Ethan H.
Yelp
I have to update this good review to say that I'm no longer coming back to this store after a bad experience here with an incompetent employee and/or a dumb store policy.
I was on vacation back to Chicago. Over the years of living near this place I had accumulated some punchcards from this place, they do this thing where it's like every $20 you spend gets you a hole punch and once you have ten you get $20 off (or something like that).
I had a few punchcards since I'd been there at various times and didn't carry one with me all the time. One punchcard had four holes, one had two, etc. - I don't remember the exact details but I had about 14 holes spread over 4 or 5 punchcards. So my plan was to go back to this store while I was there on vacation, use 10 of the holes as one complete punchcard and get $20 off a purchase, and then come away with another punchcard with 4 holes (or more, if my purchase added any).
This makes sense to everyone so far, right? It seems pretty basic to me.
It was NOT, however, basic to the employees. My girlfriend and I found an item or two and went to check out. The cashier took my punchcards, combined them, and then handed me back two punchcards - one with all ten holes stamped, and one with four stamped. And then she tried to charge me full price on the current transaction.
"Hold on," I said. "I want to use this one right now and get the $20 off right now. I'm on vacation, I'm not going to come back any time soon, that's the whole reason we came here."
"We don't do that," she replied. "You have to use it the next time you come back. It's supposed to provide incentive for you to come back again."
My girlfriend and I were flabbergasted. What do you say to that? None of those holes were new, and they DID provide incentive for me to come back, that was the whole reason I was there right now in the first place.
I tried explaining this to her politely. "I already had those, they were just spread around. All you did was combine them into one card, but I had already gotten enough holes punched. That's why I came back, so I could finally use them."
"Yeah, you'd need to come back to use them," she said. Extremely defensive, looking at me like I was being unreasonable.
At this point I considered just cancelling the whole thing. Or like... walking out of the store and then walking back in. Would that have made a difference? I don't know.
There was another employee sitting behind her who overheard. I expected her to jump in and clear the issue up. But no. "Yeahhhh that's just our store policy, you can't use them right away," she said.
"I already had these," I said. "I came in with these. I haven't been here in two years, so I didn't try to use them right away."
The girl in the back continued to give me attitude. "Yeahhhhh look. We can maybe make an exception for you this time since you're on vacation and all. But it's just our store policy. You're not supposed to use them. But I GUESS we can make an exception just this once."
I felt like I was being pranked. What is there to even reply with in the face of such utter stupidity?
She angrily finished my transaction with the $20 off and didn't stamp my new card with any more hole punches despite the fact that it should've earned a couple more. I didn't push the issue because I knew I was never coming back to this store again anyway.
Granted, I don't live here anymore, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to come back much anyway, but this ridiculous experience has definitely pushed me to discourage others from going here too. Sorry Early to Bed, you used to be a great store. But you're not anymore.