Meijer Shopping Adventures at Meijer! Cincinnati Area Ohio

To Whom It May Concern:

I would like to preface my complaint against Meijer with the following observation:

First, I noticed that eight complaints against Meijer Inc. have now been posted on the Rip-Off Report website!

As I read through the complaints I noticed that there was a general theme, that they all had the something in common. Most of the reports are about poor customer service and one was about poor employee treatment.

Seven out of eight reports had comments and most of the comments were from Meijer employees who took the time to explain why the customer was wrong. In one case the employee advised that, in the event of a problem, the customer should ask to speak with the Store Director… I feel this is bad advice!

Also, I will not name the exact store I dealt with and I will not name the employee's. So with this said and without further ado, I would like to begin this complaint with a question!

Do you know what I would like?

I would like to fuel-up without having a Meijer customer walk past my vehicle with a cigarette in their mouth as they followed a Meijer employee into the convenience store. It should be noted that the customer was nice enough to put the cigarette out before walking inside the building!

I sent a note off to Meijer Corporate offices about the smoking incident and a few weeks later I asked one of the Supervisors if anything had been said' they had not heard a thing!

Have you noticed the number of people who refuse to turn off their cell phones while at a Meijer Gas Station?

The point I am making is that Meijer Employees are not paying attention and I am of the belief that the corporate office will not say a thing about this problem. Heck, if they are not going to say anything about people smoking in front of the employee at the fuel pumps… then what makes you think that they would say anything about enforcing the rules posted on the fuel pumps?

Do you know what else I would like?

I think that it would be a great idea to have the Meijer Vice-Presidents, all of them, to go through a few courses in basic phone manners with the goal that they learn basic phone skills!

The reason why I would like this is because I made the mistake of sending in a three page commentary and the next thing I knew' I had a Meijer Vice-President calling my home two, four and up to six times a day for over a week. It became like a game to this VP and he refused to stop calling.

Again, he refused my repeated requests to stop calling!

Now I hope that the Rip-Off Report Fans would go easy on me and over-look a little sarcasm' But, I guess the reason why he kept calling was because he could only afford a college degree from Harvard' if he had gone to Yale, he would have figured out that my repeated requests to stop calling were serious!

Please stop calling is a hard concept for Harvard Graduates to understand and utterly impossible for a person who went to a State University!

Do you know what I think would be great?

I think that it would be great if my wife and I could walk into a Meijer store and not encounter a Drunk who has a Firearm sticking out of their back pocket. It should be mentioned that I had no way of telling if the weapon was an Air-Soft pistol but it did appear to be a 9mm Kel-Tec.

Yes this happened just one time!

Both my wife and I agreed that it was best not to make the situation worse by calling the police or saying anything to Meijer employees' why create a panic?

Before the reader writes in with the comment that they would have done this or that... or I should have' please insert dramatic statement' just keep in mind that nothing happened and nobody was hurt and that is all that really counts!

The fact remains that this was a bad situation to be in!

Afterwards, I sent in a letter with the hope that Meijer would pull the Surveillance Video.

If they had taken the time to review the tape they would have seen my wife and I and if my memory is correct, they would have also seen two Meijer employees, one of which was off duty, speaking with a customer.

The customer was not drunk and he did not have a weapon…

People make mistakes all of the time' and the question is... what if my wife and I were mistaken about what we saw?

With this in mind I will say that this would have been a good time to pull the tape and taken a look! At the very least a good Manager would have called a general meeting and explain that a customer had written in about a person who was drinking' and who may have had a firearm sticking out of their pocket. That the customer's letter was a little vague and that the video was not very clear' but this was an excellent opportunity to remind employees about company policy.

I guess this is where a Yale education would have come in handy!

Recently, because of privacy concerns, I decided that there was no point in filling out Meijer Customer Surveys anymore and I ran into problems getting off of Meijer's E-mail list!

Meijer's website would not save my preferences so I called customer service.

While speaking with the customer service rep supervisor, I could tell she wasn't listening. So I asked her what my call was about' I ended up explaining four times that I was trying to get the emails stopped. Once she understood this, she told me that she was transferring my call to Meijer's IT department' she made a big deal out of it. I was then assured that I would no longer get Spam from Meijer and that my email address was out of the system!

Just keep in mind that logging into Meijer's website didn't work and calling Meijer Customer Service didn’t help!

So while shopping I noticed the local Meijer Store Director and he asked me if he could help me too find anything. I introduced myself and explained the problem.

Now for some odd reason, the Store Director decided to repeat what I said in a very slow condescending manner. He then stated that he knew all about me, that he had read some of my comments and then introduced me to the Meijer Vice President with the words that, 'You remember Jay and his letters don't you… the VP was the very same person who made the rude calls to my home over a year ago.

Now the reader should keep in mind that the Meijer Store Director made this verbal assault in front of the Meijer Vice-President… I would speculate that professionalism is not a prerequisite for a Meijer managerial position, at least not for Store Directors or VP's.

Before the reader comments on this part, one should ask if the Store Director and Vice-President were able too help?

The short answer is No!

After talking to them, I received a note that not all Meijer E-mail would stop. So I faxed off a letter and mentioned the CAN-Spam Act of 2003. In the letter I wrote:

I thank you in advance for your professionalism and prompt cooperation with this very reasonable request' I take great comfort in knowing that Meijer has made unsubscribing from Meijer's Spam list so easy' all the customer has to do is call and speak with four people at your corporate office' this must be done during a full moon in August and October' Then they have to write letters and speak with Store Directors and VP's and this does not include the E-mails' I am glad to hear that you have not noticed a problem with unsubscribing' I must be in error!

'I then put a Cc at the end for the State Attorney General, Better Business Bureau and Federal Trade Commission.

The very next day Meijer sent me a note that said they wouldn't be sending anymore E-mails!

Is Meijer any better or worse than other stores? No, they aim to be average!

As I wrap this up, it should be kept in mind that this report is based on my experiences and reflects my opinion. I do not expect Meijer to agree. No doubt Meijer will have different viewpoints and perspectives' All I will say is that Customer Service is a dying art and at Meijer… it done died a long time ago!

Jay
Newport, Kentucky
U.S.A.