Complaint Review: Family Dollar Stores

On Saturday, May 25, 2024, I visited my local Family Dollar Store, located at 7945 Normandy Boulevard, Jacksonville, FL 32221 in order to use the advertised digital coupons to purchase items. 

At that time, despite numerous attempts by the cashier to get the point of sale terminal to recognize the advertised digital coupons that I had clipped and attempted to use, the system would not recognize the digital coupons. 

I ended up just giving up on the purchase of over $30 worth of goods as a result.   This first incident took about 20 minutes of frustration at check out.  I left the store after buying nothing.

Then, on Saturday, June 1, 2024, I visited a different Family Dollar Store, located at 10390 Normandy Boulevard, Jacksonville, FL 32221, to make a similar purchase of items that were advertised in the local printed flyer.  I scanned in the digital coupons and clicked on them, so that at checkout, the discount would be applied correctly.  

I attempted to purchase (6) Coke 12 packs, as they were advertised at 3 for $12.  I also had other items to purchase, as well.  

I had clipped the $5 discount coupon for purchases over $25, also.  I had other items to purchase as well.  The total should have been $30.37 after taxes and the digital coupons were applied. The register at first rang up the sale at over $57.  

I pointed out that the coupons that I had clipped had not been applied. Candice, the cashier reworked the transaction several times, each time it did not total correctly.  

As there were a lot of customers piling up behind me in the checkout line, Candice asked me to wait and let her take care of them and then she would figure out the problem. 

 I waited as she took care of about 12 or 13 other customers, each taking an average of about 5 minutes.  Then, she tried a different method of checkout.

 After about an hour trying to make our purchase at the store, we gave up and just bought a few items for $3.49.  This is the second week at the second Family Dollar Store that this has happened at. 

 I told the cashier and the assistant manager that I tried to use the digital coupons last week and could not get the coupons to work then, either.  

 We would have purchased a lot more at the store, but, with digital coupons not being applied correctly and the hour wait in the checkout, we gave up. 

It will be a good while before we attempt to purchase anything again at a Family Dollar Store, as our last two encounters at checkout were a horror story. 

 Our experience illuminates a glaring coding problem in either the point of sale terminals, or, in the server for them. 

 As the same error has happened at more than one store on more than one occasion, it appears to be a systemic programming problem.  Or, it could simply be a bait and switch attempt on the part of the corporation, hoping that consumers would just give up and pay full price for the items that were advertised to be discounted via the digital coupons.

We had not had this problem in the past, but, will not have them in the near future, as we will be doing our shopping at your competitor's stores from now on.

Beware of Family Dollar Stores failure to honor their advertised prices as it relates to redeeming digital coupons.