No Meijer, Five Dollars Won't Buy My Silence.

I bought an external hard drive last month. I had to send in my laptop to Toshiba to get a new battery. I bought the hard drive to back things up. And luck of luck! Meijer had a 2 TB! FOR EIGHTY DOLLARS!

You better believe I snatched the thing up. I got the last one! I bought the extended warranty because, well, why not, right? It can't hurt!

My hard drive, after a month of use, died. Would turn on, but not spin or actually do things a hard drive does. Gross, right?

Well thank God for that warranty! Because Western Digital, the company that made the product, couldn't replace it. They said Meijer could. Hooray!

Only Meijer said WD had to replace it. Well no, actually. You do. We were going to do an even exchange, only--my product doesn't exist anymore. Discontinued. Which was why it was on super sale to begin with, I suppose. If I'd known, I wouldn't have bought it, or I certainly wouldn't have bothered with a warranty. Strangely enough, there was still a sale tag and a place for it on the shelf...

A month later. We pointed out the tag was there. "Well sometimes they get busy." A month later? You're that busy?

The girl at the courtesy desk shrugged and said she'd refund us for the old HDD, but we'd have to cover the fifty three dollar increase in the new one. It's the same product, only with USB 3.0... But--my warranty? Oh well, that's actually not really theirs, you see. It's from a third party company. And well, they might send me a check or a gift card, but no, they wouldn't really replace my item.

So what was my warranty for? I mean, I was told when I purchased it, it would serve to replace my item. Only not? I guess? I'm confused.

I got the manager, who said he'd give the item at cost. Okay, cool? Oh but I'd have to REPURCHASE my warranty. Seriously. What? I did for reasons I can't understand, because it didn't help in the end. I had to pay forty dollars over my original price.

The manager scurried away after this while the girl at the counter haughtily told us they didn't HAVE to do this, so we should be happy. I'm happy I have to pay forty dollars more?

So, for whatever reason, I sought out more shopping. There were things on clearance that I thought might make good presents for several little kids I know. The items were on fifty five percent clearance, so of COURSE they were cheaper.

...And then they scanned incorrectly at the U-Scan. We went BACK to the service desk. We'd run into the manager again, and my mother made a comment to him about how old this was, and how we really didn't have much incentive to come back to the store. We were also told by the girl at the counter that we had run the U-Scan incorrectly. Oh, okay. Actually, one of the items refused to scan at all, so we had to get someone. The tags were bad. We mentioned that, and the girl goes; "Oh yeah, that happens. But you have to remember to scan the new tags." "...We did?" "Oh, then I don't know how that would happen."

Well, I don't either. I don't work here. But don't blame your tags being strange on me.

The manager sent a five dollar gift card to us via another employee who had nothing to do with it. I felt bad for the poor girl, because I was actually enraged. What are you doing, buying my silence? It didn't work, Meijer!

I sent in a complaint. Ugh. I know where I won't be doing any more of my shopping. I'd rather drive out to Wal-Mart across town than go there again. At least Wal-Mart tries to be helpful.