Hooray!
The idea here was that we had to go out and spend up the gift certificates we got last week during the sale at Parisian. It's a very clever way to get you to come back and spend more money. But we had 28 $10 coupons, and they expire today, so we had to get them spent or else it would be like losing 280 bucks. I do not wish to do such things.
Anyway, off to the Summit again, and this time without the children. Stopped by Johnny Rockets again (another coupon, dontcha know) and got our burgers from a very nice young lady. She complimented us on our table manners--she'd just got though serving 20-some-odd high school girls, so it was a relief to have someone not quite so demanding. She got a good tip.
Off then to Parisian, and for once, it was all about ME! I get clothes at Christmas, and that's about it. But Reba asked if I'd like to get something, and you know what? I need a belt. So I got a nice brown/black Perry Ellis belt that was on sale. And you know what else? I even got three TIES! Just went WILD, I tell you! Of course, I got concerned because they were so stinking expensive, so I was going to put one back. "Well, you know, you could let one be a Christmas present--you never remember when we've gotten something anyway."
Hard to argue with that. She'll buy stuff and put it away, and by the time Christmas rolls around, sure enough, I've forgotten it. So the three ties stayed. (And it turns out they were all on sale--one was marked down to $6 from $35. It pays to be unfashionable, I guess.)
Now then, off to the upstairs to find more stuff for her, because for girls Christmas lasts a lot longer.
Found several suits and other stuff, some of which even fit, went to pay, and HEY! What's going on here!?
I don't know what sort of scam either Parisian or the saleslady was trying to pull, but the deal was that you couldn't get change back from the certificates, which is fair enough. But the way the saleslady started doing this was rather than total up the purchases and then discount the certificates, she was going through each item, and taking off only a coupon or two at the time. An item that might be $22, she would take off two coupons. Next item, $38--three coupons. Obviously, what this did was make the coupons worth less than their face value--if you add up $22 and $38, it comes out to $60, NOT $50.
Again, I have no idea why the woman was doing this, and I wasn't necessarily in the mood to fight about it, because it could have been that was the way she was told to do it. By the time we got all finished, we still had $20 in coupons, and wound up paying a bit over a hundred dollars.
I didn't really feel ripped off until we got downstairs and Reba bought a couple of sleepwear-type items, and the girl rang up the whole thing THEN took the discount. Grr.
SO, if you shop at Parisian, be sure to tell them to take the discount after everything's totalled, and if they refuse, raise a big holy stink about it. Or blog about it and tell people that Parisian used to be a very nice place that cared about their customers, but now apparently doesn't mind if their sales staff figures out a way to game the system so as to make a larger commission.
I stayed angry all the way home and all the way until bedtime, at which time Reba modelled her new sleepwear-type apparel, and I forgot all about everything else.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 24, 2005 09:24 AM