The Computer Won't Let Me

I hate it when store personnel use that excuse to not honor a discount. Most of the time it's not true, it's simply that they don't know how to do it. The other day I had a Publix coupon for 0.55 that had expired two days earlier. I asked the assistant manager if she would approve it for me to use. She said no "the computer won't accept it". She was lying of course because we know that Publix computers accept anything. I wish she would have just told me the truth, she wasn't comfortable approving it. I could have asked another manager who always approves my requests and I'm sure he would have said fine go ahead use it. I don't usually use expired coupons and always ask approval to do so, but I did use it anyway because I was mad she lied to me. The computer accepted it. duh.

Then last night we ran an errand to get a new all in one printer scanner copier fax machine. It's one I've been watching for a price drop since before Christmas and this is the first week its been on sale. Except it was on sale at Office Depot, and I wanted to get it from Staples to get an extra $50 off for recycling an old BJ200 Canon printer, and also to use my staples rewards coupon. So I grabbed the OD ad and found the last printer on the shelf and the assistant manager tried to assist us. He said the "computer wouldn't let him" combine the discount from the price match and the recycling discount. We reviewed the policy for price match and it didn't exclude any other offers so we said it should be honored. But the computer wouldn't let him do it. It was a frustrating experience because he insisted in his 4 years of experience it couldn't be done. We asked him if he was comfortable letting us walk away and get it from Office Depot and he said he was sorry the computer couldn't combine it.

So as we walked out we called 1800STAPLES and got some help from customer service and they said it was a combinable deal and it should be able to work, and if he couldn't get it to work the manager needed to just do it manually. duh. That's what we were trying to tell him he should do in the first place. After a 15 minute call he finally led us over to a register to try to sell us the printer. He ended up having to just use a generic $50 discount rather than the recycling discount, but we ended up walking out of there with the printer for $146 when it was regular price at $299.

So my point is, don't believe sales people when they use the excuse "the computer won't do it", because it's a lie. They just don't know how to do it.