All I wanted was a pair of shoes......

Bob bought me a gift card from Lady FootLocker so I could go and pick out a really nice good pair of shoes for my walks. He put $50 on it. So, I traveled to our local Lady FootLocker today and look over what they have. Now call me cheap or even old school, but I just can't see paying $90 for a pair of shoes that I'm going to walk on the sidewalks with. If I was going to a gym and always knew I'd wear them indoors, maybe. I found a really nice pair of Nike walking shoes that where $60. Total came to $62.99. I handed the lady my gift card and all hell broke loose. Seems the register wasn't taking my gift card. She calls the 1-800 # on the back of the card to verify it was an active card. Sure enough, there is $50 on it. She tries it again with no luck. She calls the 1-800 # again and this time speaks to a person. After explaining what was going on to the woman on the other end of the phone line, that lady gives the clerk an "over ride" number to use. They hang up, she tries again....nothing. She calls the # back again. They tell her they can't help her that she now needs to call her help desk. So she calls them. They tell her the satellite is down and it won;t take the card, just put it in as cash. Well, the 3 employees working today have no clue obviously, that she meant to "over ride" the card and put the sale in as cash. She tries to run my card again and now it says decline. I'm staying calm because I know it's not this girls fault (entirely). She calls the 1-800 # AGAIN and tells them everything that has transpired. Seems when the 1st lady gave her the override #, she deleted the balance from my gift card!!!! Now I'm not happy. She calls the help desk back and says "now what does she do because this customer is standing here". I told the girl, "I either want this store to give me $50 or fix my gift card somehow so that the $50 is BACK on the card!!" The woman from the help desk heard me and put the girl on hold. When she came back on, she told her she put the $50 back on my card. She hands me the card back and appologized for everything. Well that's all good and I'm still not upset with her, but I told her "I'm not leaving until I know there is $50 on that card". She was nice about it and called the 1-800 # AGAIN and verified that indeed the card was active again with the $50. All this took 45 minutes and I left the store with no shoes and doubt that I'll go back. Thank goodness the card is also good at a regular FootLocker and for shopping online. I called Bob and told him I was on my way home and briefly told him the story and got into more detail when I got here. He said he probably would have left the store without his $50 AFTER raising a rucous. I know him, he would have went off. I'm just glad that so far, things have worked out so that atleast I'm back to square one with the $50 gift card. My attitude may change the next time I go to use it. I was also glad that I was their only customer during this ordeal. It would have been really ugly if people were waiting to pay with this crap going on.

Did I mention that I'm not a fan of shopping as it is???

****UPDATE****

I just logged online to Ladyfootlocker.com and found a sweet pair of walking shoes (in my size 9.5) and bought them!!!! No hassle with the card or having to try them on or deal with clerks that make you feel like you interrupted their day by stopping by the store!!!! I should have them in a about a week to 10 days.