Well Color Me Informed, If NOT Annoyed with Rite-Aid

You may recall that I bought 2 pouches of Betty Crocker Cookie Mix the other day at Rite-Aid.....

These pouches are part of a Food Deal at R-A this week....."Spend $6 on select Food items, Get $2 +Up Reward back" Deal.
These mixes are $2 a bag this week, so I had spent $4(before Qs)for these 2 and I was expecting my $2 +Ups to print out after I bought 1 more bag.
Famous last words, right?

Well I sashayed(yes, us Southern gals sashay!)back up to Rite-Aid today to buy a third pouch of cookie mix and claim my $2 +Ups.

Only, that danged +Ups had the Audacity to NOT print out!
So I had me a nice little online chat with Corporate CS when I got home to see if they could mail me my +Ups.

And that is when I found out something.
First off, the CS gal was NOT going to mail me my $2 +Ups!
Further more, she told me that if I wanted my +Ups I would have to go back up to Rite-Aid, return the 3 bags of mix and then rebuy them in a single transaction.
Well, THAT was my suggested solution anyway.
Miss CS didn't seem to care one way or another if I got an +Up Reward or not.
She was Miss "they don't pay me enough at this job to make me want to care about you and your +up reward" about the whole thang.
I can't blame her really but I was very pleasant the whole time and didn't talk in CAPS to her at all.
8-(

So you know that some times at Rite-Aid, when they have these +Up Reward Deals that make you buy multiple items as in multiples of an assortment of items to choose from(I don't mean the Deals where you buy 2 or 3 of one particular item to get an +Ups). 
And you know that sometimes these larger Deals will track because R-A figures you have to purchase everything to satisfy the Deal in MORE than one transaction(especially since R-A is known for not having enough stock on the shelves to satisfy demand for +Up Reward Deals MANY MANY TIMES!), but other times these larger Deals don't track at all and you wonder why it doesn't and why you never get your +Up Reward(s)?

Well, I may be the last person on the Planet Earth to learn this but, straight from the mostly unengaged and BORED CS person to my monitor screen, I learned that.....

In order for a Rite-Aid +Up Reward Deal to track, it has to be one where you are required to spend $10 or MORE to get the Reward.
If a Deal requires you to spend $10 or MORE, you can buy the items in multiple transactions and the Reward will print after you hit the spending requirement.
If a Deal requires you to spend under $10, you have to buy the items in ONE transaction to get the Reward to print.

When I learned this on Friday, the skies parted and I heard angels sing.  Finally, a definite rule from Corporate on which Deals track and which don't.
Definite until it doesn't happen that way in real life when I go back to the store. ;-)

So I'll be hauling these mixes back up to my Rite-Aid to return and rebuy and get my $2 +Ups.
Really, how difficult would it have been for the CS to mail me that Reward?
So I get to let my store's employees generate more paperwork and work for themselves, during the Holiday season when they have NO time for extra work!, instead of making an online CS person, who has no customers lined up 20 deep at a register glaring at her/him like the store employees do, put my name/addy on an envie and stuffing a $2 +Up into it and dropping it into the "outgoing" mail pile.

Geez.
Ho-Ho-Ho Rite-Aid......

Sluggy

Why Can't Companies Do Anything Right Lately?

Yes, my life these days seems like Joe Btfsplk's.
You know....that character from the old Lil' Abner comic strip.....the guy with the dark cloud over his head who goes around spreading misfortune.

Ok, so I don't purposely spread misfortune but I don't seem to be able to get out from under Joe's cloud!
Especially, it seems, when dealing with Corporate America!

Let me say first, that I despise using the telephone.  If I go to hell when I die, it will be a big call center and I'll be damned for all eternity to make phone calls.

In December, my cell phone company billed me TWICE for one month of service....twice within 3 days.
So I had to call them and talk to "Robot John".  He talked like a robot and said his name was "John".  From what I could tell, he was in India, spoke a heavily accented English so he talked like a robot to cover up his true nationality(and went by the decidedly UN-Indian name of John).  It didn't fool me. at. all.  And I didn't care who or where he was, I just was pissed I had to call his company's call center for being charged incorrectly.

Then I bought one of those 'social coupon deals'.  It was a gift card that was to be a Christmas present.
I purchased on Dec. 2nd.  The voucher/code was delayed and not ready to redeem until Dec. 14th.  I redeemed it on the 14th and was told the card would be mailed within 5-8 business days.
It's almost the middle of freaking January and guess what hasn't arrived yet? 8-(
So that necessitated another phone call to a corporate entity's CSC(=Customer Service Center).  After 10 minutes on hold(two times!)I was informed the gift card was back ordered(would have been nice to tell me this oh.....a MONTH ago!)and would be mailed out next week.
Shall I hold my breath on this one?

Also right before Christmas, the 3 packs of Orbit gum I bought at Rite-Aid for $1 each, that was suppose to give me 3 x $1 +Up Rewards didn't.  I didn't bother calling about it until last week when I had another problem with something else at Rite-Aid I had to call them about.

I tried the new Rite-aid "electronic e-coupons" that you can load onto your Wellness card(HERE is where I talked about it).  Qs loaded successfully but didn't come off the item's purchase at the register.  After speaking with TWO different people at Rite-Aid CSC(and being hung up on and having to call back!), I was told that a high mucky-muck would be calling me to discuss the issue and work out the "kinks in the system".
This high mucky-muck is supposedly in charge of the whole new e-coupon system and as I am one of the first people to tell them that their system is NOT WORKING!, they want to speak to me and find out why.
Evidently, they really don't want to get it working properly and were just giving me lip-service, since Mr. High Mucky-Muck still has NOT returned my call a week later.
I don't give a crap at this point if their system every works.  I just want my FIFTY FREAKING CENTS BACK for that blasted e-coupon I used!
Next week, I return the item for a full refund, then call back CSC and tell them I am NOT amused and will Twitter evil thoughts about them into the Twitterverse.

And this week?
Oh, you KNOW it has to continue.....this lucky lucky gloomy streak of dispair.
First up....Rite-Aid again!
Earlier this week I bought this.....

1 tube of Ben-Gay, 2 packs of OB tampons and 2 bottles of Visine.(Daughter took one of the tampon packs already.)
SubTotal after 20% Wellness discount was $18.57.
I used a $2/1 Q for each item(either ManuQ from inserts or a IPQ), bringing my total down $10.
Then I used the Sales-Ad Qs for the Bengay($2), Visine(2x$2)and the OB($1/2), for an additional $7 off my total.
After these discounts my total was $1.57.  I had $2 and $3 +Ups to use so very bad planning on my part.lol   I put the $1.57 OOP on my free Rite-Aid gift card instead.

I went into this week with $50 toward the $20+Ups Resolution Reward.  This purchase gave me $19 more toward the $100 needed to earn that reward. (I guess they rounded up from $18.57 to $19?)
There is also a separate J&J Spend $30/Get $10 +Ups reward.  All these items count toward that goal, so I have $19 toward that reward as well.

So I am at $69 toward the $100 mark and $19 toward the other $30 mark.

I go back to R-A the next night and buy this....

2 x Clean & Clear BOGO 50%off($6.29)=$9.43
2 x Axe Body Wash on sale $4.50=$9.00
1 x Bengay w/20% wellness discount=$4.79
1 x Thermacare on sale=$3.00
Subtotal....$26.22

Coupons Used
2 x $2/1 Clean & Clear ManuQ=$4.00
2 x $1/1 Clean & Clear AdPerks/VVQ=$2.00
1 x BOGO Axe ManuQ=$4.50
1 x $2/1 Bengay ManuQ=$2.00
1 x $2/1 Bengay Sales-Ad Q=$2.00
Coupon Total....$14.50

$26.22-$14.50=$11.72
I used $10 in +Ups and put the $1.81($1.72 +.09¢ tax) on my Rite-Aid gift card.
This purchase put me over the $30 spending threshold for the $10 J&J +Ups(which printed)and I received another $3 +Ups for the Thermacare, so $13 in +Ups back.

In addition, ALL THESE ITEMS qualified toward the Spend $100 get a $20 +Up Reward.
So I should be $26 closer to that $100 mark, right.
Nope.....according to my receipt I only got credit for $17 worth of purchases.
I am missing the last $9......which coincidentally is what the 2 Axe body washes add up to.
Hmmmm.....
So I notice that the bottles I bought are "50% more product" bottles.....so not 12 oz, but 18 oz size bottles.
How much do you want to bet that the "50% more product" bottles are NOT CODED AS QUALIFYING PRODUCTS???!!!
So now I either have to call Rite-Aid YET AGAIN and get them to credit my account for this Axe purchase or exchange these bottles for normal sized ones and bet my bottom dollar that the normal sized bottles WILL ring up correctly.  I would get my credit but lose the extra product in the larger bottles.

ARGH.

And to top of my week, I finally get over to Weis(pound you in the ass)Markets to do the Nestle Catalina Deal.
Spend $20 in qualifying products, Get a $5 Catalina Q.

This is $20.43 worth of Nestle qualifying products.
You will notice that there is NO Catalina Q in the picture.
That's because one did not print out.
And it's hopeless to get my Q at this store.  CS is just so clueless about this stuff.
I'm so tired of the 'deer in the headlights' looks and having to explain to them what they should know already.
So now I get the thrill of calling Catalina Corp. to get my $5 CatQ.
(I will add that these were the only 3 canisters of Nestle's Quik in the store.  So much for stocking up on it.)

And you can add in the unmitigated JOY I have been having the last 2 months with the HOMESCAN people(previously known as NIELSON).  Yes, I am one of those schmucks who scans all her purchases via a scanner and reports in to these hallowed marketing gods so they know what kind of crap to put over on sell the American consumer.
That lightning strike we suffered back in late September?  Among the items it took out was the HOMESCAN SCANNER.
Except these nimrods at Homescan don't believe that the scanner if broken and insist I keep using it.
Oh, they are another "piece of work" company which I'll kvetch about another time.

So tired of dealing with companies that suck and telephones.

What companies are on your Shit List this week?
C'mon, spill the beans!
Don't let me wallow around in misery alone....

Sluggy