This has really been a rough day… I will be glad when it’s time to get under the covers and put it all, and myself, to bed.
This morning was, for a variety of reasons, a difficult one. Nothing was going right and it seemed like everything I touched went to pot. In fact, I sent a text to Andy telling him that I was having and awful day and was almost in tears. And it wasn’t yet 10 a.m.
Then, my friend IM’d me to let me know that there was a huge crib recall and I should check it out to make sure we didn’t have that particular crib.
Which, of course, we do.
So I started googling it to find out the deal… apparently one part is prone to breaking and that can cause the crib sides to come down and the baby could potentially get stuck. And one eight-month-old suffocated as a result. It said Delta would send a replacement part, but until then, “find a safe, alternative sleeping environment.” Which is awesome because most people have spare cribs lying around, right?
I decided to call Babies R Us to see what they had to say – I was hoping perhaps they would have the replacement part at the store. I called the customer service 800 number I found on their website, and I was immediately connected to a very friendly salesperson. I told him I had one of the cribs that had been recalled, and I was wondering what to do about that. He said that I should bring the crib to the BRU store that I bought it from and they’d give me a refund of the most recently advertised price of that crib.
“I don’t have a receipt,” I said. “I bought it more than four years ago.”
“That’s no problem,” Mr. Friendly replied. “Because it’s a safety recall, we take them back without question.”
We all know how fun it is to disassemble a crib, and I wanted to make absolutely sure that’s what I should do before I actually went through with it, so I called our local BRU store. Again, I said I had a recalled crib and needed to know what to do. Again, I was told to bring in the old crib and they’d replace it.
“I don’t have a receipt,” I said. “I bought it more than four years ago.”
“That’s no problem,” Local BRU Dude replied. “Because it’s a safety recall, we take them back without question.”
At that point I figured that I could take the word of two separate BRU employees and take the crib back. I talked to Andy about it, and he decided that he would disassemble the crib and take it to BRU to get the new one this evening, since he was taking the kids out to dinner over by the mall anyway while I had class. Ok great.
So after I finally got out of class (15 minutes late. As though two hours and 40 minutes isn’t enough), I picked up my cell phone and noticed that I had two voicemails and two text messages from Andy. My phone battery was almost dead and I didn’t want to waste it listening to the voicemail, but I took a quick look at the text messages and it was immediately obvious that the Babies R Us people were giving him the run around.
It turns out that when he went in the store this evening (with two kids and a cart full of crib, I might add), he went to the customer service desk. He told the employee at the desk about the recalled crib, and she said “We were giving people the Delta 2 yesterday, but let me make sure.” She then called up the manager, who told Andy that she had no idea who I had talked to but they weren’t replacing those cribs and we should call Delta for the replacement part, and to have a nice day. He again told her about BOTH of my phone conversations today and she basically told him it didn’t happen. He couldn’t get ahold of me, so he put both kids and the screwed up crib back into the car and went home.
When I finally got out of class and heard this, I called BRU immediately. I asked for the manager, and I detailed my previous conversations and expressed to her that we were just following the instructions that I had been given by two people over the phone. She and I went back and forth for quite a while – I was trying to get the point across that this was not our fault and I just wanted them to uphold their promise, and she came preeeety close to telling me flat out that I was lying about what I had been told. Eventually my phone battery died and I’m sure she thought I hung up on her, but nothing was resolved.
I might add that while this frustrating conversation took place, I came upon what must have been a car wreck, and the road home was closed and I had to find another route home. So I was driving down this tiny, twisty back road in the dark while my cell phone battery was beeping, my gas light was on and I was pumping my breasts – being accused of trying to screw BRU out of a crib. I was NOT AMUSED.
So I now have pieces of a crib in my living room and a baby sleeping in a pack in play.
I don’t know what to do. It seriously irks me that we went through the hassle of taking the crib over there, at their direction, and then we were treated so poorly. I just want them to do what they told me they’d do. That’s all. If they had originally told me to sit tight and wait for the part to come in the mail, that would have been a-ok. I don’t need a new crib, I just need the one we have to be safe for my baby.
So what do you think? Call corporate customer service? Let it drop? Toilet paper the manager’s house?
