Banana Republic

Ok, I mentioned earlier that I'd be writing more about the t-shirt I bought at Banana Republic. I didn't really pay attention when I picked it up, but there were about 3 security tags over the thing. It was one of their logo t-shirts, and it cost almost $30. When I checked out, the cashier removed the tags, wrapped up the shirt, and I didn't look at it again until I got home. When I got home, I unpacked the shirts, cut the tags off, and was about to wash them. As I was turning the t-shirt inside out, I noticed two holes in the back of the shirt, surrounded by slightly discolored circles. I'm assuming that they were from the security tags. I had already cut the price tag off, but I still had the receipt, and I work about 20 minutes away from the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, which has a Banana Republic. So, last Wednesday, I took the shirt there to exchange it. They had another one in my size in stock, without any security tags on it, so I took them up to the cashier to exchange. She had a bad attitude from the start. I explained to her the problem with the first one and how I assumed the holes were from the security tags. Her immediate response was "We don't security tag our t-shirts." I had just told her I had bought the t-shirt in New York, but I politely said to her again, "I bought it at a different store," and explained to her that this one was closer to where I work (although still not that close, 20 minutes each way is still kind of far to go). She processed the exchange, and was about to hand me the new shirt when she noticed that the cash register was trying to charge me another $2.98, which was over 10% of the cost of the shirt. She called another person over and they determined that the register was trying to charge sales tax on the new shirt even though there wasn't a sale going on. Her response was, "you need to pay this to get the exchange." While I have no problem with the amount ($3 isn't that much), I was outraged at this act of extortion. The sale happened in New York (which doesn't have sales tax on clothes, which was the cause of the whole problem), this was just an exchange, and trying to make me pay over 10% (which is higher than Illinois' sales tax rate anyways, something just wasn't right about that) to fix a problem that they caused anyways with their poorly placed security tags seemed to me to be extortion. I told her I was refusing to pay it, and she just said there was nothing she could do to override it. Now, I worked at Target in high school and college at the service desk and I thought of three things off the top of my head she could do:
1. She could have voided out the transaction and just given me the new shirt with my old receipt, and sent the bad shirt back as a floor defect;
2. She could have voided the transaction, completely refunded the defective t-shirt, then done a new transaction to sell me the good shirt, and adjust the price to 10% off so that when the sales tax was added back on, it would equal the amount I had just been refunded;
3. She could have entered in that I paid the exact amount in cash, finished the transaction, given me the shirt and new receipt, and then just stuck a note in the cash drawer for the accountant stating that the cash would be $2.98 under and explaining why.
She continued to maintain that there was nothing she could do and after about 3 attempts to explain that there was no sale going on and that I should not have to pay more to fix a problem they caused and that I would have no problem paying the tax if I had just changed my mind and decided to get a different shirt, but since they caused this I shouldn't have to pay, I finally told her to just take the shirt back and give me a refund. She hesitated at first, but finally did it, although with a very bad attitude. As I left the store, my plan was to just wait and get a new shirt the next time I'm in New York. However, on the 20 minute drive back to work, I just kept steaming about this and getting madder and madder. I had already spent more than the $3 in gas plus over 40 minutes of my time to have to go back to fix this problem, I was damned if I was ever going to spend any more of my money at the Banana if that's how they're going to treat their customers. So, I got back to work, pulled up their website, and sent them an email explaining the situation and letting them know (politely) how pissed off I was at that poor excuse for customer service and that I was "disinclined" to ever shop at their stores again. A few hours later, I got a generic email back from them with a vague apology for my "disappointing experience" and an invitation to call them to discuss it further. If I had 20-30 minutes to spend on hold waiting for the next available operator, I would have called them in the first place. At this point, I was over the whole thing, but this got me upset again, that they really don't seem to value customer service and they certainly can't count on me shopping there again if they're going to treat people this way. I figured that they were doing this on the assumption that I probably wouldn't bother to call and they could forget about the whole thing. So, when I got home, I called them, and got a person after only about 30 seconds on hold. I told her the story and expected an apology, and she started arguing with me about the sales tax. Now what I didn't tell her is that I had worked at the service desk at Target and whenever we did an exchange from somewhere with a different sales tax rate, we never had this problem. The computer calculated the sales tax based on the subtotal, and if it was an even exchange, as my transaction was, it wouldn't matter what the sales tax rate was, any percentage of zero is still zero. On top of that, we were instructed to always take care of the customer, and if a transaction had ended like mine did with Banana Republic (losing the sale because of a $3 dispute), we would have been talked to. I didn't bring this up because I didn't want her thinking that I was trying to exploit what I knew about customer service to get something from them. Really, all I wanted was for the manager of the Old Orchard Store to find out about this and know that I would not be shopping at that store again (I will shop at BR again, I wasn't fooling anyone about that, but I'm definitely not going back to that store, I do have standards) because of his employee's actions and attitude. I couldn't believe this woman was trying to justify the experience. I gave her the same argument, there was no sale, and even if there was, the total sum was zero, so even if our sales tax was 20%, the amount of the tax should have been zero, there was no reason for their computer to insist that I should pay any other amount. She continued to try to argue that it was "state law" and there was nothing they could do, and I mentioned my ideas above. She said that they couldn't do that and just as I was about to hang up, she changed the subject and did agree (how generous of her) that I was right that I shouldn't have had to take the shirt back and deal with this in the first place because of their poorly placed security tags, and would I accept a $20 gift card? I said sure, because I'm not dumb, even though she really didn't seem to understand what was bothering me about the whole thing in the first place, and it wasn't until she took my information and hung up that I realized that she hadn't even asked for the identity of the store that this had happened at (I had the refund receipt with me with the Old Orchard Store number on it, and I did reference it in the email, but who knows what they'll do with the information, they'll probably just write it off as an expense to satisfy a crank and do nothing to improve their customer service), so what I really wanted probably wasn't even going to happen. So, when I get the card I'll go buy the shirt again (although not at the Old Orchard store), but I really am kind of over the Banana at this point. Target is barely a step above Walmart and we never would have let this happen, I can't believe that Banana Republic is fine with that level of customer service. So, it was a disappointing cap on the New York experience, but there's always H&M for next time.