Kohls is the Worst

[u/CBus-Eagle]

I took my son to Kohls because he needed some jeans and underwear. I haven’t been to a Kohls in a couple years because I think their store is always in disarray and I hate standing in long lines because they only have 2 or 3 of the 10 cash registers open.

But my wife had a coupon for 30% so off we went. Their clearance section is impossible to look through because they are not categorized by size, forcing everyone to just walk down the entire rack looking at each piece individually. Then, the hangers that indicate small, medium, large, extra large aren’t even on the correct size clothing, forcing you to read each tag individually.

We gave up on looking at clearance and went over to the regular priced jeans and he found two pair. Grab a bag of 6 Hanes boxer shorts for $38 and headed to the register, thinking the 30% off coupon will get out the door at $100.

After standing in line for 20 minutes, the cashier totals everything up at $138 and my wife hands her the 30% coupon. Their clearance total is $125. I commented that the discount didn’t work properly and the associate states that the jeans are name brand so not included in the sale.

I review the coupon’s fine print and see nothing about Levi jeans being excluded so I ask for clarification. The associate then states that “all high end clothes like Under Amour and Levi’s are always excluded from their promotions.” I asked how we as customers are supposed to know this unless it’s clearly excluded on the coupon. She just said sorry so we left; paying $125 for two pairs of jeans and a 6 pack of underwear.

It feels like deceptive advertising and it was the last time I shop at Kohls.

[u/hexH2O]

About 15 years ago my son needed new shoes. Went to kohl’s. They didn’t have his size but they had a new kiosk that let you order from their warehouse, or whatever, and it would ship to you or the store. I entered everything in. It said purchase not completed. So I tried again. Same thing. I did it once more thinking I was missing something and just didn’t catch it the first two times because I was young and new to this format. Didn’t go through so I gave up and went somewhere else.

Turns out, kohls charged my card THREE times for the shoes. Never received any and kohls refused to refund my money because they couldn’t verify anything with the new kiosk. I even went in and talked to the manager (I know, but I was on a super tight budget and that was just wrong). They couldn’t help because they said they had nothing to do with the kiosk and I had to go through corporate. I was never able to contact a real person at corporate because all the numbers I found were useless.

Fuck kohls. Never went there again

[u/Rhodin265 → u/hexH2O]

I hope you requested chargebacks.

[u/hexH2O → u/Rhodin265]

I didn’t even know that was a thing back then. It was my first debit card

[u/insomni666 → u/hexH2O]

Ah, they don't do chargebacks for debit anyway. So you were just screwed. 

Edit: okay, everyone can stop telling me how they did a chargeback on their debit card lol. I didn't expect this many people to see this. I guess it is possible, though in my 15+ years of debit card experience with a half dozen banks, I've never been able to do one, so ymmv. 

[u/Lolamichigan → u/insomni666]

Not exactly true, I did a chargeback once over 20 years ago and it was definitely a debit card backed by visa. Also online or over the phone if you don’t tell the merchant it’s a debit card they just punch in the ‘visa’ numbers and don’t really know.

[u/DeathByOrgasm → u/insomni666]

They do. It’s just a much slower process. A company is more inclined to go after their money than your money.

[u/ashieslashy_ → u/insomni666]

You can depending on the situation. My husband and I had to do a chargeback for $700 when a hotel charged us twice for the room we were staying in. Yes I know, we should have used a credit card, but we thought “what’s the worst that could happen?” lol. It took a good bit of time, but the bank investigated and gave us the money back.

[u/mindguru88 → u/insomni666]

You can file a Reg E claim at your bank, in that case. There are federal regulations that protect consumers from transactions like this for debit cards.

[u/iflandcouldtalk → u/insomni666]

This isn’t true. It’s just a shorter time period - debit/direct bank charges have 90 days to be charged back. CCs have 180.

[u/Kyledoesketo → u/insomni666]

They didn't used to, but nowadays they will.

[u/CultofCedar → u/insomni666]

I have most definitely done chargebacks on my debit card. I want to say four or five over the span of the decade and a half I’ve had one. One was a year old and I was just shooting my shot lol.