Let me start at the beginning, being as brief as possible: The Jardine crib we purchased for Emily about 5 years ago was recalled. I got a voucher for a new crib, which absolutely had to be purchased at BRU, for $219. Other than the Jardine brand cribs and a few other not-so-great quality cribs, absolutely nothing was that price or less.
Fast forward: I made my peace with having to pay extra for a new crib. I did my research. For the money and given the options in front of me, I decided on buying the Baby Cache Heritage Lifetime crib, at the sticker price of $399. I knew I would also be purchasing the bed rails. I have waited....and waited...and waited for a coupon that would work on cribs and finally a darling lady from these boards sent me one that expires on April 9th. I was all set.
Today: I go in, sit at the desk and attempt to order my crib. I am told there are none in the warehouse, none in any local (think 100 miles or so radius) stores and I would have to special order one. My coupon would not work on special orders. It would take at least 10-12 weeks (the guy actually advised me to pick out something else!) and I am currently just about 27 weeks pregnant. So I ask if it is available online. It was, I could use my coupon for 15% off, but then there's the little matter of shipping. It was going to cost $130 to ship the crib, completely negating the coupon and then quite a bit. I call my local BRU and speak with a manager. I explain about the recall, about the voucher, about the crib not being in stock....and ask if the shipping can be refunded (I think something about the voucher program had mentioned this). She said, "I don't know." YOU'RE THE MANAGER!! IF YOU DON'T KNOW, WHO WILL?? Then she gets back on the line and tells me that they just got a shipment in that afternoon (I was in the store around 12:00 pm). So I tell her I'll be back this evening.
This evening: I go in, sit at the desk and attempt to order the crib. The girl (a different person, of course) brings the tag from the crib over and shows it to me. It says "This item is temporarily unavailable." I nearly lose my mind. I ask how this can be possible, given that I spoke with the manager at 3:00 pm this afternoon and she said they had just come in. The girl finally looks it up on the computer and discovers that there are a couple still left in stock. She starts ordering the crib.
This is when I notice the price tag. At noon today (and every single other time I've seen the crib, in the store or online) the non-sale price has been $399. At 8:00pm, the price is now listed at $429. I literally lose my mind. I ask if this is the price. The girl says yes. I tell her to get the manager. I explain to them both why I extremely frustrated at this whole (racket) process and how I am not paying $429 when, through no fault of my own, the price suddenly went up $20 since noon. I am seriously ticked.
They can tell. They agree to lower the price. (How big of them.)
Then I order the bed rails. For every other convertible crib kit, the price has been around $60. The girl tells me, "That will be $129 for the rails and they will take about 12 weeks to come in."
*^#&#*@^@*#&#^#^#*&&*@&!^@&*!!
Granted, when all is said and done, I ended up paying around $130 for the crib and $140 for the rails. It doesn't sound bad, but I so dearly despise this whole process at Babies r Us right now.
And heaven help them if, when the crib arrives, something is missing or damaged. They will not know fury like mine!
(And did I mention that this crib apparently will not fit in the back of the minivan and we'll need to rent/borrow a truck to get it home?)
I'm done now.
9 comments:
oh you poor thing!!! how infuriating - and I am so proud of you for not giving in to the mess. Will you teach me how to do that??
Well, I will say that I was polite the entire time. I did not raise my voice, even a little, and I made sure to tell the store employees with which I was dealing that I understood that this was not their (personal) fault.
However, I was just not willing to back down. The whole situation was a mess not of my own making. If I had had any other viable options on where to shop or which crib to purchase, this wouldn't have been such a big deal. But since Babies R Us forced my hand to shop with them for this crib, I figured they owed me, the customer who got a very raw deal in the first place, a little wiggle room.
Sometimes, it's just the principle of the thing, you know?
For the record, Andrew was very glad he wasn't there to witness this whole mess!
As a BIG fan of matters of principle, I totally understand. I just normally lose the guts to really get what I want.
WOW Christina, I sure hope you feel better after got all that off your chest!
Note to self; "never shop at BRU"
PS, I think my word verification says it all "FORKS", stick it to'em!
Christina,
Your description mirrored how I felt when the lady at school during registration told me I had no right to complain about having to wait 6+ hours in the sun (my face is now peeling).
Those needles in the fingernails start sounding pretty good...
It doesn't fit in a minivan How big is it exactly, are you anticipating octuplets?
I fit a fridge once in the boot (trunk) of my tiny little car once. You just need to refuse to let physics get in the way of convenience.
You never ask me...
You should have kept Miss Em's crib, faked a tramatic incident, sued Jardine Inc, and bought a new house.
Jacob,
The crib will eventually convert to a full-size bed, so it actually is pretty wide. Babies R Us was reluctant to unbox the pieces so that it would fit in the back of our van, so we ended up having to rent a truck from a hardware store to get the thing home.
Oh well.
Chris,
Yes, clearly we should have consulted you. Normally I would frown upon such deception, but after that whole fiasco...I might have been willing to consider the option!
You do get 500 points for creativity, though!
Post a Comment