While shopping after christmas at the mall several stores alarms went off while we were at checkout. The people would stop look around and no one came, so they just continued on their way. Kinda sad.

Which brings up my dad. He bought a new coat and would beep at every store. Not once was he approached for possible stealing. My mom thought it was his keys that would set it off. Since he had a new key chain. It was actually his coat. My mom found a security tag stiched in cloth in his pocket. Either the stores do not know this is being done, or many are forgetting to take them out.

I will never understand how some people just simply can't read the written word. I have seen countless people post that 10 minutes was a reasonable amount of time to review the security film. That isnt the point. The point is that the customer, you know the guy that is there to give the store money, wasnt told what was going on. There was no explanation given to him about what was going on, then no apology given for making him wait, to make up for a mistake that an employee of the store made. I guess some people just feel the need to argue about anything.

what I find even funnier is that China McDonalds puts ketchup on two of their breakfast sandwiches! What's not so funny is this seems to be the way the Chinese treat other Chinese in some service industry jobs. I go in there and they fall all over themselves giving me 3-4 packets.

I think everyone is well aware that they see a problem with the customer service person not telling him what was going on. However reading more replies make me wonder, sort of along the lines that Trevor wrote earlier, that these situations are often embellished and obviously are from the point of view of the customer. I'm not saying the original poster was lying and maybe i've just been lucky with decent service, but I have a hard time picturing someone standing there for 10 minutes without a word being said.

Still, maybe I just have more patience then most people. After a couple minutes it seems like it would be easy to ask what was going on. Even so, I always just shrug off mediocre service. There's worse things to get upset about.

I totally agree. It's funny what will set some folks off.

No they don't!

I just returned a Wii to Circuit City that I got for Christmas. The only question I was asked was if the box was ever opened, which it was not. The woman then proceeded to open the Wii box and inspect its contents anyway.

Are they accusing me of being a liar?! How dare they!

It is almost baffling how destructive the inspection process can get with some of these customer service people, isn't it?

I wouldn't have waited 10 minutes.

Late to reply but they weren't treating the customer like a thief. They were trying to get the stuff checked fast enough so that people wouldn't ask what's taking so long and then get pissed off when they think they're being accused of being a thief.

If they made an excuse at the beginning and then someone waits 15 minutes, they're going to think nobody is doing anything and forgot you since how long does it really take to remove the security stuff? When I get the stuff from costco in those things it's about a minute because I don't have a key for it and have to use scissors.

Most people aren't going to be satisfied with, in their mind, accused of being a thief or having to wait a long time for someone to open a security thing that takes a couple seconds.

Even if they did tell the OP what they were doing in the beginning, would that mean we wouldn't get another thread saying how they were checking the tapes because they thought he was a thief? It would be pretty much the same post.

I'm not the OP, so I can't say how he would have handled the different approach. I know, however, from my own experience, that most people are quite reasonable if you communicate well with them. If you explain to people what's going on, most people will patiently wait for you to finish whatever it is you're doing. I agree their policy was reasonable, and that 10 minutes is actually an impressive turnaround time for checking the security footage. It's the lack of communication that is the problem here. You'd be surprised how much more accommodating people are when they feel they're being treated with a semblance of respect.

I've been to enough stores and restaurants to see lots of people freak out over nothing, communication or not. I'm sure others have many stories to offer also.

So what you're saying is that because many customers are assholes, the store is justified in treating their entire clientele like shit?

Couldn't have said it better.

And that is part of the whole problem to begin with.

It might be part of the whole problem.. But are we going to stand-up and fight for our customer rights? Should we hold a protest? Anyone want to Picket? It won't happen, these corporations know we need them (i'm talking toilitries, food and clothing, not DVD's and TV's...but people will still put up with bullshit for those too...)
None of these things matter anymore, because people need things at the store, we NEED these buisness' to thrive. Unfortunatley, customer service in some cases is going to dwindle, if not nearly die.

Yes, we need certain items to survive. But we dont need to buy them from any one retailer. If one retailer treats there customers like shit, why should anyone shop there? There are plenty of other stores to shop at, or someone else will fill the void.

Prices are just one of the many reasons so many businesses have gone under in the last decade. Like I said previously, corporate employees are too distanced from feeling the effects of alienating customers to care. If you want good customer service, it can generally be found with ease at locally owned and operated businesses because those people live and die by whether or not you buy from them. Corporations bypassed these nuances by relying on their bulk purchasing power to undercut their local competitors, and it worked for quite a while because we took the better price over friendliness. Now that it's gone on for an entire generation and rudeness has supplanted indifference, we are no longer satisfied with the standard corporate store experience.

That you missed the joke?

There are plenty of others sure, so let's flood them with our buisness. Once they're overrun with too much buisness and too many underpaid employees.. we'll just do it all over again.

A very weak one, if that.

And the cycle will continue. Way of the world around here.

If I got home and found a DVD or BR still locked inside its security case, I wouldn't return it. I'd just take a hacksaw to it.

(Always sort of wanted to do that. But no stores around me use those hard plastic cases, so I'll likely never get the opportunity.)

You don't even need a hacksaw to get these open. Most will open with a flat headed screwdriver and a little pressure in the right spot.

What pisses me off is all the added security to begin with. I've seen Kmarts keep $20 titles locked up, while they're in bins and open racks at Walmart. It's stupid. Then there's the issues of nobody with a key actually being around when you want something, or they're pissing around trying to explain something to some technophobe. I've seen $15 BDs locked in the security booth in front at Sam's Club, and it literally took 5 minutes to get somebody with a key and another 10 for the dumb bitch to actually find the title. What about those shitty cable things they use on box sets at some places? THEY RUIN THE BOXES HALF THE TIME!

Let us not forget those lovely built in security devices that set off the alarm when the cashiers forget to disable them. I can't stand the old bats working the door at Walmart. We're walking out with a whole goddamn cart full of groceries and the thing goes off. "See the receipt? See the item? Now piss off." No, they insist on writing a bunch of shit down and going to a register to disable it. Last time somebody tried that shit, I bitched at them and they just handed it back to me. Why harass customers and hold things up unnecessarily?

I got denied a price match once because the item name on the ad didn't say "2-disc edition" for Transformers HD-DVD. HELLO? There's only 1 edition of it, assholes.