On my latest trip to Lincoln City, Oregon I stopped at Walgreens to buy my favorite beverage of choice while traveling: Arizona Iced Tea. I’ve been to this Walgreens on a previous trip and have been to Walgreens many times in other cities I’ve visited in the states. I know they stock Arizona Iced Tea!
Arizona Iced Tea used to have more flavors in bottles with really cute designs on them. These days they’ve dwindled their inventory to the 99¢ cans that include green tea, raspberry, lemon, and Arnold Palmer half/half lemonade iced tea. They also carry the sugar free versions of some of these and a few fruit punches that don’t really appeal to me.
Let me add that the 99¢ price tag is on the Arizona Iced Tea sold in Canada. With the exchange rate, this is about the only American product that’s a better deal to buy in Canada!
Even though they don’t offer the selection that they used to carry, I know I can always find Arizona Iced Tea in the coolers at Walgreens.
In late May/early June I was in Lincoln City for four nights, once again staying at the wonderful Ester Lee. I was running low on iced tea and headed to Walgreens to buy more to tide me over the rest of the day and for the drive home to British Columbia.
While walking to the coolers where drinks are kept, I wandered down an aisle and spotted Hawaiian shirts for $12.99. That’s a pretty good price! Really cute shirts, with retro Hawaiian shirt designs. I liked the one with the woodies and surfboards, and looked for a medium size, because I wasn’t too sure if these were men or ladies sizes. They only had a large. I decided to buy it anyway.
I’m OK with wearing shirts that fit too big.I can always tie in a knot so it’ll fit better. After all, that’s what people do with Aloha shirts.
I also chose a medium sized shirt with hula dancers.
I found my iced tea, headed to the cashier, paid with my credit card, and left.
The iced tea went into my cooler for the drive home and the shirts stayed in the plastic bag. When I arrived home and unpacked, I pulled the cash register receipt out of the bag and noticed that the shirts had rung through at $15.99, three dollars more than listed on the price tag.
As you can see on the receipt, the incorrect price is charged for the shirts.
Ripped off $6!
And that’s $6 US dollars. My credit card charges an exchange rate plus 2.5% foreign transaction fee. Yikes! See my post on life with credit cards. Luckily the Mastercard I’m now using for traveling gives me 3% cash back on foreign transactions so that pretty much evens out the transaction fee.
I called the customer service number for Walgreens and explained what happened, hoping they’d refund the $6. Unfortunately, all they’d offer me is Walgreens points on my Walgreens card. I don’t have a Walgreens card. Walgreens is not in Canada. No card, no points.
What to do? I’m frugal. I like to get my money’s worth. Or at least actually pay the agreed upon price!
In Canada the scanning code of practice is to punish retailers who ring items through at higher prices. It means getting the item free if it’s under $10, or a $10 discount for higher priced items.
Anyway, I couldn’t find a similar reporting agency in the states, so I decided to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau to see if they could help me get a $6 refund.
I’m impressed how quickly Walgreens moved to fix this situation!
Victoria Kroeger from Walgreen’s Portland office called me on June 13, 2019 and we had a nice chat. She apologized for what happened when I called the customer service line. Apparently the staff are supposed to first offer Walgreens points. If that’s not acceptable to the customer, or if they don’t live in America and have access to Walgreens, then they are authorized to offer a refund. She’d contacted the Lincoln City store to get them to fix the pricing in the cash register on the Hawaiian shirts. I was offered a $25 Mastercard gift card, which was more than fair to me,
Great customer service recovery Walgreens! Excellent!
Yes, I’m a happy customer! With some new Hawaiian shirts!
And this was all for a relatively small dollar amount. Way to go! People share customer service stories on the Internet. Most companies would probably prefer a nice review than complaints.
Other companies could learn from Walgreens. For example, Envision Financial sucks. They thought it would be a better decision to lose two customers and a business account over a dispute of less than $20.
Yup. Some companies have more dollars than sense!
Thanks again Walgreens for your excellent customer service and customer recovery!
