Babies 'R' Us (The Saga Continues)

Babies 'R' Us is the crack house of corporate America. I am in no way a fan of corporate America. "Buy Local" is my motto. However, I am now convinced beyond the shadow of any doubt that Babies 'R' Us is the cornerstone of evil. The Babies 'R' Us on 183 and Mopac in Austin, Texas may indeed be one of the seven Gateways to Hell. Our relationship with them started easily enough. Carrie and I went to the store just to see what was there. Neither one of us have ever had a baby, so we thought we would see what this place had to offer.

We started at the furniture section. You know just browsing around and looking at the cribs ect. We were then met with a meth addicted sales rep who talked a million miles an hour. This woman was on 10 the whole time.

Speed Freak Sales Rep: Oh HI. I am so and so. Do you need any help? I'm in charge of the furniture. I can help you. How far along are you? What are you looking for?

Carrie: We're just looking thanks.

Speed Freak Sales Rep: Do you like this one? We can box it up and load it for you. Sign here. Fill this out. I can get someone to carry it. We can discount it.

Carrie: We are actually going to need three. I'm having triplets.

Speed Freak Sales Rep: Oh My GOD!!! That's great. We offer great multiples discounts. I can load three of these up right now. Do you have a credit card? Wanna apply for a discount card? Come here and look at this book.

Carrie: What's the discount?

Speed Freak Sales Rep: 10% off of everything.

Wow. 10 whole percent. That's incredible. How can they afford to make such a discount?

Meanwhile, I'm examining the cribs and whatnot, and most of this stuff is glorified firewood which was no doubt put together by Filipino Toddlers working for 4 cents a day in some sort of Babies 'R' Us prison camp. I am not impressed.

We finally convince Speedy McSales Rep that we aren't making any decisions or purchases on that day. We make a hasty retreat to the bedding section.

I am sure there are places and things on the internet that offer cool bedding for babies. The stuff at Babies 'R' Us is so incredibly lame I can't believe it. When it comes to stuff like this, Carrie and I agree on nothing. She likes a really metro sexual modern look, and I want to decorate the entire room like the Boston Red Sox Club House. Add a guitar or two and you have a cool room. However, the stuff they have is all characters and what not. The boy stuff is super lame. We get depressed and leave.

We should have stayed gone.

Now, you have all read the blog about registering, and the blog about trying to buy bedding in the first place. Unfortunately, things have just gotten worse, and have deteriorated to the point that communication between corporate headquarters of Babies 'R' Us and The Krug Family has ceased.

You remember the three sets of bedding we managed to order?

Well, only one showed up. They forgot to ship the other two. No problem right? Just ship the other two out right?

Wrong.

We called them up and told them that only one set of bedding had arrived. We were told that we would need to re-order the other two. Our gift cards would be credited back in 2 to 3 business days. The original order would be canceled. We would also need to pay extra for shipping the new order out. The sales rep would be happy to give us 5% off of our purchase. Wow. I told them that we had received 30% off the first time. He didn't believe me. I told him to check. We went back and forth. It ended badly.

We had a separate problem with another friend of ours. She ordered several items for Carrie's baby shower. The items were supposed to be shipped here to the house. Unfortunately, some of these items didn't show up.

This made Carrie feel weird. Was she supposed to call up her friend and say, "Hey, we didn't get everything you said you got us. We don't mean to sound ungrateful, but all of it didn't show up."

Carrie wanted to make sure her friend got her money's worth, so she let her friend know. Turns out, all of the items were not shipped, and Babies 'R' Us was not concerned about it. She called and informed the online people of their mistake. Get this, they wanted her to re-submit the order, AND pay extra for shipping the order the right way. All of this because THEY didn't do their jobs in the first place.

Carrie then sent an e-mail to the customer service people at Babies 'R' Us. She let them know exactly what happened and just how disappointed she was. They told her that someone for guest relations would call her to resolve the issue.

We were on the way to a car show the other day when the phone rang.

Carrie: Hello.

Guest Relations: Is this Carrie Krug?

Carrie: Yes it is.

Guest Relations: I hear you have been having some difficulties with your registry and making purchases.

Carrie told them the whole story and got to the part about the bedding.

Guest Relations: Would you like to go ahead and re-order the bedding at this time?

Carrie: No. I don't want to. Because of the way your people have treated myself and my friends, I really don't want to do business with you anymore. They said you would be calling to make things right.

Guest Relations: Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. If there is nothing I can do, then have a nice day.

Wow. Guest relations needs to work on their guest relations.

Why are we making such a big deal about this?

Good questions. In no way do we want to sound ungrateful for all the great things our friends and family have given us. At this point, we have been given so much, and been shown so much support I simply can't believe it. We must have done something right in this world, because we have such amazing friends. However, we want to make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else.

Carrie and her mother went back to our Gateway to Hell Babies 'R' Us yesterday. I tried to talk them out of it. I told them I had absolutely no money to get either one of them out of jail. Apparently, everything went pretty smoothly. The staff was helpful, and they managed to get done what they wanted to get done...although they were not able to use the 20% off one item coupons in conjunction with the 10% multiples discount.

Their ears must have been burning.

Carrie has been talking about this whole ordeal a lot on her Facebook Page, and I can't believe how many people have had bad experiences with this company. This just confirms what I have always thought. Corporations are bad. Locally owned businesses are the way to shop. I realize that this is next to impossible in a lot of situations. However, we do try and I plan on trying harder.