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mink-e

mink-e

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I had a really bad experience that I've chronicled over at http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35453&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=400 and I'm putting a letter together to send to corporate. I just would like some suggestions for alterations or what I can add to the letter. Any constructive suggestions/criticism is welcome.

Dear (whoever),

I am writing you to express disappointment and concern regarding my trip to your Toys R' Us store in Colorado Springs on the morning of Sunday, October 24th. I had come to your store to take advantage of your Buy 2, Get 1 free sale on video games. I wanted to make sure that I would have a good selection to choose from, so I arrived at about 10:50am, which is ten minutes before the store opens on Sundays. When the store opened, I went straight back to the "R Zone" to get some games, and I saw somebody being checked out with a couple carts full of games. At first, I thought that it might be a transfer of some games to a Denver store because I'm sure that all your stores were anticipating being swamped with such a sale. I attempted to pick out three games, but you were unfortunately completely out of stock on both versions of Mortal Kombat: Deception, even though your store had cases indicating stock on the shelves. At this time, I heard another customer become rather aggravated about something, so I went to find out what was going on.
At this time, I discovered that the person I thought was may have been getting a stock transfer, was actually purchasing what ended up being almost $30,000 in games, in a purchase of almost $29,000 and a second purchase of almost $300. I thought I may have mis-read the display, but the gentleman sounded rather proud of this fact, as he will be able to make a good amount of money reselling these games. It was then that this person said that he had an arrangement with the management of the store to get in before opening and purchase the games every year. Unfortunately, he purchased just about every new game you had in stock. Instead of having the good selection that should come with being one of the first people to get in the store the morning the sale started, I had the selection I would have expected if I had come in at 4pm on the Saturday of the sale. The only game you had in stock that I wanted was Burnout 3, which is a far cry from what I expected to see.
From what I have read on various internet message boards, I thought that management had been instructed to stop exactly this kind of thing from happening in the interests of better serving your customers. The fact that this gentleman expressly said that he was going to resell these games confuses me even more. In the unlikely event that this was approved through management, then I think your store has done a completely unacceptable job of keeping stock. If you knew this person was coming in, I would think that you would be prepared and have more stock so that customers like myself would not have to feel that they wasted a trip specifically to your store, when I could have come back later in the week and had the same and probably even a better selection. My trip to your store was the only time I left the house Sunday. What was supposed to be a relaxing day with a quick trip out ended up in my spending close to an hour waiting to find games I could actually buy, and leaving utterly disgusted and dissatisfied.
This experience has essentially destroyed any thoughts of customer service that I may have had with Toys R Us. I have told several friends about this experience including some people who run various game discussion boards, and they have all said that they may not shop with Toys R Us again if this is not dealt with properly.
I truly hope that this has been a mistake and that you will go to some lengths to make sure it never happens again, because I really appreciate the value that Toys R Us makes available to shoppers like myself.
 
Wow, great post/letter - make sure you identify a store # if you can find it out (maybe on a receipt?) and just for fun, send a copy to a local paper :)

edit: I guess I could say the formatting looks bad, but of course its probably cause of just copying and pasting it here.
 
Nice, maybe you can get the R Zones sales managers name and include that also. Just call up the store and ask customer service who was the manager on Sunday.
 
That just sucks, theres no other word for it

Actually there are many other words for it i just cant use them on CAG
 
Well,... I think your explanation is a bit damaging.
You do not need to mention your plans of returning games later in the week, and such.

Otherwise,... what the store is doing is illegal,...according to the sale,.. and thier corporate hq.

They can be fined, and the manager can be dismissed from thier duties,.. if this proved to be true.


You may have a civil case against the individual store as well.

It's all in the proof though.

I'd have someone edit your letter, and I'd be on the phone with their hq, instead of writing this.

Good luck.
:)
 
Is Circuit City really matching the sale?

On topic, I'd clean it up a bit. There are some grammar problems with it (not alot, nothing a proof read wouldn't catch).

I'd also mention something about the manager trying to keep you quiet by promising to hold some games for you later in the week.
 
[quote name='mink-e'] I have told several of my friends about this and they are all very curious to see what your response will be to this complete lack of customer service and they have told me that they will follow my lead should there be nothing done about this problem.[/quote]

You should say you posted this on a video game website that has 20,000+ visitors

But good letter overall.

Feel bad for you, they should totally not allow this to happen anywhere. Is CC really pricematching?
 
My question is why did they let him in. And the only answer I can come up with is that he is giving them a share of the profits. Keep us informed I have a feeling there will be an entertaining ending to this one. As far as letter critiques it is way too long. Keep to the damaging bits it will make them stronger if they are not buried in a mountain of text. BTW where are you from?
 
The original post, for lazy CAGs...

[quote name='mink-e']I'm curious to see if anyone else had this happen to them. I got to TRU about ten minutes before they opened, so I was definitely one of the first people in the store. As I walked back to the R Zone, there was already a guy checking out with $30,000 in games in his cart being rung out. Obviously, this left pretty much nothing by $hitty games for everyone else. When me and another guy tried to complain, the guy buying the games explained that he had an arrangement with the store to do this every year. I tried to complain to the Asst. Mgr. and got absolutely no results. The guy behind the counter said he'd hold anything for me that I want, since I was doing this and was going back later this week to get DOA. Needless to say, I'll be getting ahold of the manager when I go back. I don't have a problem with them having an arrangement with someone, but at least have something for everyone else to get. It looked like I got there at 4pm, not 11am.[/quote]

Send the letter, but do NOT tell them that you're going to return the games. Do NOT do that. You don't want to make yourself look bad at all in the letter. Other than that...go with it, and hope for the best.
 
I've worked retail. I've also been the aggrieved customer writing the letter. In my experience, letters like this burn their way through corporate like spicy chili through a delicate intestinal tract.

The only things I might add are the manager's name, if you happened to catch it and/or spoke to him/her, and the specific address of the TRU you went to.

You may also mention that some of the friends you shared it with include members of online forum communities. That equals bad press in a major way, and will likely lead to a much more satisfactory outcome.

Otherwise, it is a very well-written letter. To the point, terse, without being stark raving mad.

My prediction: A few TRU bucks or whatever the hell they call them, and/or a coupon to avail yourself of this deal at a future time, after restock.

My guess is the manager gets a kickback from the guy buying them for resale. Hope corporate investigates that.

EDIT: Someone above suggested you call. Don't. Letters take more time to write, which translates at corporate as you being that much more pissed. Call as a followup if you don't hear from them within one week to ten days.
 
[quote name='drone8888']Well,... I think your explanation is a bit damaging.
You do not need to mention your plans of returning games later in the week, and such.

Otherwise,... what the store is doing is illegal,...according to the sale,.. and thier corporate hq.

They can be fined, and the manager can be dismissed from thier duties,.. if this proved to be true.


You may have a civil case against the individual store as well.

It's all in the proof though.

I'd have someone edit your letter, and I'd be on the phone with their hq, instead of writing this.

Good luck.
:)[/quote]

A. They did nothing illegal, simply against policy.

B. On what basis in God's green Earth do you think he has a civil case? Because they didn't provide him with the selection he wanted??

C. A letter is always a better way to start, its much more professional.

But to the OP... that really does suck balls, although I can understand the manager allowing it to happen. Instead of having to deal with little kids all day long, he gets a quick and easy $30,000 worth of video games sold.
 
It's a posted ad, and therefore CC and others should honor it. I've been told that CC will honor it, with a copy of the ad in person.

About the letter, I would also suggest removing what you were going to do with the three games you were going to buy, it none of their concern, but do stress that you were there to buy three games and the current sale was what brought you into the store. What pissed you off was the fact that before the sale was offically on, someone was there cleaning out the place. Mention the guy who mentioned it was "democracy in action" or whatever BS he tossed your direction, proof that he's trying to clean them out for a profit. Without question, make sure you mention the manager trying to quiet you down, and stress that because you didn't know what was going on, you wanted to bring it to the attention of TRU management, so they would be able to determine the circumstances for themselves.

Get the manager's name, get the store #, address and phone #. See if they'll offer up their area/district manager's name too. Make sure you let them see you were there at the time the store was to open, and a customer was inside the store property before the doors were supposed to be open to the public. Also remind them that this guy's actions in cleaning out the stores screws you from trying to get a PM elsewhere at CC, since if he's cleaned the place out, anywhere that checks will tell you that they can't honor it, due to nothing being in stock.

Send a physical copy of the letter to everyone listed on the management team, a separate copy, all to the same address listed for the top guy posted in the original thread. I'd also toss an email version of it to them through their feedback link, and tell them that a snail mail copy is inbound to them as well, to every member of their corporate management.

Check it for some grammar and spelling, add in what you see here in suggestions, and I think you have them by the short hairs on this.
 
[quote name='Cornfedwb']A. They did nothing illegal, simply against policy.

B. On what basis in God's green Earth do you think he has a civil case? Because they didn't provide him with the selection he wanted??

C. A letter is always a better way to start, its much more professional.

But to the OP... that really does suck balls, although I can understand the manager allowing it to happen. Instead of having to deal with little kids all day long, he gets a quick and easy $30,000 worth of video games sold.[/quote]

Always good to hear from you, Cornfed. All good points indeed.

Wonder if he gets stuck with them for some huge-ass Ebay sale(s) that goes/go south, since would you want to take a $30K hit on your revenue for taking them all back, if you were the manager?
 
from other threads, it sounds like stores are encouraged to move as much stock as possible (hence the buy now and return/exchange later) in any event, it is pure speculation whether the manager gets anything from toysrus directly from moving much stock or from the reseller
and a nonissue,

agreed that:

The only game you had in stock that I wanted was Burnout 3. I proceeded to purchase two copies of Burnout 3 and a copy of Tony Hawk's Underground 2 with plans to return a copy of Burnout and Tony Hawk later this week to get games that I actually want.

should be deleted
 
i agree with cornfedwb...i don't know what you are going to get from them. They just made a crap load of money off one customer. I feel your pain but it's impossible to hit every CAG deal with 100% sucess...trust me :whistle2:(
 
Wow, good luck. If you can request to be there when he gets fired, and if possible take a picture of him/her getting pwned. I will paypal you for that!!! lol. But seriously good job standing up for us hard workers. Put that shaq fuing bastard in his place.

mink-e=Official CheapAssAdvocate (OCAA)
 
Damn...thanks for the quick input. Before I send it off, I'll have my wife go over it as she's an editor.
I've edited the letter in the OP and taken your suggestions about me returning the games. I've also added a short paragraph at the end stating how appreciated the sale is. Whaddaya think now?
 
[quote name='vanlandw']i agree with cornfedwb...i don't know what you are going to get from them. They just made a crap load of money off one customer. I feel your pain but it's impossible to hit every CAG deal with 100% sucess...trust me :whistle2:([/quote]

Are they really making a lot of fhim though. I would think this kind of sale is a ploy to get real customers in the store and doing their non-gaming christmas buying as well.
 
[quote name='mink-e']Damn...thanks for the quick input. Before I send it off, I'll have my wife go over it as she's an editor.
I've edited the letter in the OP and taken your suggestions about me returning the games. I've also added a short paragraph at the end stating how appreciated the sale is. Whaddaya think now?[/quote]

Might want to toss in the bit that he's prevented you from doing a PM elsewhere, since this guy cleaned out everything they had. If it was a normal Sunday morning at open of business, they would have things in stock you could PM. Now you're unable to do that, with all their inventory gone.
 
As I've said before, I can totally see the upside to having thirty grand in sales within the first half hour of being open. If it's something that was run by corporate, then good for them. By that same token, they should have been prepared so they could make even more money from more customers. It's just good business sense. Instead, everyone else gets screwed and there is absolutely no way that we could have gotten in before him. With how much he picked up, I'm guessing that he must have been there at least a good half hour before opening. Still, if there was another TRU in town, I would have absolutely no reson to complain because I could have gone to the other store and hoped for the best.

I'm also working on getting the manager who was working Sunday, because he had "gone to lunch" before they had even been open an hour and left what appeared to be a fairly clueless Asst. Mgr in charge. When I went to complain, the guy working the R Zone deflected and tried to do damage control. When I went to look at the AM, she was already gone to another part of the store.
 
[quote name='mink-e']As I've said before, I can totally see the upside to having thirty grand in sales within the first half hour of being open. If it's something that was run by corporate, then good for them. By that same token, they should have been prepared so they could make even more money from more customers. It's just good business sense. Instead, everyone else gets screwed and there is absolutely no way that we could have gotten in before him. With how much he picked up, I'm guessing that he must have been there at least a good half hour before opening. Still, if there was another TRU in town, I would have absolutely no reson to complain because I could have gone to the other store and hoped for the best.

I'm also working on getting the manager who was working Sunday, because he had "gone to lunch" before they had even been open an hour and left what appeared to be a fairly clueless Asst. Mgr in charge. When I went to complain, the guy working the R Zone deflected and tried to do damage control. When I went to look at the AM, she was already gone to another part of the store.[/quote]

Toss that in there too, plus the fact that there isn't another one in the local area, so this asshat was draining out the only presence they had in the area. To them, the sales are the same numbers, though they may have pissed off other customers who might've done other business with them in the future.
 
Wow...that NEVER should have happened. Being an R-Zone associate, I would have called any manager of mine who allowed this to happen completely batshit crazy. That's ridiculous.

And god, I'd hate ringing that order up, or dealing with the dummy cases/clamshells after that order.

Hope TRU helps you out there man. This is the first grievance I've read from CAGers here that I felt was quite justified.
 
Very good overall. As others have said, try to include the managers name, the store number, time of day, date and all that.

I write for work, so I'll give a bit of general criticism. It would be better to tighten it up a little bit, focus on the facts of what they did wrong and less on telling a complete story. For example, they really don't need to know what exact games you were buying, or that you planned to return some of them. Just that there was a wholesaler there before opening that took them all. Also focus on the entire sketchiness of the situation.

Definitely break it up into logical paragraphs. One big block of text is hard to read.

You're also underselling the manager's involvement here. In your earlier post you said the manager had purposefully let this guy in to pillage the stock before the store opened. Make that fact very clear!

Also point out that when you complained, the manager seemed guilty. .. Implying he was in cahoots with the wholesaler. I would like an opprtunity to purchase those titles at the sale price.

When you say the guy was there with 3 carts, change that to shopping Carts. (I'm just nit picking here)

And if you want to, you can suggest a resolution. If you suggest a resolution, you'll usually get it. Like "I wanted games X, Y and Z, but they were out of stock, probably taken by the wholesaler." I would like the opportunity to purchase those games at the sale price.


Make the final paragraph sum up your experience and feelings. Because a lot of people will only scan a letter like this. If you make the 1st and last paragraphs powerful, they'll spend some time to read the rest.
------------------
"I am very disappointed that TRU allows their managers to turn one of their biggest sales of the year into a loss leader...
--------------------


Overall a very good letter! And it's GREAT that you're sending it. The more people on that list of corperate heads that you send it to, the more effective it will be.
 
In agreement with the post above. Tighten things up. Get rid of that, "I got out on that day just to go to your store" bit.
 
would luv to know where this guy is gonna unload 30 grand worth of games. hes gonna make 15 grand profit after selling all of them individually if they are all 50 dolla games
 
Yeah, make your points, present the facts, clean it up. Write it a little better. You need to be more concise. If you get too longwinded, or use poor grammar/spelling, it'll be in the wastebin. Call corporate later and follow up on it. I would consider sending it certified mail but there have been varying degrees of success with that.

My local TRU treated me like crap but not on this scale. Get the store number and the name of the manager who approved this. Not necessarily the name of the store manager, but the manager that was there at the time.
 
Somebody who has $30,000 to buy video games with doesn't need to make a profit on reselling the games. I'm guessing if you can blow that much on games, you've got plenty of money.
 
I think you are wasting your time. The bottom line comes down to sales. 30k or $100.00 i think everyone would prefer one sale for 30k, than 300 sales of 100. So its just reality of business. People will take advantage of the deals if they can, this also happened at the cc sales and any sale on cag that is listed. If you found 100 panzer dragoon saga at a garage sale for $5.00 each, you are telling you would not buy every single copy and sell it for $300.00 each on ebay. You can still order the items online so i don't see why you are complaining but i guess you never please everyone equally. I've been in retail and sales are walmart on the friday after thanksgiving, there's never enough inventory on the sale items, but that is reality, that what is the point of a sale to bring the customer in, regardless if the customer buys anything or not, at least in the person comes to the store and might buy something. And i'm guessing the sale probably had some fine print that stated that it is restricted to stock on hand..blah blah.....just my 2 cents.
 
think you are wasting your time. The bottom line comes down to sales. 30k or $100.00 i think everyone would prefer one sale for 30k, than 300 sales of 100. So its just reality of business. People will take advantage of the deals if they can, this also happened at the cc sales and any sale on cag that is listed. If you found 100 panzer dragoon saga at a garage sale for $5.00 each, you are telling you would not buy every single copy and sell it for $300.00 each on ebay. You can still order the items online so i don't see why you are complaining but i guess you never please everyone equally. I've been in retail and sales are walmart on the friday after thanksgiving, there's never enough inventory on the sale items, but that is reality, that what is the point of a sale to bring the customer in, regardless if the customer buys anything or not, at least in the person comes to the store and might buy something. And i'm guessing the sale probably had some fine print that stated that it is restricted to stock on hand..blah blah.....just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Your 2 cents sucks.

If a store would rather sell their entire inventory of their heavily advertised huge sale before the store opens, than sell it to their customers, and use it as the draw that it is, I will never, ever, ever shop there again in my life. What the hell happened to taking care of your customers? Doing something like this is screwing your customers right in the ass. You're going to have a lot of pissed off customers... At the very least you'll have a bad reputation, and you will definitely lose future customers as a result.

This is not analagous to finding things at a yard sale. They are a retail chain and they have a responsibility to their customers. If you keep pissing off customers then you won't have customers anymore. And the website does not have nearly the selection that a B&M does, and the sale doesn't even work properly there.

Oh, you worked at Wal-Mart. No wonder you don't give a shit about the customer.
 
Wow, very crappy of that store to pull that crap. I would have been just as pissed off as you, had I been in your position.

I think you have a very good case to make with TRU corporate here. The manager clearly should not be allowing his cronie to wipe out the entire stock before the store opens. I'm interested to see what comes out of this.

If the idiot manager is going to do this he probably should check out the guy and get him out of the store before other customers make it inside and see why there are no games left. Or at least tell the guy not to brag about it.

spankmenow420 - If the guy had been waiting at the door beside the OP, ran back to the games when the doors opened and grabbed everything he wanted before the OP could get anything (maybe even pushing the OP out of the way, etc.) Than the beef would not be with the store, but with that shopper (maybe a slight beef with the store for letting a customer abuse another shopper) But that's not what happened. Management let a customer in early to clean them out.
 
[quote name='cag1000']would luv to know where this guy is gonna unload 30 grand worth of games. hes gonna make 15 grand profit after selling all of them individually if they are all 50 dolla games[/quote]

I can't wait for all those games that he bought to price drop, and to see the look on his face. Get Shaq-fued Beeatch!
 
[quote name='sying'][quote name='cag1000']would luv to know where this guy is gonna unload 30 grand worth of games. hes gonna make 15 grand profit after selling all of them individually if they are all 50 dolla games[/quote]

I can't wait for all those games that he bought to price drop, and to see the look on his face. Get Shaq-fued Beeatch![/quote]
I agree, the only way this guy would make anymore than $5000 in profit is if he sold the games to many morons, but thats a lot of people that you would have to rip off, I mean a lot.
 
All I see happening out of this is the manager/employee who allowed the man in the store before it opened, the manager/employee who sold the man the games, and all other employees getting questioned in this case. Anyone who was involved in this act will probably get fired and by TRU they may get charged with something, if money was made by an employee, maybe embezzlement, but Im not sure if this case is embezzlement or not.
 
This reminds me of a sale Virgin Megastore ran 3 years back where everything in-store was 30% off, including video game consoles. I went after work one day to snag a PS2 for a friend and the girl at the register told me they had just received a shipment, and some dude came in a van and bought ALL of them (30+ units).
 
That is a good letter. I would definately mention the store number and exact location. Also the exact date of the event so corporate can pull up the records and fire the manager that allowed that to happen. My guess is someone else got a cut on the deal or they would not have let the thief in to resale all the games.

That is sad... I believe it would be illegal to allow the store to sell to a reseller especially allowing him in before the store opened.
 
Clean it up a little. Definitely cause for a letter, but like others said, they aren't going to care what games you wanted. Just tell them you got there early and you feel cheated NOT because the guy made mass purchases, but because management was in cahoots with him and allowed him in early to clean out their stock.

As for saying you may as well have been there at 4pm, why not go out on a limb and say, "I might as well have shown up next week." Maybe a little more dramatic, but probably true. By broadening the timeline, you're making it seem like a larger number of people were cheated out of a deal -- because more than likely, people will be showing up for the sale all week, rather than just up to 4pm on the first day.

That's all I see, really. Take the advice in the post and tell them you're upset, also make sure you let them know you've posted in a national forum with 20,000+ potential customers, like someone else already said. That was definitely a good point. Don't necessarily demand compensation -- if they're going to give you something at all, they'll offer it themselves, they don't want you telling them what to do.

That is how I see it anyway. Good luck.
 
Embezzlement would be if the guy was taking a cut of the actual money TRU got. Basically this would fall under bribery, and since a TRU employee is not a public official there is no legal recourse for what occured. Corporate policies not being adhered to of course is grounds for firing though, which is the only real penalty the manager could be facing.

Technically nothing occured here that even the BBB would have a problem with, but as was stated earlier TRU isn't running this sale to sell 30 grand to a single customer. A lot of people here seem to think a 30k sale to a single person is preferable, but TRU is on the ropes right now and these sales they're doing are to regain customers. They absolutely do not want to be out of stock when customers come in to take advantage of a sale that's meant to win the confidence of their consumers back. They definately will try to make ammends for the situation that's for sure.
 
That's incredibly messed up. I wonder how much the manager got under the table to allow something that unusual. I cannot see how he would do it for free.
I know when i was younger and worked for TRU that people would come in and buy thousands of dollars worth of toys/vid games but they were always buying for some foundation for kids in the hospital and they would get preferential treatment. - but a reseller? I dont see how the store director can allow that and not get in trouble. I did work for some directors who would gladly do that under the table though.
Greed is disgusting any way you look at it. The director probably thinks he will win a cookie for having such huge sales for that day. They both only see dollar signs.
 
If the manager got something from the buyer, it would be a kickback.

Kickbacks can be illegal if your company doesn't know about it/ approve it.

I doubt criminal charges would be filed, but the manager would certainly be fired with cause, and deservedly so.
 
Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions. I'm putting most of them into the letter. I'll then have my wife take a look at it and I'll probably send it out Friday or so. I'll post the final version when it's done.
 
Wow, this story is just getting too unbelievable to be true. Went back to TRU this morning to swap one of my games because I didn't have anything better to do. Went in and they had jack shite in games unless you want to overpay for the GTA DB or you want Shark Tale. I asked the guy what happened and it turns out the same bastard from Sunday cleaned them out again and spent "a couple grand". Wow...this letter is gonna be a doosy.
 
I don't know if anyone mentioned this, and I won't read 3 pages worth of posts, but don't mention message boards twice. I would take out the "I have told several friends about this experience including some people who run various game discussion boards, and they have all said that they may not shop with Toys R Us again if this is not dealt with properly." They could think you lied about that and I highly doubt they would care since they alreayd have plenty of customers. If you want to keep it, at least take out the "...they have all said that they may not shop with Toys R Us again..." because that weakens the letter.
 
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