*Inappropriate Behavior and poor business practices*
On Saturday October 7th my daughter and her husband approached a Rent-A-Center store located at 32-75 STEINWAY ST ASTORIA, NY 11103 with the intention of renting some furniture for their new apartment in Woodside, NY. My daughter has recently moved into New York where my son-in-law is starting a new career opportunity. She is 6 months pregnant.
On that particular day, during their visit to the store, she asked one of the store employees to allow her to use their public restroom. The employee identified himself as "judd" (we are not sure of the correct spelling) and asked her to follow him into the store's storage room to show her their employee-only bathroom. She followed him while her husband continued shopping at the store. When my daughter finished her business in the bathroom, she opened the door with the intention of exiting and found Mr. "judd" outside the door. He then proceeded to make several comments and propositions of sexual-nature and told my daughter that "he had this thing for pregnant women" and that "what was she doing with a man like her husband because she was too pretty", he also offered her directly to engage into sexual contact at that exact time. My daughter threatened him with screaming and he then told her that he was joking, that it was a big mistake and please not to say anything to the manager because he could lose his job. He then received a phone call on his cell phone and moved away from her (although he never made actual physical contact with her, he was at all times blocking her only exit way back to the store).in an obvious shock, my daughter ran back to the store and asked her husband to leave immediately.
She did not say anything to him until they finally got back to their house. My son-in-law called me immediately asking for advice before doing something crazy, I told him that I would contact the store manager at once. I did that around noon time. An individual that picked up the call (I believe that he said something like "Luis" when he picked up the phone but I am not sure about this) transferred me to another male employee that refused to give me his name. At the beginning of our conversation he said he was the store manager but upon listening to the allegations he told me that the manager wasn't there and that he would have him call me back later on. I refused to get off the phone and told him that I was going to call the police. He got very nasty and told me to do "whatever you have to do" and that he didn't believe the accusation because "judd" was his "homeboy" and that "he wouldn't do that". I asked him to provide me with his supervisor's contact information and he refused to do that. I never received a call back from the "store manager" or from anyone. I did call back twice that Saturday and after asking me "what was this in reference to..." they told me that the store manager wasn't available.
At one point, an employee gave me RAC's main 800 number which directs you to "customer service". I was put on hold for a long time every time I called this number, and I left my contact information twice but did not receive a call back (a recorded message said that someone would get back to me within 2 hours). I went to our local police precinct with my daughter and my son-in-law and although they allowed us to file a complaint, they didn't give us much hope because as per the officer..."this type of situations always turn to one person's word against another". On Monday the 9th and Tuesday the 10th, I left several messages on the 800 number that I was provided with with no luck. Finally on Wednesday the 11th I got thru and spoke with a customer service rep. He said that they "don't take that type of complaints on that line and that he couldn't even help me because I wasn't a RAC's customer" When I asked him for guidance including phone numbers to call or names of people I could talk to he said that RAC "does not publish or allow the distribution of their corporate offices numbers" I asked him to put his supervisor on the phone and he then transfer me back into their endless voicemail loop.
As a father, I'm extremely aggravated by this situation.in the meantime, I have a pregnant daughter that has suffered from what I consider to be sexual harassment and apparently NOBODY can do anything to help??? We have not heard back from the police yet. My son-in-law spoke with couple of attorneys in the area and he has appointments set for next week. The attorneys told him that RAC has hundreds if not thousands of complaints of all kind but that they always get away one way or the other and that their personnel is trained to think that they are "above the law" at all times
Now...-What is going to happen when somebody else goes through the same situation as my daughter??? (perhaps it has already happen several times) -What if this "judd" gentleman is some kind of sexual predator and in a future date he actually tries to rape someone??? Will then somebody help???
-Isn't RAC responsible for their employee's behavior as a company??? -Why are they allowed to have this type of shady business practices, specially when dealing with a critical and potentially criminal situation like this???
Help anyone???
A desperate father in New York
George
New York, New York
U.S.A.
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