We've been given a bad name

Oh the trouble I've had!  In the past two days I've had very poor experiences with Dollar General & Walgreens. First let me preface this post by saying that not all stores are the same and not all managers feel the same way as those that I have encountered. With that being said, I walked into Dollar General yesterday with 6 Nivea Body Wash coupons each valued at $3 off, they had 6 on the shelf, however, I only wanted 2 even though I had enough for all 6. The cashier yelled at me and said “you coupon people are a joke”! She refused to honor the coupon, though I followed the rules of the coupon to a “T” and I had the Dollar General coupon policy in hand. I remained calm and asked for the district manager to be contacted to which she obliged and voila, I walked out with all 6 bottles in hand. 

At Walgreens today, I had 3 Rightguard BOGO coupons and 3 BOGO rain checks that corresponded to those coupons. They had 6 bottles on the shelf, the assistant manager was a wonderful help and she was ready to ring us up, however she needed assistance and called for the store manager, that's when it all went downhill. As usual, (with coupon policy in hand), the manager explained to me "you can not use a BOGO coupon on a BOGO sale", to which I responded "Is that a new policy"? He too refused to sell them so I requested that a district manager be contacted to properly interpret the coupon policy. He immediately refused to contact the district manager and proceeded to tell me "I'm the chief of this store, and what I say goes". He then advised me that he can not accept rain checks from a different Walgreens store (which was a different reason from the BOGO issue), and when I asked for clarification of the policy he advised that he has the right to refuse my business. Remaining calm, I again asked for the district manager to be contacted and was again refused service. I was however able to obtain a customer service phone number and was contacted within 1 1/2 hours by the district manager himself. He apologized profusely and was able to clarify the policy to ensure that there were no misinterpretations. He kindly reminded me that indeed the store manager does have the right to limit the number of items distributed to each customer as per the written coupon policy (which is clearly stated in writing), however, he further indicated that due to the fashion in which I was treated, coupled with the store managers refusal to contact him as per my request and due to the differing explanations I received (which were all incorrect) were unacceptable and inappropriate conduct by any employee. He asked me to return to the store with my BOGO rain checks and BOGO coupons to pick up the items that I wanted.  

I'm sharing my story not to berate Dollar General and Walgreens, but to bring awareness to the fact that there is a definite backlash going on against ethical couponers such as ourselves and it is so important that we remain civil and ask to speak to those in higher authority that know how their coupon policies are to be properly interpreted. These people on Extreme Couponing are truly giving us a bad reputation and a bad name.

Anna

P.S. Thank you Amy for allowing me to post on your wonderful website http://www.whosaidnothinginlifeisfree.com