card or the express card. Which was a gift card.
It’s honestly absurd to me. I didn’t make the purchase in their money, so why is it so hard to get the money back.
Consider yourself lucky. I received a couple of books for Christmas I didn’t want and tried to return them to Borders, as I’ve done in the past. I was told I had to have a receipt. Same with Barns and Nobles. I’m actually happy to hear I may be able get something from them from BAM.
you can always do what i do and sell the gift card on ebay. or hell donate it and use the tax write off.
I found this while looking up these guys to complain about their return policy. A few weeks ago, I bought my pregnant daughter a gift set of Frog and Toad books, completely forgetting she had a hardback set she bought as a teenager. These books are in unopened shrink wrap, and I had the original receipt. They refuse to accept the return. Seems the return policy is now 14 days!
Oh, but look at it from the employee’s point of view. We get yelled at cause our company changes policy and messes with the customers. PLUS we have to plug those darn discount cards and magazines til we are blue in the face. And guess what, if you don’t make a certain percentage every week, they can you. As my boss put it, BAM is a discount card and magazine store that happens to sell books too. I may be losing my job cause of those evil things. *whew* sorry wanted to get that off my chest.
Dakini–
I work at a BAM, and boy howdy, do I hate this new return policy. Customers are ANGRY about it, and I can hardly blame them. Unless, of course, they take out their rage on a hapless bookseller who has literally nothing to do with policies…
I agree with the loathing of Books A Million. Their ’savings card’ ends up costing you $20. Something they did NOT disclose even when I – twice – said I wasn’t interested. The sales clerk went ON and ON about how much it would save me on this transaction. When I asked her POINT BLANK what was required to obtain a savings card she replied “Just your phone number”. Fine, I said only to shut her up and get the heck out of the store. However when I inspected my receipt suspecting the total was off, it was then I discovered the savings card cost me $20.00!!! I marched right back in their and demanded my money back and told the clerk that I considered her actions to be deliberately deceitful. She didn’t look surprised. Almost like she’d heard those words before. Hmmm……………
Books A Million sucks but this isn’t why.
You got a store credit for the exact money that was spent on the merch you returned. I’m certain at some point something will come along that you’ll want that you can use that credit on. These days our gift cards don’t expire. You’re lucky you’re not trying to return something with us now. You have a 2 week window WITH the receipt or gift receipt, we no longer give gift cards WITHOUT a receipt and, oh yeah, did I mention it HAS TO BE WITHIN TWO WEEKS? That’s a scam and a half if I’ve ever heard one.
I did end up going to my mother with my hat in my hand and asking for the receipt which was, thankfully, found. I now have a gift card in my purse and no idea when I’m going to use it. I appreciate hearing all the different viewpoints, from customers and employees alike.
Did you ever stop and think that maybe…just
maybe it’s time to have that talk with your
dear loved ones about where they purchase
your gifts at? How well do they actually know you?
Could your mentioning to them that you dislike
Books-A-Million eventually make it so that you
never have to have this experience again? That’s
something that should definitely make it to your
To Do List then.
Good luck finding a place of business that doesn’t
have a similar policy. We are told by management
to intentionally “mispeak” as Mrs. Clinton so accurately
stated one time. We HAVE to sell the discount cards!
If we don’t make percentage (5% of our total sales
for every cashier or barista) then we will be fired…no
questions asked. No matter how friendly or unfriendly
you are…if you don’t make percentage…you’re fired!
Many managers at the local stores don’t want to fire
people but the district manager forces them too. It comes
directly from the top of the company so please don’t
take it out on local workers or managers. Thank you!
my wife works for bam. she hates it as well. plus if they dont make a percentage sale on the cards for the night . they can either buy them (on 7 dollar an hour salary) or get wrote up and threatened with being fired. also they have cut days from schedules they can work as punishment as well. Just saying your sales clerks are just trying to keep their jobs that is why they have to push so hard. if you want to make a difference complain to corporate
scott is correct. i work at BAM and they do that to us on a nightly basis. it’s horrible.. =[
1. i work at bam and am a manager.
2. you bam associates know that they get google alerts to let them know youre saying bad stuff and they WILL fire you for it.
3. im not using my real stuff or my internet at home (or i wouldnt be writing this)
4. the return policy is as such because dishonest people such as the david who is trying to return his borders books to a books a million were doing just that and totally screwing OUR company out of tons of money. if you were in their position would you want to give people money for something that wasnt even paid for in your store in the first place.
5. of all three of the big name booksellers i have to say were the nicest to the customers. b&n has had the same return policy as us for a LONG time, they have a $35 card that doesnt even save you on everything in the store (unlike our $20 card) and their card isnt good until you recieve it in the mail days to weeks later… so either you come into our store and spend $200 and get a card for not a penny more or you go to b&n, get the same hassle about a card, spend an extra 35 on top of the 200 and get a card (that will be auto renewed in a year btw) that you may or may not ever use again… hmmm…
6. if we didnt sell a discount card (and try hard to) we couldnt afford to discount the books that we do for everyone… so you dont want a card… you just neeeeeed to have the new Nora Roberts book. ok, dont get a card but dont complain about us trying to sell it to you when you can no longer recieve 30% off that we give to non-members out of the goodness of our hearts.
7. yeah, i know selling cards to keep your job is a bitch, just be glad you have a job… at least you arent starving and if you were just a little more decent about the situation and got your pompus ass into a better mood about it then maybe you wouldnt have to buy a card to save your percentage at the end of the week. maybe your attitude about it is keeping customers from coming in your store, maybe your spite is showing and, god knows, noone wants to shop at a store where spiteful assholes who hate their job are trying to shove a card down their throat.
8. Wendy. personally i am very sorry for the misunderstanding you had with whoever, wherever but in MY store we make darn sure to let everyone who recieves a GIFT reciept know that were the person trying to return the item that it will be for a gift card. the reason for this is mainly because we rely on the information PRINTED on the reciept to chose the correct tender to return. if its cash, no big, cash back. if its a check we need to wait the specific time to give back cash. if its a gift card you get a gift card (i addition we do the gift card to gift card thing bc there ARE ways to fraudulently recieve money onto a gift card and it would not be in ANY companies interest to give money for gift cards.) and finally if the person who made the purchase used a credit card we need to swipe the same card to put it back… none of the tender information is kept on gift reciepts… thats part of the purpose of a gift reciept you see… so people dont see that you got it on sale or that you used a gift card that you recieved forever ago or that you bought something naughty/embarassing for yourself in the same purchase… and as a manager i would like to sincerely apologize for the problems you’ve had but please understand that we do the things we do because we’re a business… a BUSINESS. we need to make money to continue our services and unfortunately that means making unpopular decisions to cut our losses and salvage what we can from worsening situations. please dont give up hope for our company.
You have no idea.
This company is so screwy it’s not even funny. Believe me, we understand your frustration, but there’s honestly not a single thing we can do about it. When corporate says jump, it’s either jump or find a new job. Discount cards, mags, return policies, the list goes on. They are constantly finding new ways to make things harder on us and our customers. If we could get around the crap, we would… but our computers have been set up so as to block us in enough ways to make it damn near impossible.
Hell… what other place do you know of that has to call a manager just to void something out…
*head-desk*
I honestly hate this company with a burning passion. When I am no longer working for them, I won’t be buying from them. I don’t care that I hate B&N, too… I can order online rather than putting business into these places. Only reason I buy with BAM now is the employee discount.
i’ve worked retail for a very long time, and i’d just like to put out there that if you actually took the 30 seconds it takes to look at the back of the receipt, which has the return policy on it for everyone to see, you may save yourself some trouble. i think considering how many people probably buy books, read them, and then return them to cheat, 14 days is sufficient enough to figure out if you need a book or not.
If you ever have a problem with any retail business go straight to corporate, the associates and managers don’t make up the rules. Too many times have i had people threaten me, break product in front of me, call me ridiculous names , or on more than once occassion try to harm me physically because they believe i am master of all retail land and have an office somewhere to just make up shitty policies to piss them off. Guess what, we’re just doing our job, and i’m sure there are things your company makes you uphold that you don’t necessarily agree with either.