This past Christmas I received several articles of clothing purchased from JCPenney; however, while I liked some of it, I decided that several items needed to be returned. I grabbed the clothes I didn’t want and headed to the local Penney’s store in Raleigh, NC. I still had all of the receipts, so I thought I’d just return the clothes at the customer service counter, receive cash in exchange, and then be on my merry way to some other local store where I could purchase something that I liked better. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as planned.

Apparently, JCPenney is so afraid of losing customers, that unless you paid for the original item in cash, they won’t give you cash back. Period. They’ll either credit your JCP credit account or they’ll give you a gift card, usable only at JCPenney stores (or online at jcp.com). Unfortunately, the items I was returning were bought as gifts via credit card. After being told the only thing I could receive in return was a gift card, I politely asked to speak to a manager. She told me the exact same thing and wouldn’t budge on “corporate policy.”

Okay, so if you’re just a low-level manager, I can understand why you might not be able to give me a cash refund that violates a higher-up’s rule, but at least refer me to someone higher in the food chain who can actually help instead of reciting a line out of the company handbook. Their customer service is pretty rude and very unprofessional as well. Thumbs down, guys!

All that to say this: JCPenney…you need to seriously (and very carefully) reconsider your returns and exchanges policies. If I don’t want to shop at your store, don’t make me on account of someone else’s mistake! Basically you’ve turned me into a disgruntled customer who won’t be shopping at your store at all instead of rarely ever, and on top of that, I’ll be telling other potential customers to stay away. I hate being locked in.

Now, being the Type-A personality that I am, I’m certainly not content to just give up and accept my circumstances…so I went out and found this great site that will allow you to trade and/or auction one type of gift card for another! Kind of like eBay for gift cards. Pretty sweet, I think. Cardavenue.com has pretty much saved my life and made me a much happier person. Have a gift card you don’t want? Give them a try!

So that’s the saga and lessons learned! Whatever happened to “the customer is always right?”