Is it legal for FYE employees to put a flag/note on my name in their system?

dabamus

Banned
I remembered this today as I went into FYE at Chapel Hill Mall in Ohio.(never deal with these tools unless you are making good money doing tradeins)

I went in on Sunday at 6:15PM to do some tradeins and they said that they couldn't because Akron PD wouldn't let them do trades after 6PM on Sundays.(my BS detector was already sensing trouble)

I go down to GS in the same mall and they said they would have no problems taking my tradein.

So I go back to FYE and call them on this, a bit angrily but still in control, and they said that it was store policy. I firmly demanded they take in my DVD trade since they lied to me, and the one employee came over and did since it was sorta becoming a scene at that point with the other employee getting pissed at me.

As he was ringing in the other trade the tool named Mike(I believe) that was pissed at me called me a prick and then the other employee sent him to the back to cool off.

I politely say thank you, and go on my merry way.

I came back a few days later to trade in BS: Pacific(made $10:D) and the one employee brings up my info and then she went over to the manager and brought him over. She pointed at something on the screen and asked if he knew anything about it. He said no, and to just delete it.

They wouldn't let me see it, which makes me think that one of the little bastards put a flag or note on my name in the system.

Is that legal for them to do? (especially if it goes by State Drivers License ID# if their system works like that)
 
Your best bet is to just drop it and move on. A note in FYEs system isn't some sort of mark on your record that employers look at. It's some minimum wage cashier who has issues with where they are in life, just get over it and stop going to the store.
 
What exactly would be illegal about it? It's an internal system that they use to avoid doing business with certain people. If anything, the employee might get in trouble for flagging you in the system for no reason. But frankly, I have a feeling you aren't exactly telling us the whole story, namely how much of a contributor to this scene you were.
 
The fact that you're questioning whether it was legal or not makes me think you were a bigger douche than you claim to be. Employees don't care too much and if you're nice and relax they wouldn't be insulting you so you must've have done something to cause all this trouble.
 
Sounds to me like he had every right to act the way he did. The employe LIED to him about some made up police rule, then tried their best to get out of taking a trade in when they got called for it. Most likely, the employee was too lazy to handle a customer and tried to get rid of you the easy way.
 
No. I'm not claiming to be a douche at all.

I just went back and firmly said they lied to me. No swearing or raised voices or anything.
 
[quote name='m0rningbreakfast']About as illegal to talk about someone behind their back[/QUOTE]

Actually, that can be illegal. It's called slander.
However, if it's their internal system, they could say "refusedchaos licks balls." And, regardless of whether this is true or not, he can't do anything about it. If, on the other hand, they made it available to the public, then it would be a very different situation.

As I have just done above.

C'mon and sue me refusedchaos, you ball licker! :D
 
I don't think its really worth your time to even care about something like this. That employee probably isnt going to be working there for long anyways if thats his kind of attitude towards people, so I don't think it's worth your time to even think about it too much.
 
It's not illegal. When I worked at drug mart, we had a space to leave notes on customers too if it was something the manager needed to see. I always dreaded being called over to the video counter because I knew it would be a customer trying to duck late fees and even worse if I walked over and all the employee did was point at the computer.
 
Ahh Akron... I'm going there this weekend! Maybe play some hoops with LBJ.

It's definitely not illegal to make a note in the system, if that's in fact what happened. If anything I'd imagine if they put something unnecessary or inappropriate in the system the employee would only get in even more trouble.

I would really like it if someone could elaborate on the employee's insistance that they're not allowed to accept trade-ins after 6. It sounds like a BS excuse, but I'm pretty sure I've seen people here mention something similiar happening to them in certain places when they've tried to trade in games at a gamestop or something.

No employee should ever call someone a prick, but the "I said/he said" aspect of your account seems skewed. You seem to imply that you were Joe Sunshine through the whole endeavor, but I can't help but feel that you're either glossing over your true attitude, OR you were being polite in a truly smartass way(I'd imagine if someone came up to me with a big ol' smile and said "Hello! You're a liar!" I'd lose my shit).

Most importantly though... how were you shopping there after 6 on a Sunday?
 
My guess is- you trade in crap to this store so often someone flagged you in the system for it. Employee saw it, and gave you the BS 6 pm line to get you to leave (I know I lie to customers preforming potential fraud all the time, since you're not allowed to tell them "I don't want to take this check becuase your ID is fake" or whatever the truth is.) Problem is, it was a dumb line, you caught it, and came back. You were rude (I don't care how nice you claim to be, demanding- your word- that they buy your stuff is rude), the employee stupidly got mad, and the other guy got him out and just did the trade becuase he knows taking a potentially bad trade is better than the store getting nailed for rude employees- but possibly adds to the system note.

When you came back later, the new girl sees the note, gets the manager. He knows you're cool, and has her delete the note.

What you should've done is ask if that had anything to do with the last time you were in and explain the situation, so a) the manager can tell the other guys you're a not a shoplifter looking to unload, and b) tell them how to better handle such things in the future. And space out your trade ins- coming in 'a few days later' to sell more does, in fact, make you look bad. Especially if it's a habit.
 
I don't trade crap.

I was just trading in a copy of The Matrix Blu-ray.

Nothing illegal or fraudulent. I've never stolen anything in my life, save for a plastic penny in third grade.

Maybe I was a bit rude, but they were still in the wrong for lieing to me, just like you are for lying to your customers.

Also, why wouldn't I be able to shop there after 6PM? The mall doesn't close til 630, I believe.

I may have my times mixed up, but I am not glossing things over. I never raised my voice or swore at them. I was just firm and showing a tad bit of being upset for being lied to.
 
[quote name='dabamus']I firmly demanded they take in my DVD trade since they lied to me, and the one employee came over and did since it was sorta becoming a scene at that point with the other employee getting pissed at me.[/QUOTE]

This is where you lost my vote. It's a retail store. Trading in stuff isn't a right. Businesses have the right to refuse to allow you to buy or trade in stuff. Whether it's a legitimate reason or not, that they have, you aren't legally guaranteed the right to trade in stuff or buy anything.
 
[quote name='dabamus']I don't trade crap.

I was just trading in a copy of The Matrix Blu-ray.

Nothing illegal or fraudulent. I've never stolen anything in my life, save for a plastic penny in third grade.

Maybe I was a bit rude, but they were still in the wrong for lieing to me, just like you are for lying to your customers.

Also, why wouldn't I be able to shop there after 6PM? The mall doesn't close til 630, I believe.

I may have my times mixed up, but I am not glossing things over. I never raised my voice or swore at them. I was just firm and showing a tad bit of being upset for being lied to.[/QUOTE]

Didn't say you did anything illegal- just said it might've looked that way. I think a lot of people don't stop to think about how their actions appear on the other end of the counter. Considering you did say you've done at least 2 trades 'a few days apart', unless you've never traded there before, you probably made someone suspiscious somehow. They were wrong, so was the employee with the 6pm lie (he should've just called a manager and let them deal with it), and so were you for making demands of the employee (you should've politely requested the manager.)

In any case, you can just let it go- the manager cleared it up by having whatever the problem was deleted. Direct any more issues straight to management, you'll get better results.

(And I don't care if it's wrong to lie about it, I'm not taking a check from someone with a fake ID. Checks are the easiest thing for me to work around, and I've taken enough stolen returns to jump on any theft prevention I feasibly can.)
 
[quote name='dv8mad']...However, if it's their internal system, they could say "refusedchaos licks balls..." [/QUOTE]


:lol::lol::lol:

Yeah, you shouldn't sweat it. They can place notes to communicate with one another. If they think you're an awesome customer, they can note your account. Same if they feel you're an ass. It happens more than you know.
 
When I worked at Blockbuster while in college we could leave notes on accounts. We could leave regular ones or ones that flashed yellow at the top of the account. Our manager didn't really care what we wrote and we made sure to make notes on people who treated us like dicks so we could mess around and be hard-a$$es policy wise when they came in.
 
I still fail to see how taking in a couple games and dvds is suspicious.

I have traded there a bunch before during their bonus credit deal, but they had never given me any trouble before that.

I demanded they take my trade in because they lied to me. If they had been straight with me and just said that it was company policy, then I would have just come back the next day. But they lied to me which is not good customer service.
 
Rather than making a scene, you shoulda called up corporate and complained. They might have sent you a gift card for your troubles or some other type of compensation. Other than that, I don't see how you can prove that it wasn't a store policy to not take trade ins after 6 pm. I work in a retail setting and there are certain policies that only our store enforces while another store down the block does not. It all depends on the managers and workers.
You are probably right they made some type of note on your account. When we get bitchy and pushy customers we leave rude comments on the customer's profile. You seem like just the type that would have something written on his profile.
 
My local FYE stores do this 'we took enough trades for today, try back tomorrow' routine every so often, which blows since I rarely call ahead to see if they're taking trades before stopping in.

I did threaten to call corporate on them the one time, since it seems like total bullshit to me and a way for employees to slack off.

But I never went through with calling corporate, though I still think I should have. It was during one of those 45% total credit bump promos and the damn thing was supposed to be ending a couple days later, so I wanted to get my trades in before the stupid promo ended.

Usually if the one manager is there, he'll do the trades with no problem up till about an hour before close, but if it's one of the peons they'll be lazy and say no more trades.
 
uhsheesh or whatever your name is, did you even read my post? They didn't say it was store policy. They said that the Akron Police Department wouldn't let them take trades at that time of day.
 
Back when my FYE's sold games (I since stopped shopping there and trading in stuff), they always trade in rules. No trade ins on Saturday's or Sunday's. No trade ins during the week past a certain time (5 or 6).

I didn't mind much since it was so much fun to trade in there. Like going into EB, buy a copy of Malice for $4.99 new and take it right over to FYE a few hundred feet away and get $21 cash for it or Motor Trend Lotus Challenge for $2.99 new and get $27 trade in credit for it. I really miss those days.
 
[quote name='dabamus']uhsheesh or whatever your name is, did you even read my post? They didn't say it was store policy. They said that the Akron Police Department wouldn't let them take trades at that time of day.[/QUOTE]


Umm, what?

So I go back to FYE and call them on this, a bit angrily but still in control, and they said that it was store policy.

You might not want to contradict yourself. The fact that you are kind of getting defensive in this thread towards people I am going to go ahead and guess it wasn't as calm and non confrontational as you make it out to be.
 
[quote name='dmdragon']Umm, what?



You might not want to contradict yourself. The fact that you are kind of getting defensive in this thread towards people I am going to go ahead and guess it wasn't as calm and non confrontational as you make it out to be.[/QUOTE]

They said it was store policy after I called them on it. The excuse they gave the first time I was there was that the Akron Police Department wouldn't let them take trades after that time of day on Sundays.
 
Consider yourself lucky to be allowed a Sunday tradein. My FYE doesn't take tradeins at any time at all during the weekend.
 
Businesses are aloud to keep internal records of their customers. In most states, they even have the right to refuse to do business even if its not stated anywhere.

As far as flagging you on their internal system, they are aloud to do that too. Lets say you wrote a bad check to them once. They can flag your id and not accept checks from you
 
[quote name='seanhassars']You should write your local congressman and see to it that this is rectified immediately.[/QUOTE]

This.
 
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