The Rewards Card – Who REALLY Benefits?

You can call them rewards cards, membership cards, wellness cards, preferred customer cards, or any of dozens of other names.  Just don’t call them favorable to the customer.  As previously mentioned in a past blog, Staples has been using their rewards cards to link to credit card numbers and from there link to email addresses.  The sad thing about all this is that there is NO WAY to opt out of this at all!!  At least that is the information that I got from them before the BBB shut down my claim.  Certainly, linking credit card information to rewards cards without customer knowledge is not only a scam, but is just bad business.  But then again, what isn’t unethical with anything Staples does?  Welcome to this blog (as if you didn’t know that already)!

My first experience with a rewards card was way back in the mid-1980’s with a company called Waldensoftware.  For those of you who are not aware of this company, it was a part of the Waldenbooks chain before Borders took over the company.  At that time the Walden group was owned by the Pre-Sears Kmart Corporation.  The store that I shopped in was located in the late Newington Mall in Newington New Hampshire.  The store was located 2 doors down on the right hand side beyond the late Montgomery Ward store.  The store was about the size of a mall bookstore at the time. More information about the company can be found at http://waldensoftware.com/

During its existence, I was a member of Waldensoftware’s Preferred Customer Program.  Unlike a similar program being run by the Waldenbooks division, this one allowed for more aggressive rewards to the point that I was toward the end of its existence getting $10 back in coupons for about every $50 I spent with the company.  At the time I was buying a lot with the company for myself and other people as well.  However, it was during one of my visits to the store that absolutely floored me.  The store manager told me that I was the top customer of ALL of the New England stores and was in the top 10 customer purchasers of the ENTIRE company.  It was at this point that the proverbial bell in my head rang loudly.  WALDENSOFTWARE HAD BEEN COLLECTING DATA ON MY PURCHASES!!

While today this is a common practice even though it is usually NOT told to the customer, it still proves that these so-called rewards cards benefit the companies far more than the customer would ever benefit.  Eventually, the company would be sold off to Electronics Boutique and would eventually close as the mall would eventually become an empty shell of abandoned stores.  The mall would eventually be demolished and become part of the retail history.  More details of this late mall can be found at  http://deadmalls.com/malls/newington_mall.html

After Waldensoftware was history, I signed up for the Waldenbooks Preferred Reader card at the local mall.  At the time that I signed up for the card, Waldenbooks had been operating two stores in the local mall.  The one closest (and the larger or the stores) to Sears was more like a bookstore, the one at the other end of the mall (now occupied by a GameStop) was more like a bookstore/software store hybrid.  While this store wasn’t a Waldensoftware store, it had about more software than its companion store at the other end of the mall.

About a year and half before Waldenbooks had closed their larger store, one of the managers had told me that I was its top customer and once again I felt that same anger that I had years earlier about the data being collected about my shopping habits.  I just wonder if after Borders closed if my shopping habits along with my email address was sold to Barnes and Noble.  I really hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.  After all, like Staples, they did lie to their customers all the time and always stated that they never “sell, give away, or rent customer information” .  So much for that when they sold my email to B&N!

One thing that always bothered me most about some rewards cards was the fact that they are charging for them.  During the final year of Borders existence, a customer could sign up for the Borders Plus card for $20.  Sadly, the company didn’t last a full year for anyone could take advantage of it.  No matter how many times they tried to push it onto me I always flatly said NO to it as I knew better that this card along with all other cards that you have to pay for are a rip-off!  Ironically, the price of the Books-A-Million card cost $20, but the B&N card costs $5 more.  How stupid do these people think we people are!  However, I will say that back when the Waldensoftware card was around, it was $20 a year until the very end, but at least I took the company for over $1000 in coupons over its lifetime.  I was also a member of the Suncoast Motion Picture Company’s card as well, which cost $20 per year, but again I made up with lots of coupons.  Originally, Best Buy charged for their Reward Zone card, but eventually got smart and stopped charging for it.  Apparently, they knew it wasn’t selling so they had to make it free.  Let me say that I was the exception to the rule for many of these cards as I did excessive shopping for many people (and was reimbursed by them + interest), but for the everyday shopper NONE of the rewards cards would be beneficial if they had to be paid for.  I think it is ironic that any company doesn’t want to collect data on ALL their customers and open their cards availability for free.  Then again companies like Staples enjoy scamming as many customers as possible which is why their card is free.  But what cost is free when you have your information stored without your permission with no way out?  That is a question I will touch upon from time to time.

Up Next:  Selling the FREE Staples Rewards Card (or not)

Who’s Drawer is It Anyway?

Handling money shouldn’t be brain surgery.  You enter the amount the customer gives you and you read the amount of change to give the customer back.  Sound simple, right?  Why is such a major issue in all retailers.

Back in the days of Woolworth, every register was a community drawer.  This means that if you have a code to run a register then you can run any register in the store.  At the start of an employee using a register, they would input their employee number into the register and sign the sheet that hung on the side of the register.  Along with their signature were spaces for time on and time off the register.  The time function could be accessed with the press of the time key on the register.  Occasionally, an employee would forget either to sign the slip or forget to put their employee number in the register.  However, this was rate to happen, but it did happen.  At the end of a busy day, it would not be uncommon to have at least 3 sheets stapled together with names of those who signed into the register.  Each sheet held 10 names which meant at least 30 different register changes during the day.  When the registers were upgraded, the sign in sheet disappeared and the employee only needed to input their employee number at the start of using the register. 

In the old days, if there was a problem with the register, either an overage or shortage, it was not uncommon to unroll the journal tape and examine each transaction to find where the error occurred.  Most times the error was found, but occasionally it wasn’t.  The newer registers unfortunately didn’t change this at all.  When the guilty party was found (if found), the employee was confronted with the error transaction and was written up accordingly.  Since I always kept care of transactions, I never got written up during my time at Woolworth.

On the other hand, HQ treated every register like a sacred shrine.  When a cashier came in for the day, they would go to the cash office.  Normally, the employee would press a buzzer and be let into the office.  If nobody was around, a manager would have to be paged.  The cash office person *(or manager) would give the cashier a drawer with $100 in it.  It was the responsibility of the cashier to count this money and make sure it was all there.  If there was a shortage or overage at the start, it was noted on the money count sheet that was with the bag that the cash came out of.  After counting the drawer, the employee was escorted to wherever they was supposed to go with that particular drawer.  Nobody else could ring on a register with somebody else’s money drawer.  This was policy, no exceptions.  When the employee took a break, went to lunch, or did anything else, the drawer would be placed in the office with a locked cover over it until the employee returned.  At the end of the day, the employee was escorted to the cash office where the employee would count their money.  When the employee was finished counting, they paged a manager to check the drawer.  My drawer was always excellent, not off by more than a penny either plus or minus.  Other employees sometimes were not so lucky.  One day in the cash office, there were about 7 of us in there, mostly girls except 2 guys and it was VERY HOT in there in more ways than one.  No wonder shorts were preferred clothing choice.

When I started working at Staples, they did pretty much the same procedure as HQ did.  This lasted for about a year or so until the company decided to simplify their cash handling procedure.  The simplification basically made all registers community registers.  This meant that anybody could run them as long as they were programmed into the main computer as a cashier-enabled.  Of course, this created the scenario of the “I am not responsible” for each drawer.  Of course this meant that if there was a problem with a register usually the office person had to find the error.  However, one of the office managers, Karen, NEVER spent the time to research the problems and found it much simpler to pass the blame on ALL USERS of that particular register, even if they had just one transaction.  Karen’s excuse was that she was “just too busy to do her job properly”.  So instead of doing her job, she would rather have people like me, who hardly ever has a problem with their register to suddenly get a LOT of sheets to sign basically admitting to the error even though it was NEVER my fault.  What was bad about these sheets is that they were put in my PERMANENT RECORD and never removed!  I remember 1 day that she had me sign about 10 of these sheets (she had about 40 of them altogether).  When I questioned her about them, she just said to me “Just sign the F* papers!, it WON’T EVER MATTER!”.  Certainly, I should have gone along with my instincts and never sign any of them especially knowing that they were NOT my problems to begin with.   What is worse about that is that 10 years later, these same sheets were used against me in my case against Staples as part of their proof that I was a bad employee!  Talk about altering the truth to satisfy your side of the story!  Sadly, NOBODY believed me that these were not truly mine alone and I was being convicted because of somebody else’s laziness 10 years earlier.  I was always reluctant to sign these sheets and for good reason.  Unfortunately, it took 10 years and the loss of my job to find out that good reason.  Just part of the fraudulent information used against me and more proof of how low blow Staples REALLY is!

Up Next:  The Rewards Card – Who REALLY Benefits?

The 50th Post

This being my 50th post I decided at this point to reflect on what has happened up to this point.  To be honest, I am rather disappointed at where this blog sits at right now, but in other ways I am not surprised.  I really thought that coming out of the gate I would get much more support from former Staples employees as well as some employees still holding on in the company.  Instead, I have found more sarcasm than anything else at this point.  It bothers me to think that up to this point that much of what I have written has been criticized by people who may not get it or who think that I am just being lazy for not having a job at this point in time.  I expected to see more comments here in this blog, but the only comments I received was from one person and myself on my very first post last year.  It makes me wonder if people are purposely ignoring all this because they just don’t care or they don’t want to hear about other people’s problems.  I believe it is a little bit of both.  Maybe people are ashamed of being a part of this blog as they would feel personally attacked by it.  That is not and should not be the case under any circumstances.  What I present here in this blog is the TRUTH which Staples denies all the way.  Since nobody from the company has ever responded or probably ever will, I will assume they don’t care what I write because they are done destroying me for now.

Destroying me you say.  Yes, as I celebrate and not in a good way, my 3 year dismissal as of yesterday (March 18th) from Staples, it should be noted that it has been a living hell since then. 

Let’s go back to that faithful day 3 years ago.  It was around 12:45pm on a Wednesday.  It was a rainy damp day and as I had been anticipating when I arrived at work, the assistant manager was waiting for me at the door.  In all honesty, I was not surprised that I would get terminated as I sat in the manager’s office with a friend, a weasel, and a liar all in the room with me.  I actually expected this to happen long before now as the new manager who was in the store for the last 6 months had done EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to intimidate me and make my every day a nightmare.  It was bad enough that I was struggling with my health at the time, but it was aggravated even worse by the almost daily onslaught by the fiery manager.  What really surprised me during my dismissal conversation were 2 things that were told to me.  What were those 2 things…well that I will get to in a future post…stay tuned. 

All I will say about those 2 things is that it led me to file a complaint against the company with the state.  Sadly, the results were very unsatisfactory as I will explain later.  The lies that Staples brought up against me and the information about me couldn’t be further from the truth.  However along the way before my case went to trial, Staples decided to seek its revenge against me.  They decided to BLACKLIST ME,  INTIMIDATE ME, HACK MY ACCOUNTS, AND WORST OF ALL STEAL MY IDENTITY! 

Yes, you read all that correctly and in future posts I will discuss all of this.  Its bad that they wanted to destroy me, but they did.

As I head toward the 100th post, I am hoping that this blog catches fire and becomes a more widespread interest from former and current employees and anybody else who has ever shopped at Staples.  After all, the BBB closed my complaint against Staples without answering the real question of why they store credit card information.  Sad that the BBB don’t care about consumers any better than that.  Let’s strengthen this blog and make it work after all the company doesn’t even know it exists.  At least I have one savior moment in my life!

Up Next:  Who’s Drawer is It Anyway?

Credit Card Sign-Ups

Way back in the days of Woolworth, there was a lady who worked out front of the Sears department store who had the job of taking credit card applications. Her name was Barbie.  As I looked out the front window of Woolworth, I could see her 2 doors down at the end of the mall working her kiosk at the corner of the front entrance.  Most times she just sat in her chair bored with nobody around, occasionally someone came around to fill out an application.  The table she worked at had a bunch of different items on it that were given away as free gifts for completing an application.  Most times the stuff was junky stuff, but occasionally there was a gem amongst the items on the table.  Such gems were like cups with Sears logo on them, umbrellas with Sears logo on them, and other items with Sears logo on them.  Since my mother knew the lady quite well, she quite often made out fake applications to get the free items.  The reason that Barbie allowed for this was that she was paid a commission for each application taken in and paid an additional commission if the application was approved.  Even though Barbie was paid an hourly wage, she still wanted more no matter if the applications were real or fake.

When Sears and Kmart merged, Barbie found herself no longer at the Kiosk as this position disappeared and so did the commission.  She became an hourly associate until she retired from the company, but she no longer made what she had when doing the kiosk.

While Woolworth didn’t have credit cards and HQ didn’t push them, it was Staples where the credit card sign ups happened in my retail career.  When I started at Staples, there was somewhat of a push on the credit cards.  For each Staples credit card application successfully completed, the employee would receive a dollar for their efforts.  Not a lot but still a little incentive.  Originally, employees called in the credit card applications themselves, but after so many fake applications were discovered, the management had to call in the application to get an approval,  Eventually the incentive went away, it didn’t last a year and the employees no longer were enthusiastic about doing credit applications.

With interest rates when I started around 20%, the cards were not very enticing.  As of this writing, the interest rate is at 29.99% and certainly not very encouraging for the employee nor the customer.  Although, I noticed that I had around 1 or 2 credit applications per week   I guess people will always desire to spend too much and love those high interest rates.

Up Next:  The 50th Post  . 

New Feature added

I have added a Facebook like so that you can share this post with others – enjoy the new feature!

Your Receipt – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow!

Back in the old days of Woolworth, the receipt was made of REAL paper and the cash register required a ribbon to make it work.  Along with a customer receipt, the register also generated a journal receipt that was wound around a second spool that was locked in the register.  When either of the rolls turned red or green along the edges (depending on the manufacturer of the rolls), it was near time to replace that particular receipt roll.  The customer receipt roll was easy enough to install, but the journal roll required a manager to open and change that one.  The manager would then take that roll and label it with the current date, register number and their initials.  It was then placed in a bag which was taken to the office at the end of every day.

When the registers were upgraded, the old fashion dual spool system was replaced with a cartridge system that was just snapped into place.  Otherwise, the same procedures still applied and the receipt rolls were in fact still real paper.

Staples started out on real paper rolls, but was simplified by being a single roll system.  The journal was kept on record in the main office on the computer instead of a physical tape roll.  When the company swapped to the modern touch screen system, the paper rolls disappeared and was replaced with thermal paper rolls. 

Unlike regular paper, thermal paper have a waxy-like feel to it and over time, it fades.  Not only does it fade, but sometimes the print disappears completely and the customer is left with a blank paper.  It seems that the sun causes this fading and can also cause the paper to look burnt along the edges to make it look like an old fashioned colonial document.  Certainly this is not good for either the employee or the customer as the receipt is effectively garbage after a period of time.

Sadly, most all companies use thermal paper nowadays as it is cheaper and doesn’t require a ribbon.  The downside is that the receipt becomes crappy after a few days and really isn’t good for any tax records.  I really would like to see real paper come back, but I don’t see that happening anytime in the near future.

Up Next:  Credit Card Sign-Ups

Maine Human Rights Commission Screws Up Again!

This commentary refers to the following news article:

http://www.wgme.com/news/top-stories/stories/wgme_vid_11104.shtml?wap=0

I believe it is totally wrong for the MHRC to ask both sides to try and settle out of court.  In the words of Suze Orman, “Are You KIDDING ME?”  Why do people go to the MHRC in the first place?  To have lunch at McDonalds?  Seriously, when someone spends months on a case to get to this point and the best they can offer is to have them work it out between them. HA!

You can NEVER have a hostile employer try to work with a damaged employee.  It won’t work and doesn’t work.  I know first hand about this.  Employers have NO INTEREST in solving the issue at hand.  If the MHRC isn’t man enough to resolve the problem, then maybe they should be dissolved once and for all!  As I will be discussing in a future post, the MHRC is absolutely the MOST CLUELESS GROUP of PEOPLE EVER!!!

It don’t matter how bad the crime or the discrimination, the MHRC should not pass the buck to the parties involved.  If I could have done that with Staples, I would be back employed with the company again, but their lies to the commission has left me out of the employment ranks.  Yes, Staples is REALLY THAT BAD OF A COMPANY!!

Much much more to come…stay tuned….

Debit or Credit – A Risky Proposition

The concept of using a credit card seems simple enough.  You give the card to the cashier, they swipe the card through the register, a receipt pops up and the customer signs it, and the cashier verifies the signature to the signature on the card.  Simple right?  Not so, apparently for the modern retail shopper.

Back in the early days of Woolworth, the company had to different types of charges:  credit card charges and employee charges.  The credit card charges worked pretty much as explained above except that the credit card was swiped through a VeriFone 2000 terminal (long been discontinued, but still available).  After swiping the card, the employee would enter the dollar amount and press the enter key.  After a few seconds, an approval code would show up on the screen.  Every credit card was imprinted on a special form that had the card number on it, along with the transaction amount, a brief description of the merchandise, and the approval code.  It was this paperwork that the customer signed and accordingly the customer was given the middle copy.  Usually, I also included the carbons with their copy so that there would be little chance of identity theft (yes, we even considered it to be a problem back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s).  When the company upgraded the registers, the VeriFones disappeared, the manual charge slips disappeared, and the swipe device was built into the register.   At this point, the customer would sign the copy that came out of the register and we would still check signatures just like before. 

The most interesting thing about the VeriFone system was that the approval codes sometimes were odd to say the least.  At one time, a foreign country Visa card generated the approval code of “HI”.  Thinking this was some sort of error, I swiped the card again and got the same code.  After calling over the manager on duty, they agreed with me that this was probably a malfunction and that I should swipe the card a third time.  Once again the same code came up.  This time I accepted this as the code, not just the equipment being friendly.  Hopefully, the customer wasn’t charged 3 times for the charge.

The other form of Woolworth charge was the employee charge.  This meant that employees could charge items such as meals in the restaurant or small purchases against their check and have it deducted from their next paycheck.  This usually worked as implied as long as the employee had worked enough for that week to pay for their purchase.  A file was kept in the office so that the customer service person could check how many hours the employee worked to prevent an overage by the purchasing employee.  However, there were times when the employee received a voided check as they spent their entire check on purchases.  For some dumb reasons, the employee always seemed proud of doing this stunt.  There were times when employees owed the company money if they quit and they made purchases that they shouldn’t have.  Ironically, this charge policy lasted through the entire duration of the company’s remaining existence.

During my short time at HQ, I saw the beginning usage of the business credit card.  Business cards unlike personal cards didn’t have a person’s name on them, but instead the name of the company.  This meant that anyone who had possession of the card could use it with no questions asked.  So sadly, there was no way to verify who the person was using the card or verify any signature.  Because of the way these cards physically were handled, many of them were extremely dirty and thus were impossible to scan through the register.  Imprinting these cards were no better as many were damaged beyond a decent imprint.  The one thing about these cards were that we had to take them no matter what.  I believe that fraud existed quite a bit with these cards.  It wouldn’t be until my Staples existence that cards were questioned.

Now we come to the awful company of Staples.  While this company accepted all 4 of the major credit cards, it also had a variety of its own credit cards.  The personal card was meant for individuals who wanted a store credit card even though the interest rate of these cards were over 20%.  The standard business charge card allowed businesses to pay for purchases like personal cards did and at around the same high interest rate.  The third type of account was the “OPEN ACCOUNT”.  These were for customers who paid with purchase orders and wanted a detailed bill sent monthly.  The fourth type of card was the “CONVENIENCE CARD”.  These cards were the oddest of the bunch as they always produced the same approval code of “0APR0”.  As far as I could ever figure out, these cards were like debit cards for businesses, but then again I never quite understood what these cards purpose was. 

When I first started with the company, the only way that debit cards were accepted was as credit cards.  When the company changed its register system over to the touch screen system, the addition of debit card acceptance arrived.  Finally customers could use their debit cards to pay for their purchases and get cash back in amounts of $10, $25, or $50.  No more ATM fees for the customer when they could get money right at the register.  While being convenient to the customer, it created many times where there were shortages in the drawer because not enough cash was available to feed all the debit card customers. 

However, the major problem at Staples remained to be the acceptance of the four major credit cards.  Under the old register system, the cashier always had the credit card in their possession during the transaction so that they could check the signature with the card.  The new register system created quite a hassle on the other hand.  Since the credit card/debit card box faced the customer, it was possible for the customer to swipe their own card and many of them were angry when the cashier asked to see the card even though it said on their screen to give the card to the customer.  The signature that used to be on paper now showed up on screen providing a much more difficult way of comparing signatures.  More often now than ever, an i.d. was required to compare the signature to.  

However, more times than not the other cashiers NEVER checked the card or else just hit the “ACCEPT” button on the register without caring about what they were doing.  It is this sort of lack of interest that costs the company money and also creates fraud.  Even worse than that is when managers did a manual approval code without even calling the credit card company to get a real authorization number.  As with checks, I always wondered how managers could make an approval without getting a REAL authorization number.  I guess it was just managers acting dumb again.

Commentary:  Bad Ways to Take Credit Cards

Back in the days of Woolworth, the chance of getting a credit card not matching the customer was about 1 in 100 transactions.  In the Staples days, that number dropped to a mind-numbing 1 in 10 transactions of cards not belonging to the customer.  Mind you this is my accrued statistics that may not be true to every employee, but then again if the employees were to check credit cards more diligently they too would find out much fraud in the presentation of charge cards.

Back at Woolworth, it was possible to take a charge card that belonged to a spouse or parent as long as the person had a note stating that they had permission to use the card.   This note had to be dated and signed by the cardholder.  We also kept the note and attached it with the store copy of the receipt.  At Staples, this was a no-no policy.  Apparently, the credit card companies changed their minds about how the cards were to be used and be used ONLY by the cardholder themselves.

Yet, it seems that in today’s society, the credit card is not compared to anything and the card is sometimes even ignored by the cashier.  Case in point, Walmart never even looks at the card even though I purposely place the card signature side down forcing them to pick up the card.  They never ever do which is VERY BAD!  Hasn’t Walmart heard of identity theft?  It seems to run rampart lately as more and more companies seem to not bother to check the card at all.  Do these companies know who presents EVERY card?   I doubt it.  What I find even worse are those companies like Target that lets the customer swipe the card without even signing anything.  As long as the transaction is under $50, a customer could purchase a lot without having the real cardholder even know it has happened to them.

On the other side of the coin are those companies that are way too restrictive.  Such an example is the recently opened Books-A-Million store.  When you put down the charge card, some of their employees ask for an id.  I am EVEN more OFFENDED by this because they should at least LOOK at the card, which they don’t do.  Why ask for an id when you don’t even look at the charge card at all?  Defeats the whole purpose of the charge procedure!  The other big offender is Best Buy.  While Staples got rid of the inputting the last 4 digits into the register,  Best Buy continues to input the numbers and then makes the customer hit the “YES” button on the credit card pad to accept the transaction amount.  Worst part of their shopping experience is that the signature pad is so bad that it never looks like my signature.  Recommendation to Best Buy:  get better equipment that you can actually sign with better success. 

It is sad that the stores don’t do more to prevent identity theft when taking charge cards.  They should look at signatures and question them when they don’t match.  It reminds me of an employee from Staples whose name was Shakalaka DingDong (not his real name).  This employee NEVER checked the cards no matter how many times I and the managers told him to do so.  Of course, managers hardly ever cared about what the employees were doing regarding charge cards. 

My suggestion to all retailers:  DON’T BE A DINGDONG!!  CHECK THOSE CARDS AND STOP IDENTITY THEFT!!  Your life will be better for it!

Up Next:  Your Receipt – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow!