The Good and Bad of Retail

I bought this light green Liz shirt at JC Penney's about three months ago. It was a great fit and a great color. Anyway, I wore it once, washed it, and then noticed all these little, light orange spots had popped out all over. I don't use bleach in my laundry (had some bad experiences there), and I was really careful to wash it in other light colors, so my guess was that it was just the fabric. I ended up writing the Liz site and telling them all this (in a nice way), and they suggested that I mail it back to them so they could have a look. Well, I did that. So, yesterday I get a letter from them apologizing for my bad experience and letting me know they are sending a check to cover my loss! It was a decent sized check, too! Keep in mind I had no receipt or no tags. Thank you, Liz! It's so nice to get good customer service. It seems like it's getting harder and harder to find.

Which brings me to a bad customer service experience with Toys R' US. My son received a toy for his birthday very similar to one he already had. His great-grandmother had bought it and she told us where she bought it, but didn't have the receipt. Also, she bought a warranty for it. It wasn't even electronic... don't think it even runs on batteries...and they suggested a warranty for just a plain ol' toy?? So, anyway, I go to return it, and, of course, they won't take it back without a receipt. The entire front of the store is lined with this toy. No other store sells this toy (I did an internet search.) But, without a receipt, they won't take it back. The customer service person actually suggested I go through my grandmother's credit card receipts and look for it. Um...yeah...I'm actually going to ask her to hand all that over and go through her stuff. Right. I suggested they look her name up on their computer to find that she purchased the toy and the warranty. Oh, no, they can't do that. (Rolling eyes...) So, what good is it to have a warranty if no one even has a record of it?? All I'm asking for is store credit. That's it. Or just credit my grandmother's account. Well, I haven't given up yet. Next stop: writing the president of the company. Don't know if it will do any good, but I'm going to try. One question, though...whatever happened to the customer is always right?!