Every year I take my family (my wife, my 3 year old daughter and myself) to get their picture taken for the holidays and my daughter's birthday. This year my wife and I decide to just have my daughter's picture taken, and no family portrait (we always hate how we look in them anyway). We receive a coupon in the mail for Sears. The coupon clearly states "No session fee" then in fine print " (14.99 value!)" underneath it there is another one that says "Free 8x10 photo" then in fine print "with purchase of another 8x10 photo (7.99 value)" and "$2.99 per portrait sheet" and then in fine print under that "must purchase 8 portrait sheets at regular price first (7.99 value)"
Please note, these were all clearly individual deals, there was other fine print underneath the usual expiration date information etc etc.
So we go down, very nice place, kid friendly. We get our photos taken by a woman named Tanya who was just awesome with my daughter. She knew exactly what to do and she got some excellent shots of my daughter. After the pictures are done and we go to review our purchases with one of the salespeople who was very cheerful. We get the usual sales pitches (I work in retail I understand they do what they have to do). Afterwards the girl gets up and leaves to give us a moment to decide. After we pick out our photos she lets us know about the session fees and whatnot. Once she says session fees I say "oh, we have a coupon for that". A look of gloom hits this once cheerful sales person. She takes the coupon and mutters under her breath "okay just click okay on the screen and all sales are final, i'll go meet you up to at the register". I don't click a damn thing until she gets back because I watch her go to the register and shes talking to her managers. So I wait, she says "I'm sorry you have to get 8 pictures in order to get the deal" and I ask her to show me where it says it, and she can't... She shows me the fine print on one of the coupons but not the one I wanted "free 8 x10 with purchase of another" and "no session fee". So then she stutters a bit and says "I just showed this to my managers and they both said no". So I talk to the managers and they tell me "oh I think its one of those GROUP coupons. Y'know where you have to get all the deals to use them or something"
Please note, they said they THINK this is whats going on, they don't KNOW though. So I go back to the screen, change our order to reflect the bare minimum and I get out of there. While ringing us up the sales woman didn't make eye contact with me while she tried to upsell other stuff to me like their portrait packages and Sears Picture Club membership. She just looked at her register and talked with a real mousey quiet voice.in my opinion, she either knew I was right about the coupon or she was upset that she lost her commission if they get commission.
Either way, I was upset. Nice pictures, bad sales.
Be cautious.
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