I received an electronic gift card for Safeway this last holiday season. Because it was not a plastic card, but rather an email providing a link to something you printed out on a piece of paper, our local Safeway cannot handle it, doesn't know what to do with it. Probably those employees who can read the two lines of instructions on how to redeem it might be able to do it, those who have been walked through the process multiple times might be able to do it - it is a three step process, I have it memorized, but unless I can walk around to the cash register and just do it myself, it is impossible to talk whatever new hire is manning aisle 5 through it, especially if customers are lined up behind waiting, and so I end up getting whatever I'm trying to buy completely free. That has happened twice in the past two months, and each time I diligently go and wait at a customer service counter that is rarely open and say, ten minutes later, "I think I just got free groceries" and indeed the balance on the gift card is the same as when I entered the shop, so you would think someone at Safeway might be motivated to convert this paper gift card to a plastic gift card, or just hand over the remaining balance in cash (which they definitely won't ever do, because they know they make money on the unredeemed portions of these gift cards never being redeemed), but they aren't, and don't. So today, Safeway broke me, because unless you attempt to scan the bar code on the paper gift card (step three in the process), you can push whatever buttons you want, and slide pieces of paper through whatever device you want, it won't ever subtract the amount purchased from the balance, and when you hand me the receipt and I walk out, I have just obtained all the groceries in my cart for free.
Safeway, you have broken me. I used to be an honest, upright citizen, but you have made it impossible for me to care about helping you help yourself. If you want to lose money because you allow people to bring pieces of paper into your store that have a balance on them but which to the majority of your staff look exactly like a handwritten message saying "This is a stick-up", I have more valuable ways to spend a morning than trying to get you to act like something other than a business awash in excess money, indifferent to the doltish proletariats stupid enough to hand over all this money when you clearly don't want it, because it is just a bother.
Next time I go in, I am going to load up my cart with prime rib, Alaskan king crab legs, and organic cherry juice (man, should that stuff be locked up? It appears to be more expensive per ounce than platinum). Then I'm going to choose a random aisle, hand over my paper gift card, which will clearly indicate, even if it had never been used before (which it has, at least on those occasions when I have an extra two hours to teach you how to use it), as having less value than the price of what I am purchasing. I am not going to offer help or do anything, just stare off in the middle distance as you fumble around and poke buttons on the keypad and ram pieces of paper through the check reader, anything but what you need to do, which is scan the barcode at the top of the sheet of paper, and say "Have a great day" as I walk out with hundreds of dollars worth of groceries completely free, and get fuel rewards on top of it.
Because I gave you not one opportunity, not two opportunities, but three opportunities to convert this paper gift card to a plastic gift card, or to train your staff on what appears to me to be a very simple transaction where money in my hands transfers to money in your register (and if it doesn't appear this way to you, why are you allowing your parent company to keep issuing these paper gift cards?). To your customers laking morals or self-awareness, these paper gift cards are obviously better than cash, because they can use them an infinite number of times to get free groceries as long as you stay in business. They just have to convince themselves to stop worring about trying to help you run your business. You broke me after three attempts - imagine those folks who clue in faster than my beligerant, ignorant, goody-two-shoes self.
At some point, I'll just get Safeway to deliver these free groceries to my house, also for free. Why should I spend any money or effort at all when Safeway is clearly happy amnd quite willing to get rid of every item on their shelves without reimbursement?
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