So we had to go to Florida for my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary. Happy occasion, delighted to attend.
But it mandated a new outfit, as I had nothing suitable to wear. Now, I hate shopping to the point where my blood pressure rises as I drive into the parking lot at the mall. So I dashed into Lord and Taylor, the store where I’ve had the best luck finding things that look nice. Found an outfit - pants, top, loose overshirt. Found another outfit - a dress - which was sort of a bonus as I could use something like that. Paid for all.
Went home. Packed. The L&T garments were put - still in their protective bag - in a garment bag. Travelled to Florida. Put on pants and top. Went to put on overshirt. The damn thing still had the protective tag. The clerk forgot to remove it.
Clearly it was ineffective, as no alarm went off when I left the store.
So. Pissed as hell, off came the outfit, on went the dress (which I’d brought just in case we though the event was dressier than planned).
This is the second time this has happened at that same department store. The last time I bought 12 garments. They left the tags on three of them. When I stomped back into the store a week later - at a mall that is hideously inconvenient to me - they seemed surprised that I wanted payback (I asked for a small discount… a grand total of 4% of my large purchase) for the major inconvienience of dealing with their employee’s screwup. The alternative, of course, was that I would return every single thing I had purchased that I had not already worn…
The garment from Florida will be returned. Not just the shirt in question, but the whole DAMN outfit, unless they give me a discount, as their screwup rendered the outfit unusable for the intended purpose.
Here’s hoping they will accept a printout of my credit card statement in lieu of a receipt, too - the receipt somehow went missing between here and Florida. Grrrrrr.
Oh yes. “Inventory Control Tags”. I had an inattentive sales clerk leave one of those on a blouse once - and it went off as I tried to leave the store. Security came for me, took me to a counter in full view of the other customers, patted me down and went through my purse before they went through the bags and found the tagged garment. They they checked all the reciepts and discovered everything was paid for. At which point they removed the tag and said “you can go”. No apology. They had refused my request to have my mother paged (she was in the store). The kicker? I was 15 years old.
I bought my first (used) car with the settlement from that little snafu.
I might suggest talking to a manager before bringing in your no-receipt-theft-tag-still-attached products into the store for a refund. You could easily wind up with a much less satisfying conversation than you expect.
My sister bought me a shirt for my birthday and the clerk gift-wrapped it with the tag still on it. I got it in the mail and after the obvious shoplifting jokes, I had her call the store where she bought it, so they could call a local outlet, where I had it removed.
What I hate even more than that are the tags that are actually sewn to the clothes. I’ve seen them on clothes from Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, and now Gap.
I got my ire all raised until I read your last sentence. You can be pretty damn sure any department store employee who patted down MY 15 year old daughter would be hearing from my attorney and the police department. I’m glad you stuck it to them.
It’s always bullshit when stores do this to customers. At the store I work at(World Market), we just started putting these things on our bedding stuff. I think it’s ridiculous because if someone can actually sneak a quilt past the cashier, then shit, they deserve it! Kidding, but still, some of the things they tag are pretty massive.
Oh, and ours aren’t sensor tags, they’re just the ink ones so a lot of times no one notices them until they’ve tried to put the sheets on their bed.
Also, when they started using them, they forgot to tell almost everyone so we had tons of customers bringing things back to get them removed. :rolleyes: Hell, I’d be too though.
Several years ago I was Christmas shopping and when I was leaving one store the alarm went off. After a quick review of my bag and receipt they figured out that the anti-theft tag buried in a season set of DVDs (CSI Season 1, IIRC) I had bought had not been deactivated when the clerk had run it over the deactivater.
And every time I left another store on that trip the damn alarm went off again, since apparently they all use the same system. :rolleyes:
What, you mean they didn’t deactivate it? Or any of the other stores? Every retail place I’ve worked in the policy is to deactivate anything that beeps, whether it’s from you store or not.
Apparently the tag was deep enough inside the DVD set that the store’s deactivater wasn’t able to reach it (which doesn’t make any sense to me either. And none of the other stores offered to try to deactivate it for me; they just accepted my statement that the store where I bought it couldn’t deactivate it and waved me through the gate.
Had that happen once when I walked into Wal-Mart I’d been to a games shop in the same shopping complex shortly before, and apparently they hadn’t been deactivating tags all day. Fortunately for me that just meant they noticed my bag, deactivated the tag for me and sent me on my way, since they’d had lord knows how many people walk in before-hand with merchandise from the same place.
Back when I was 13, my mom took my sisters and I to do our back to school clothes shopping. We lived in the middle of nowhere, so this requires driving to any number of larger towns in the vicinity with a minimum trip of one hour. Mom had decided on a town about a two-hour drive away, because she wanted to visit some family too. I had gotten jeans at Herberger’s, and they left the security tag on one pair. There were no closer Herberger’s in the area, so my mom was pretty pissed off at the prospect of having to drive all the way back.
My mom called and complained, and they actually sent an employee all the way to where my mom worked, over two hours away, to remove the tag, which I thought was pretty cool.
None taken. I actually did check on at least one item, and thought I watched her un-tag the others but I guess I missed this one! The other incident was at a different branch of the same store, but still… yeah, I goofed also.