DeltaNeutral28

highly recommend to reach out to staples via Twitter DM and explain situation professionally. They will refer your case to the corporate office. You will get a call back in 72 hours. Explain situaion in full again. They will fix the store. Probably not in time for this rebate. If you can get names of managers or business cards that helps tremendously. Be sure to mention to corporate the disposition of store managers. Preemptively tell corporate to be prepared for a host of ridiculous excuses on the part of the store manager as to why they don't put the $200 cards out on the floor with the rest of them.

craz

I went to 2 stores today, the closest to me had zippo and the rack was full w/o any empty space. I opened the rack and saw bundles of MCs and Visas @ $25/50/100 not a single 200 of V or MC. Didnt bother the mgr as its back-to-school and the line wasnt short and the mgr was running around talking care of things. 2nd store no problem.

That said when I go out of my area there are numerous stores that dont carry any MC or V whatsoever even the 25s, and a few that had them in the past went to a much smaller rack and were only the store cards. So its possible games are being played and then possible they arent as the store is in the midst of changing its rack collection.So before calling corp know the case if you see MC 200s and all Vs but 200s good chance the store is up to no good, but if you donts ee even the MC 200s then good chance the store isnt playing games and as others I know over time decided no 200s at any time

tuphat

Given their size, I can't imagine this store can negotiate much of a break on merchant discount/interchange, they probably barely break even every time a CC is used to purchase a GC.

Happy

No question this store and the other store are playing games. They are the only 2 Staples left in our whole county which is the HQ location of OD. Someone today said he already complained to the corporate, hence he got really upset today and balked at the manager on duty eventually forced her to go back to bring out the hidden inventory.
For us, we could not care for Staples even though it is very close to home - that is about the only advantage - because there are enough ODs around that one can drop by to get more than one would want to buy - just not at a single location but still works a lot better due to the tidy overage and the much lower fee of the black Everywhere cards which also seem somewhat easier to get accepted at Publix than the gray color VGC. The latter is almost universally refused by every Publix here.

satman40

My local Staples had 5 cards, bought them all...


Next time will hide some in the store, like the managers are doing,

RedSun

This is your own guess.

But you can't be certain that other people were not interested in those $200 VGC with $1.95 fee. You have no data to back it up.

The store clerk told me that people bought them and they were sold out. So I trust the store clerk, not your guess.

If the store had those $200 VGCs, I would have bought them. I got very positive returns.

And I'll buy again this week when I get time....

You just can't guess what other people do just based on the way you do things.....

RedSun

I do not know what your point is here and you quoted me.

The GCs at grocery store are totally different situation. I can get $500 at two of my stores, both MCGC and VGC. But it does not give me the reward points at Staples. This is the reason we are discussing here.

So all Staples promotions matter to this segment of people.

RedSun

No point doing this and exposure it to the spotlight....

Pls do not do that.

RedSun

I would not want to say the store is playing game. The store manager has the discretion to limit the daily GC amount to guard sales and potential fraud. The store may not want to participate in this promotion ($0 fee). But it has to sell some. So they take some (them) off the shelf. Or all the $200 VGCs will be gone in half a day.

I would not blame them. Blame your fellow MS'ers...

DeltaNeutral28

Your tone is a little misguided and quite defensive, we're all in the same boat. For my own store, I have 100% iron clad data, as I asked them directly during the $1.99 fee week that was directly on the heels of the July fee free week for Visa. They were out by the end of the fee free week in July and didn't restock for the $1.99 week as both store employee said this as well as the manager and I happen to have a "good idea" how many were sold during the fee free week to know I have relative certainty I was not lied to, and I also have other friends locally to compare notes. As to your statement, I was suggesting the experience I had with my store as a possible explanation for others, you took what I said as the gospel, very trigger happy there. When you mention that my "guess isn't backed up by any data," for other locations, well no kidding Moneyball, it was stated as a guess to begin with.

No thanks, I enjoy being able to get 5 whenever they have them in stock on the floor rather than being denied any at all (along with my $40 courtesy credit from corporate for my 5 minute phone call). Staples was virtually dead in the water prior to last month, and they'll probably (this is a guess, not an iron clad statement of fact FYI) revert back at some point, so I plan on making hay while the sun shines instead of getting zero. To me, the shouting matches others are getting into at stores are a much bigger issue for your theory that exposure of neanderthal managers as a negative thing.

So here you're stating fact which is different than a guess, and given how aggressively you reacted to others guessing, you probably need to slam on the brakes and take a step back. My store specifically has been told by Corporate to sell 5 per day per customer, and the manager has precisely zero discretion as long as ID is verified with regards to fraud. I mentioned earlier for those interested in getting their stores to behave that if they do speak to corporate to go ahead and preemptively shoot down the notion that a store manager can throttle sales at their whim. The "fraud" issue is the store manager simply using a catch all because they can't tell you the truth that they just want to be difficult. If someone provides ID and credit card that matches, the corporate office has advised this is good enough at my location with respect to fraud. The fraud issue was with MCGC many, many, moons ago when issued by USBank.

RedSun

You can say, argue and do whatever you like.

Again, you speak for yourself, not other customer or store clerk and storage manager. To be very clear. Anything else is just your guess.

You sure can complain vs FB, Twitter. I wish you the best luck with that all. Hope that would help you to get those $200 VGCs.

Yes, if the store says they run out of those GCs, they are out. They just won't sell those to you. Case closed. Please complain. Write letter to Staple corporate office. Find store manager's name and complain about that manager. That manager may get some praise to safeguard the store for potential fraud.

Staples is just a store. Just one promotion. It is not end of the world. Staple does not have the obligation to cooperate with some people to play MS game.... We win some and lose some. And we move on.

RedSun

Ran to local Staples store. Shelf empty. Asking my friendly store manager. He said they ran out of those $200 VGCs late last week during the $1.95 card promotion. They have not received any new cards ever since. So no one bought any cards during this promotion.

Also, he said, he would honor whatever is published in the ad. The no fee GC promotion is to be used to bring in more store traffic. He does not care if they sell 10 or 200 of those GCs. He is not graded on that.

This is pretty much the same I said in the prior posts.

I bought a $500 VGC at the grocery store next door not far. I think it is pretty even with slightly lower reward, but with easier redemption.

craz

I will 2nd this, had a couple of errands to do in South Central NJ, I usually hot other areas. 1st 3 stores I went into he rack was full no empty spaces and no V-200s or MC-200s , opened the rack in all 3 tons of cards inside but they were the 25,50, & 100s not a single 200 of either type.

Wsant expecting that so I then had to use my Garmin GPS, next 2 closest stores were both out of biz. Next 2 had MC-200s but no V-200s and both had empty space on the rack where they be placed. Thought maybe the mgrs have them behind the counter and was told that they ran out completely during the $5 off promo and havent gotten any more in

Getting desperate I decided to go and work my reg route(stores) and sure enough 4/5 stuck Gold 1 was soldout and said they only got a few pkgs in after the $5 off promo. What was rewarding was being able to get 10 @ 2 stores and 5 at the other 2, they were well stocked and will hit them again tomorrow

so in the end its a YMMV, and this hobby is taking alot more time then it used to, however since this promo has been offered so often this year I dont have much left till Im maxed out with the only CC taht really matters to me. A good thing SM is coming back to life, Id rather pay that fee and get 1 MO for <$1k at Wally World, especially after being questioned by 1 of my banks why all the MOs, its been 3 weeks and no letter or shut down but that bank wont be seeing any more MOs for awhile, gonna have to open up a new acct at another bank,

I wont poo-poo DeltaNeutral28 posts but between today and yesterday I havent found any proof to what they have ebeen saying, if anything the complete opposite, could be in their neck of the woods its not like in my neck and thats with going into a dz different stores

Happy

You read my post, right? There is NO card out at all when the store opened at 11am on Sunday morning when there were PLENTY of cards from Fri and Sat prior to Sunday store opened.

The cards were NOT there when there was NOT a single card could possibly bought since this was right at store opened on Sunday morning at 11:10am. Just how the fellow MSers could possibly buy any card when ZERO card was hanging there?

Next time may be you should read more carefully before making your assumption. It just strikes me that you have NOT even read and understand what I reported as to what happened in the store of our town. From my random reading, this is not an uncommon scene, may be not in your town but definitely found in other towns. I do not assume my situation would be the same as yours, but then you should also not assume others situations as yours, ESPECIALLY when others the store had NO card right at Sunday open! Who could buy the card on promotion when the store opened its door when promo started, with ZERO card hanging?! That was what I reported what was the case in our town.

Just how the store manager to ration the sales when the customers, 4 of us, went to the store right at door opened but found no card hanging? - They even delayed the opening of the door by almost 10 min, claiming the registers were not ready - may be they were rushing to take down the cards as the night before there were full of cards according to one customer who specifically paid a visit the night before to check it out. He was the one who got truly upset and vocal enough to finally got the store manager took out the cards from the office. He did call the corporate before this promo because it was like that on the previous 3 promos when the limit was 5. But obviously it did not do any good as the store continued to play game... Thanks to his truly loud complaint and confrontation with the store manager, we eventually all got the cards, incl 2 other customers who saw what happened, and demanded the same treatment.

Please explain to me just how that could be reasonable? And this is not just at this location but also another location across town, according to the customers who went to raise hell with the on duty store manager, and finally she magically produced the cards from back office, claiming that were all she had... YET, when the other 2 customers demanded the same treatment, she then again "found" more cards to give to them...

I reported all the above. But you chose to completely IGNORE what I wrote. Or, worse, you did not even read the whole thing and then made your wrongful assumption about the discretionary rationing BS.

If this is not playing games I dont know how that could be.

Though I dont really care to expose the store because again, OD offer is far nicer with the only draw back is we have to do a bit of drive versus the Staples is 1.5 mile from home but if each time you drop by when it changed to limit 5, it is ZERO card even first min into the store on the first day of promo, what is the point to visit them when a round of ODs could get 10, 20 or more cards with each card carries 5 bucks overage?

bailey911

Been having some experiences at Staples last 2 no fee promos. Besides the stock issues, now managers seem to be running different rules. 1 store who had stock let me buy 3 max even though the ad said 5 AND required 2 forms of ID. Next store said no stock and Manager there said are not selling them anymore because "on 2 occasions a customer chargebacked the GCs and the store lost money"

Sunday was just wow. 1 store had stock, bought them but next store - saw a full rack, went to cashier who said "I think there is a limit hang on" I took out my staples ad to show the manager but instead she says " Staples cant sell these VGCs because they "wont activate" I said "what do you mean" she goes on say "If I sell you these there will be an issue with them not activating so we are waiting on a new batch of cards to clear this up" She then started to remove the VGCs from the rack and I left.

Something strange is happening at Staples.