I’ve been shopping at the Bay for ages now. For me it is the default place to go for socks, underwear, hats, gloves and Chris’ shirts. I get points on my credit card, which I exchange for HBC (Hudson Bay Company) certificates. I take my certificates to the Bay and exchange them for said socks, underwear, hats, gloves etc. Apparently not too many other people do the same since whenever I get to the cash there is some confusion as to how to cash these certificates. There is a little bit of head scratching, and typing into the cash register and saying “ugh, that did not work” and then another more experienced cashier is called. If I am lucky she will know how to process these (they should be processed as cheques, though processing them as cash works too), if she does not know they phone or call the supervisor. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes but it is all in good faith and I am off with my merchandise.

Today I went to get some new clothes for a friend’s wedding next week. I only had an hour or so before I had to be back home so Chris can go to his NaNoWriMo write-in. I got what I needed and went to the cash with the woman who helped me pick it out. There were three servers at the cash and one of them knew how to process the certificates. They double checked a list to make sure these are valid, but the list said noting about this particular type. In any case, they were really helpful and relatively quick processing my payment.

I was about to leave the store when my eye caught some sweaters. I’ve been out of warm clothes since I can no longer wear neither my pre-pregnancy nor pregnancy sweaters and I’ve been freezing at work because of it the whole week. In any case, I’ve picked up some more merchandise and headed for the nearest cash. I pondered that cashes at the Bay are unusually slow given the low ratio of customers to employees. Since the closest cash was busy I decided to go back to the first cash I used since at least they would know how to process my certificates. The lady that had originally helped me started processing the certificates when a new one looked at them and said that they look photocopied. Roll the ol’ eyes. She took over from the first lady and started moving them around and looking at them sideways. At this point I could do one of three things. I could pay with cash, I could leave in a huff or make her take them.

If she were just cautious I would have probably been nice and done one of the first two things. However, she really seemed to be convinced that I had photocopied them. This offended me and I was going to make her go through the process. So I asked what she is going to do about it. She fussed around with the certificates neither processing them nor giving them back. Eventually the manager showed up. He never saw these certificates before (unlike the cashier who still insisted that they were photocopied) and since he could not see any security device in the paper he said that they can’t accept them.

So I said, well, is there a way for you to actually confirm or deny that these are valid certificates, and he was not sure. He did not have a phone number he could call to verify the validity of the certificates even though they were numbered. At this point I told them to call the customer service number on the back of my credit card. They did and passed me the phone since I had to type in my number and talk to the customer service. After being on hold for about half a minute, I got a pretty helpful clerk who agreed to talk to the Bay manager directly. She told him that the certificates should be scanned in as cheques at the cash at which point they are electronically verified to be valid based on their number. Great!

Except the Bay procedure is to scan them in as cash and then rescan them at the end of the day as cheques. There was a bit more back and forth between the cashier and manager as to what they should do but since I was not about to leave my credit card information with them until the evening just because their system is stupid and they could not (now that they’ve found out from the credit card company how to confirm that the certificates are valid) refuse to take them. The manager ended up signing the certificates, the cashier processed them and I was off not in a huff but in a badly annoyed mood.

Though the cashier could have been nicer, it is really neither hers nor the manager’s fault. Whoever made the policy to scan the certificates in as cash rather than cheques made the decision to bypass the security system that the credit card company put in place. There really is no way for cashiers, or their managers, to know whether the certificates are valid until the end of the day. They can hassle the customers, lose them and waste their own time (as they did with me today) or they can take any old piece of paper and hope to not get ripped off too badly.

For me, I don’t really know what to do. When I get crappy service, I usually stop patronising the place. Furthermore, since the core problem is with the system (store is getting ripped off on regular bases and is doing nothing to help their cashiers discern valid payment from fraud) and not with an individual cashier, I am likely to encounter this again if I go back to the Bay.

I’ve looked through other certificates I can get for my credit card points and none of them are as convenient given my somewhat set consuming habits. I’ve been buying the same sundry items at the Bay with the same certificates my entire adult life so switching now and shopping at Sears or Wallmart is really not appealing to me. Up to now I liked shopping at the Bay, the products are decent and if you keep an eye on the flyers and shop on weekends, sales can make the prices reasonable. With my certificates in the mix, I was laughing.

Ahh, the trials and tribulations of middle class. At least I can say that I have a good life when my biggest irritation of the day is a 30 minute altercation at the ladies lingerie cash.