Patrick O.
Yelp
Literally the worst location in the chain. Sadly, where I live, this is the only Ralphs within a reasonable driving distance, so I've been forced to go here for the past 13 years. I've watched it deteriorate worse and worse each year.
The number of vagrants and homeless in the parking lot and in the front of the store continue to get worse to a point where it doesn't feel safe to even park or enter. Once you do park, you are met with the rudest combination of associates ever to grace a grocery store. The parking lot is also horribly lit; at 10pm we felt extremely unsafe to even get out of the car.
On this night, we came to return 3 items that had been unused. In the catering business, you sometimes overestimate your needs and naturally will have a few returns at the end of each job. The rude woman manning the self checkouts had zero customer service skills and used one-word comments to communicate with us. We showed proof of purchase via the app, which is where the items had been bought, and she insisted that we needed a paper receipt. There IS no paper receipt when you buy online for store pick up. We then got to a "more expensive" item (over $20) and got the "and the reason for the return is?" along with that look that questioned whether we had stolen it or not. She then goes to an allegedly more senior checker, an old man in a beanie who looked like he waltzed in from the street. He confirmed in similar uncaring, gruff tone we could not make this return because "there is no way for us to circle on the receipt that you returned the items". Are you telling me this was the first time a customer had an online return to complete in a store? Is it that rare? Throughout my long life, grocery stores are usually so quick to take items back that you can barely get your explanation out in words before they hand you back your money. Not this place.
I absolutely understand having to keep one's guard up due to the nature of what's happened to this once-nice area turned criminal, but profiling us for wanting to complete a return we DID HAVE proof of purchase on, and subsequently refusing to help, has me incensed. I will be contacting their Corporate, but don't expect any resolve.
It's scary - Kroger is getting ready to purchase Albertsons too, which means we're to expect this level of "service" across most of all the SoCal grocery chains? The future is dim.