I am a FORMER employee of this company, and I wish to tell all about what really goes on at this store.
During my tenure as Assistant Manager at this Napa Auto Parts (August through October), the manager would have what he would call "Dollar Days." If there was a customer that the manager didn't like (be it a walk-in or wholesale), he would give a phony price to the customer; meaning that the price that he gave to the customer would not be the real price that it should have been.
One example: a spark plug gap tool (used to set the gap on spark plugs) would normally retail for about a dollar. If there was a person that the manager "didn't like" (mostly foriegners), he would charge anywhere up to TEN DOLLARS for this item. I have personally seen him mark up batteries as much as 10-20 dollars above the regular retail price. This also would go to our wholesale customers (wholesale does get better pricing than walk-in customers get); charging as much as five dollars for a SINGLE light bulb because it "was an inconvienence to deliver one bulb."
Also, he would also give discounts to former City of Tacoma (huge pricing breaks!) to those who no longer worked for the City of Tacoma; and this was *AFTER* the Accounts Payable division of the City of Tacoma sent a letter to our headquarters (Standard Parts Corp.) to complain about all the invoices that were appearing on their statement (employees could pay cash under their discount); and this was after I was told not to "cut any deals" with my friends and whatnot (especially after we were sent a memo from the headquarters via the corporate offices in Atlanta told us that anyone requesting the AAA discount must provide proof of AAA membership due to the abuse of that account, as well as the "Military Discount" - which was *ZERO* discount)
I was laid off in October; but the person that replaced me as Assistant Manager was laid off after two months because the manager was afraid (read "jealous") of losing sales to someone who had more expertise/knowledge than him; and has since told me (this person and myself now work at another parts outfit) that there was more to my layoff that I was told (all I was told that it "was my last day, and I could collect unemployemnt"); and I have heard more info about his layoff than he was told).
If you have purchased any parts from this store, and felt that you paid too much for what you had purchased, you probably were charged more. I suggest you call any other Napa that is *NOT* located in Tacoma/Puyallup/Lakewood (all these are owned by Standard Parts Corp.) and get a price quote; you might be surprised what kind of mark-up you may have gotten.
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