Upset with ToysRUs "Lowest Price Guarantee"

[lokyee]

Sorry in advance re: the long rant.

Long story short: found identical item for cheaper on another website and wanted to PM TRU since I can return it to a store if it didn't fit my needs. According to the TRU website, they only match the price and don't give further discounts (ie, no beat the difference by 10% like FS or BB). I read through the conditions quite a few times before calling CS to find out how to do the PM online.

CSR 1 told me they don't PM and after advising her to check their website, going through each and every condition with me, she finally told me they couldn't adjust the price BEFORE the sale and that I had to submit the order at the full price first, then CALL BACK for an adjustment of the difference. She didn't sound convinced or sure of what she was telling me so I just took her name and hung up the call.

CSR 2 was POSITIVE that TRU does NOT do price matches and once again I had to direct the CSR to look on the website...after which he had the nerve to tell me Lowest Price Guarantee does NOT equal price matching?!?! After putting me on hold and speaking to his supervisor, he confirmed that I had to order first and then call back. FINE. Since I got two of the same answers I went ahead to order first and then nightmare call number 3 happened.

CSR 3 was ADAMANT that PMs don't happen at TRU despite me telling him to check the website!!! I advised him that I had made 2 prior phone calls and was told twice to place the order and call in for an adjustment. He still wouldn't believe that their policy was clearly stated online on their site!!! I had to tell him I wouldn't have bothered to order at TRU and just bought from the other website if I had to go through this much aggravation before he agreed to investigate further by putting me on hold to "speak to a supervisor". Came back on the line and told me that it's their company policy not to do PMs but since I found the "fine print" they have to honour it?!?! I couldn't believe what I was hearing...

So I walk him through looking up the price on the competitor's site and he proceeds to tell me that he'll credit the $58 difference "to my account". I gently reminded him about the 13% HST and he said "it's not our policy to credit the taxes" WTF?!?! I told him then I should have ordered from the other site to begin with since they'll still be cheaper... then he put me on hold only to come back and tell me that their "system" will automatically adjust the taxes. So I asked if I was going to be credited to the TRU account or credit card account and he said the credit card account. I argued that surely the CC company won't do adjustments for the taxes on their behalf and he repeated that their "system" would take care of that and it would take 3-5 days to process.

At this point, I'm close to fuming, kept my voice calm and asked him how I would cancel the order if the PM didn't happen as I expect it to (ie, they don't give me my taxes back). He said I can only cancel within the company's allowed time frame being before the item is shipped, which takes 1-2 days. So I said basically I would be past the allowed cancellation time before I find out if the PM was successful and he confirmed.

me - "so what if I wanted to cancel the order?"
CSR 3 - "You wouldn't be allowed to"
me - "what?!"
CSR 3 - "just refuse the order when it's delivered and it'll get sent back to us at which time we will issue you a full refund. it'll just take a few weeks time for the item to get back to the warehouse before we can process the refund"
me - "ookkaaaayyy.... is there a reference number I can have?"
CSR 3 - "no, just use your order number"
me - "your name? how about your employee number"
CSR 3 - "I'm not allowed to give that out"
me - "then how can I follow up on this issue if it's not resolved? Do you note it in your system?"
CSR 3 - "I have it in the system to credit you, don't worry"

Then I try to be nice and wish him a good night but he had the nerve to HANG UP ON ME!!!!!!!

At this point I TRULY regret making this purchase! I can't believe all 3 of the CSRs I talked to had NO IDEA of their own company policies and they work the customer service lines!! I really want to escalate this further but have no idea where to complain.

Sorry for the long post...

/rant

[ccyk]

thats very lame cs. copy this thread to their corporate HQ and complain.

[frustrated inc.]

Wow, and I get the feeling this isn't over yet!

You should email head office, let them know your experience and ask them about this Lowest Price Guarantee. Sounds like their CSRs could use some retraining.

[alkaseltzer01]

I find Toys R Us to hire a lot of part time kids that really don't care to be there. Been to my local store several times where customers needed help and the staff were too busy chatting with each other. Happens in other stores too but for some reason, seems worse at this store.

I never buy anything there unless it's >25% off since regular price is usually more than Walmart/Zellers.

[Ojam]

With so much hassle why wouldn't you have just purchased from the site that was giving you the price you wanted in the first place? You're not getting an additional % and it's not that you would have had to drive further because you were buying on line. What reason did you have for wanting to give ToysRus your business rather than the other store? Even if you didn't know it was going to be a hassle, it should have been obvious that getting a store to price match and then purchase is going to be far more work than just purchasing from the store with the lower price from the beginning.

[woof]

Frankly you come across as being a slow learner. It was pretty obvious that TRU does not honor what it's web site says and yet you continued trying to push an order on them. You continued trying to force this order through with a price match even there were lots of red flags and you clearly had misgivings. Frankly there's a fine line between being persistant, being stubborn and being stupid. Which would you classify yourself as?

This doesn't excuse TRU's attitude in this matter and bypassing Customer Service and finding a way to complain to higher management would have been more appropriate if this matter was really that important to you.

[lokyee]

With so much hassle why wouldn't you have just purchased from the site that was giving you the price you wanted in the first place? You're not getting an additional % and it's not that you would have had to drive further because you were buying on line. What reason did you have for wanting to give ToysRus your business rather than the other store? Even if you didn't know it was going to be a hassle, it should have been obvious that getting a store to price match and then purchase is going to be far more work than just purchasing from the store with the lower price from the beginning.

No kidding... I didn't order from the other site because I wouldn't have been able to return the item to a physical store if I had problems with it. I thought at least with TRU I could drop it off at their store and avoid paying the $40+ return shipping...

[lokyee]

I have to admit that I'm really surprised how this whole ordeal turned out.

I placed the order on Monday night, got my shipping notice yesterday (Wednesday) morning, the 50lb box was delivered yesterday afternoon, and got my credit WITH the taxes properly adjusted today! I'm glad it's all over!

However I still think the TRU csrs should get proper training!

[nufan]

Just another example of stupid csr's or at least ones that aren't trained. It really bugs me when these people don't know their own stores policies.

I think FS and BB are the same in that you have to purchase first then get the PM (when buying online) which I don't like - because you are committed to buying then forced to fight it out when the inevitable fight back comes later regarding the PM.

Sometimes you think that the PM's are coming directly out of the csr's or salespersons pockets or something - and maybe in some respects they are when they are on commission.

Having said all that, I have only purchased from TRU a couple of times. One of the times TRU dropped their own price on the product. When I called the CSR was excellent, friendly, and credited the amount back straight away. You never know what kind of CSR you are going to get!

Anyway glad it all worked out for you in the end.

[CuppaKid]

I had a terrible experience with TRU today.

I pre-ordered Zelda Skyward Sword with the gold wiimote more than a week ago from TRU and went in to pick up my copy today. I had ordered from them because I have always had excellent experiences purchasing video games from them, they always seem to have stock when everyone else is sold out.There was one person in front of me in line when I got there, the man purchased a copy of the game with the gold wm and left.

I went up to the cash presented my preorder slip and was given a regular copy of the game, when I told them that I had ordered the other copy the cashier told me there had been an error and they did not receive any of the special edition copies.

Obviously I was not impressed, why even bother to pre-order if I can't get the product when it's released? Moreover, I had only ordered the special edition because I needed the wm+ it came with in order to play the game as I don't already own one. They also had my phone number in store and could have easily informed me of the confusion and saved me a lot of hassel and a lot of useless driving time.

By the time I had attempted to pick up the game the special edition was obviously sold out all over and I was left with having to buy a new control (at a cost of 30+) as well as the game in order to be able to play.

Not impressed at all I got a refund and left.

[wassam]

Hi All,

I needed to do a pricematch against walmart.ca so I called in knowing there may be an issue (after reading this thread). The CSR didn't know about the online pricematch policy but she was nice enough to read it after I showed her where it was on the Toys-r-us site. Then she put me through to another department where they do online phone orders. This 2nd CSR was aware of the policy and just needed some guidance to find the product on walmart.ca. The way the do the price match is a bit strange but if there's any issues I'll post back to the thread. The strange part is I pay full price for the product to Toys-r-us, then a second request is made for a credit for the difference plus HST. This credit is then applied to my credit card. I took down the reference number for the credit, and I'm confident it will all work out.