You Have To Be An Asshole To Save Money...?

The BBQ Pit
1

I just watched tonight’s (June 26th’s) episode of Inside Edition.

I missed the very beginning of the story, but basically it was a guide to saving money while shopping, even at places with prices that are non-negotiable.

So they had this attractive 30-ish woman going around to all kinds of stores (Bloomingdales, Saks, Target, etc.) and basically badgering and bullying her way into getting discounts on merchandise. At Target she found a green sweater that was the only one left in the smallest size, found a tiny snag in the fabric, and asked a salesclerk if she could get 10% off because of the snag.

The clerk said no, so the woman asked for the manager.

He came over and said no as well; he told her it’s not store policy.

But with, as the woman said, “a little persistence!” she got her way. The manager eventually gave up arguing with her and told her she was welcome to the discount.

So she got 10% off a $20 sweater.

SHE SAVED TWO FUCKING DOLLARS.

She pulled similar stunts at 11 stores total, and ended up getting some kind of discount at 7 of them. At Saks, for instance, she badgered the salesclerk until customer service was called, and customer service said fine, go ahead, give her the damn discount. It had never happened in the salesclerks’ many years of employment at Saks, but because this woman wouldn’t go away, it worked.

And this is a good idea for “savvy shoppers?” Oh my God! Who the hell goes into Saks Fifth Avenue and haggles? And why is it a good idea to tell people everywhere to make salesclerks’ lives a living hell? The host of Inside Edition said to be sure to go “when the stores aren’t very busy” so you can have “more time with the salesclerk.”

So basically, go when the poor salesclerks cannot get away; do not let them get away.

I think this is one of the shittiest ideas ever. Who’s to say that bitch didn’t (or other people won’t) snag the sweater on purpose? Or sabotage other merchandise in an attempt to get a discount? And what if it doesn’t work? Then you’re just purposely going around fucking up merchandise so you can badger your way into a potential discount! This is like telling people to put hair in their food at restaurants so they can get it for free, right before they’re done with it. I work in restaurants and of course people do this, and many other things, in an attempt to get free or discounted food. (Mr. Levins interned at Wal-Mart and he says a popular scam is to find discarded cash receipts in the parking lot, find the item(s) in the store, and then “return” them for the money. That’s why Wal-Mart combs the parking-lot all the time for abandoned receipts. I don’t know why, though! Surely it’s a good money-making idea!)

Sure, people pull shit like this. Everyone knows that. But encouraging it? Telling people it’s a good idea? Going into stores with obvious no-haggle prices and trying to haggle anyway, basically torturing employees until you get your way? Who the hell do you think you are, lady, walking into retail stores and acting like it’s a garage sale or a flea market? Making people change policy just to make you go the hell away because they’re tired of listening to you bitch at them?

I was just outraged on behalf of all the poor salesclerks who are going to have to put up with all the people who watched tonight’s episode and thought, “Ooh, I’ve been too nice! If I just hit my bitch-switch I could probably get lots of discounts! Wind me up and watch me go!”

Bullshit. :mad:

2

Apparently, she didn’t factor her time into the opportunity costs equation.

3

If there is any justice in this world, that woman and everyone that worked on that story will, due to some crazy karmic happening, be relegated to a salesclerk position and forced to deal day in and day out with the monsters they created until their fucking heads explode.

Un-fucking-believable.

That shit just flipped my “bitch-switch”

:mad:

4

Inside Edition, huh?

Shouldn’t this be in Cafe Society?

Hey! Who threw that?

5

Oh man… I really hate people like that.

I used to work at this discount warehouse store, it was going out of business so pretty much everything in the clothing section was cheap as dirt. Everything was only a few bucks each and since it was going out of business head office dropped everything to 80% off. So you could go in and buy an outfit for under $5 including the underthings.

This one lady came in dug around for awhile in my section (clothes) and took a few things to the cash register to buy them. Once she buys them she goes looking at other things then starts to absolutely freak. You see the shirt she bought was a buck more than another shirt which was the same style but a different colour. This is because they were bought from different places so one colour was obviously less because the company paid less for it. She starts demanding her money back and ranting and demanding to talk to a manager.

So here I am, trying to explain this to her and pointing at all the signs in HUGE script as well as her receipt all of which states no returns or exchanges. Finally the asst manager gets there and explains this to her… then the manager. Finally we had to call mall security to have her escorted from the store.

You want to know how much the difference was once the discount was calculated?

A quarter.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, a woman had to be escorted from the store because she was gypped twenty five cents on a shirt that must’ve cost her maybe a dollar.

I was stunned. And if I hadn’t been working there and seen it with my own eyes, talked to the lady even, I wouldn’t believe it.

I’m still stunned when I think of it. We were such a cheap place to shop we had street people come and buy clothes from us on a regular basis without complaining about prices (most were wonderful but get me going and I’ll tell you about a couple of them sometime).

6

I hate stories like that. It’s just one more thing that pounds “the customer is always right” into idiots heads. No, the customer is NOT always right and sometimes the customer is an asshole.

I agree with what someone said earlier, MY time is worth more than two effing dollars off a $20 sweater. Personally, I go out of my way to avoid hostility… I wouldn’t begin to go into a store with the intention of fighting my way to a few dollars off.

It reminds me of a time I was in line at the grocery store, and the woman in front of me (well dressed, expensive clothing) was bitching up a storm to the cashier about an expired $1 off coupon. ONE DOLLAR. She bitched, and bitched, and bitched some more because the clerk told her that the coupons are scanned and if it rejects, she can’t change it. I shit you not, for almost ten minutes she bitched while the cashier was almost in tears. Finally, I pulled two dollars out of my purse and said to her “Excuse me, but I’ll give you TWO dollars if you will quit harrassing the cashier and finish your business here. You have taken 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back because you’re bitching at the cashier about money you are not entitled to.”

She took the money. I belive if she saw Inside Edition tonight, she was probably taking notes.

7

Ahhh yes, you’ve brought back memories. While in college, I worked customer service at a catalogue company who had a policy that if you saw the same item on sale in a different catalogue within 30 days they would refund you the difference. We actually had people sit on hold for 20-30 minutes because the jeans they bought on sale for $29.99 were now on sale for $29.95. FOUR CENTS. They were deadly serious too.

8

Yay! I bet that cashier blesses you every night in her prayers. :slight_smile:

9

You gotta understand, for some people it’s all about making others give something up when you spend money. I’ll never forget the time when I went to a garage sale and a guy went up to the guy holding it with a coffee cup and asked how much. The guy said, “10 cents.” Then the shopper said, “I’ll give you five cents.” The guy said, “No dice, ten cents.” And the shopper then spent a good five or ten minutes haggling over whether or not he’d give the guy a nickel or a dime for a coffee mug.

Un-fucking-believeable.

It wasn’t about the price, of course. It wa about the haggling. That’s why, when you have a garage sale, you should routinely double your prices on everhting you sell, so the hagglers can think they gotcha.

10

A good haggler doesn’t think that. He already presumes that you’ve doubled or tripled your prices. That’s why he haggles.

11

My boss is like this. He’s so stingy and paranoid about money that he freaks when a customer is 1 week past their Net 30. I’m the Controller, so part of my job is receivables. He’s always asking if any problem people have paid today, etc. Not a huge problem, but he never pays his bills on time! I’ll give him the list of payables to approve for payment and when I get it back, half of the list isn’t approved, even though they’re past due. When I bring this to his attention, he says, “I don’t want to pay them.” What I’ve told him in the past is that I don’t like paying bills either, but I have to!!

He’s like this with any kind of service, too. I’ve had many fights with Fedex because something showed up at 10:45 instead of 10:30, for example. He’ll find any way of getting out of paying for something.

And talk about being and asshole! Our Road Runner was down a couple of weeks ago due to some storms. I called…twice (since I know he would get on me if I only called once) to have someone come out to fix it. As soon as I told him I called a second time, he got on the phone himself and was YELLING at the customer service agent to “Get someone out here in an hour!”. Well, guess what? Someone was here in an hour.

Fucking :wally I hate him so much.

12

When I buy something on ebay, I like to send a money order. There is a store in my town that is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. 7 days a week that sells money orders for a dollar. There is a check cashing window that is open from 9 to 5 six days a week (no Sundays) that charges 50 cents. Both of them are about 1/2 mile from my apt. and place of work.

I usually go to the dollar place because I can go before or after work and on Sunday and it’s inside. A cow-orker berates me for not going on my lunch hour to the other place to save the fifty cents. I think that’s the height of being an asshole.

13

I’ve asked for a discount (well, not directly asked) only once. I was shopping for my wedding dress in a Jessica McClintock store, and was buying one off the rack. It was the only one in that style in my size, and before I tried it on I noticed that there was a lipstick-made lip print in the front bodice area - some woman had apparently been wearing dark lipstick and brushed the cloth across her lips when trying it on, then just put it back. I loved the dress, though. I spoke to a salesclerk and told her I loved the dress and it was the only one in my size, but noticed someone had stained it. (I wasn’t wearing lipstick, so it was obvious I hadn’t “sabotaged” it.) Her immediate reply was that she could knock $25 off the cost as compensation for dry cleaning. I said that’d be great. Sale made, store got rid of a stained dress, I got my wedding dress.

I can’t see asking for a discount for a tiny snag on a sweater, though - especially if there might be another in your size.

My sister-in-law used to work for Saks as an assistant manager, and their customer service staff has their hands pretty tied by corporate policy. They were bound by the “customer is always right/make the customer happy” rule in nearly all cases. My SIL was angry about how much stuff she had to take in returns that had obviously been worn/stolen (hmm, no recorded sales on that item and no receipt? oh, now you remember you bought it at another Saks?). The few times she got to refuse were situations where the garment had sweat stains/name tags from conferences - and often she had to tell them to have it drycleaned and then bring it back, IIRC - or if the garment had been altered. There are enough people out there that will jerk salespeople around just because they think they’re entitled to ("I’m a customer!), and try to bully them into undeserved discounts or treat the store like an outfit rental place, buying something for a special event and returning it the next day claiming they changed their minds.

14

Man oh Manischewitz, does this ever hit an exposed nerve! I work resale, in a consignment shop, and some days it’s just a fucking nightmare. If there’s a flaw - a stain or a hole or something I missed, I will gladly take a couple bucks off the price if you still want it. But I’m not going to sell you a pair of fucking Earl Jeans for five bucks just because you can get them that cheap at the Salvation fucking Army! You want Salvation Army prices, then go the Salvation Army, and get the fuck out of my store!

My favorite, though, was the event that led to my manager posting a “Please do not argue about our prices” sign. We have a large and steady supply of drug rep merchandise - the store is owned by a psych nurse, and she has to get rid of all the pens and post-its somehow, so she marks them cheap and sells them at the store. So we’ve got a big stack of Risperdal post-it notes at 15 cents for the pad. Apparently, this is highway robbery, and something must be done about it, so this lady starts haggling with me. Midway through our conversation (my side: “I’m sorry. I can’t. Sorry. No. Not gonna happen. No dice, sister. Still no. Nope, still no. No. No.”), the manager disappears into the back. The sign was up thirty seconds after the haggler finally gave up and went away.

Every day, or so it seems, someone looks at that sign, laughs, and says “Do people really haggle with you over prices?” For each person that says that, at least five try to haggle. I’ve gotten very good at saying no.

15

I despise arguing and haggling, and will only do it if I have to.

16

I don’t haggle and bitch when I’m out shopping, but I am rather assertive with customer service types and other people who want to screw me out of what I should be getting.

However, I try to handle things in a non-bitchy way while making it evident that I’m not willing to get screwed. I’ve had problems with FedEx lately, and they will walk all over you if you don’t assert yourself. Same deal with car repairs, apartment maintainence, etc. I do not let myself get pushed around by these people.

Heh, I guess that’s a different rant. :smiley:

17

But don’t people do the same thing on this board? It may not be about 10 cents versus 5 cents, but it can be about lying versus misrepresentation or dark comedy versus comedy drama or Clinton’s draft dodging versus Bush’s absence without leave.

18

So… we have a trashy TV show that’s basically telling us that we should be assholes. Asshole is good; asshole is in your own best interest. Screw everyone else for your own benefit. Be an asshole!

I find this irritating, but not surprising. Perhaps we should start with the producers of Inside Edition…

19

To be fair, this is a guarantee and most people only send overnight when it needs to get there. I’ve been in plenty of situations where a package delivered a few minutes later would have held up a court case/important meetings. If he’s only trying to get a discount on it, that’s a problem, but if he says, “There’s a million dollar contract in there that was due at 10:30 you jagoffs,” he’s got a point. (Yep, it’s happened).

20

Totally different power dynamic. On the boards, I have the ability to defend my position with as much eloquence and wit as I have. In customer service, the representative is trapped in a subservient position and a victim of the Free Market Customer is Always Right cult.