r/mildlyinfuriating • • 1d ago

I'm slightly vexed Kohls is the Worst

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.

13.3k Upvotes

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

253

u/thatsanicehaircut 1d ago

as the daughter of a Kohl’s cult member, I know their system of discounts and kohl’s cash inside out. Most big brand names are excluded and you have to study their ads/flyers carefully to learn what is or isn’t part of the sales and cash stuff. It is a horrible maze of rules in tiny print, etc. I hardly go there anymore except for some fave brands or athletic wear likes. I had a bad experience w/ an employee stealing my points from a program they had a few summers back. I hate their HORRIBLE website more than anything though … the navigation is the worst there is and they’re too cheap to fix it.

72

u/Commercial-Co 1d ago

That being said, deceptive advertising on coupons is illegal

37

u/sallysal20 1d ago

I remember kohls being on the news for their fake sales a while ago but nothing seems to have changed.

15

u/Commercial-Co 23h ago

Thats because enforcement is negligible anymore.

4

u/sallysal20 18h ago

True. This was back during a previous administration, but for sure this one doesn’t care about people so I expect nothing less.

3

u/ForensicPathology 20h ago

Because people like OP will end up buying anyway because of sunk cost of wasting time.

2

u/OmniManDidNothngWrng 15h ago

Yeah you really have no idea what anything will cost until you walk up to the register.

1

u/sallysal20 10h ago

Could be $10, could be $100.

1

u/Stepane7399 17h ago

Honestly though, when I was getting my house established, they’re after coupon prices on small appliances was fantastic. Now I shop at Costco or Sam’s and there are often better deals there, but Kohls was a great price for that purpose.

1

u/Sea-Poetry-950 11h ago

I hate the "Buy one, get one half off" sales. Maybe (most likely) I don't need two of that??!

1

u/sallysal20 10h ago

Always on socks. I don’t need two 6-packs right now.