Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Batteries from Sam's Club

Commenter "Rolling Earthquake" asks about being signed in and not getting the dashboard....  We as blogger dashboard users,often suffer problems where the blogs that we are following do not show up under our dashboard.....

I find from use, that if my connection is slow and blogger is somewhat overwhelmed with users, the combination will return a dashboard that is obviously a default.  This seems to be where it has lost the information my computer uploaded about which blogs I have on the dashboard...

I'm fairly sure that the blogs we want are stored on our own computers, or in our cloud account with Google...  Either way, there seems to be a disconnect if it takes too long to get a return from the mother ship...  That is when it gives me a default dashboard without my blogs I want...

I also look at my own blog page in the upper Right hand corner to see if it says sign in or sign out....  Unless it says sign out, you can't get the update blog screen...  Or the pencil as you suggested..  If it says Sign Out, then you are signed in, and  there should be a New Post button to the left which will bring up the editor...  Of course most of these problems are eliminated if you use the Live Writer Editor by Microsoft...

With Live Writer, you are editing a file on your own computer and it is uploaded all at once when you publish.... This works fairly well, until you get that bad connection....  Then it will error out when you publish... This happens when your post is longer than you can keep a solid connection...

Enough of that techie junk........  I went over to the motorhome today and hit the key to warm up the engine....  Raarrrr,  Raaaaaaaarrrr....  Click, Click, click...  It has been starting harder this fall, and it didn't want to go back in February when I ran it then....

Checking the house batteries proved them to be totally flat...  There is no where to plug in at the storage lot...  Even the guy that runs the place has solar..  But I never have put that in...  We were never boon dockers...

So all the batteries were toast....  Two truck batteries and Two golf cart batteries.....  Well let's see if we can get the engine running first..........

They sell all of these batteries for good prices down at Sam's Club  so off I went...  That turned into a big fight, as they wouldn't honor my Sam's card...  It works at the pumps, but otherwise I hardly ever use Sam's as a store...

That turned into an all day fight, but the lady sold me the two truck batteries without a valid card just to get rid of me...

I went back to the coach and managed to hook up one of the batteries with jumper cables long enough to move the big driver slide...  This had to be open because the truck batteries are in trays along the frame..  So in the gravel and the 85 degree sun, I changed out the truck batteries...  They are heavier than I can do by myself, but I struggled thru somehow...

I know how they are wired, because this isn't the first time I have done this...  Batteries in my world seem to last three years almost to the day..  Yep February 8, 2011 on the blog.....  Three years and one month.....  I noticed that I spent $179 back then  today the same batteries were over $250...

The engine started easily with the new batteries, and even the generator fired up...  I hurried back to Sam's Club, but again they wouldn't refund my core charge without first paying for a new $45 membership...  We fought over the payment I had made last summer on the membership...  They had no record and insisted that I wasn't a member..  Wanted the receipt for my membership last August in Kansas... Yea right...

Finally a manager overrode the computer and gave me back the money....   So just to be ornery I went with a cart and loaded up two new golf cart batteries and came back to the membership desk...  I asked politely for them to sell me the batteries...  Nope.. Not without a membership card... I gave him the one I had and again insisted that I had paid the membership...  Then I showed him a receipt from the gas pump where I had just pumped gas in the Jeep.....  See the pump thinks I'm a member.....!!

This got me another manager higher up on the ladder...   I asked him to sell me the batteries, or if he was going to chase away a customer that wanted to do $250 worth of business..  Again he insisted that I wasn't a member regardless of the gas purchases..  "Are you going to sell me the batteries...?"

So we worked out a compromise...  He asked if I was ever in the Military....  Well yea, forty years ago....  Fine!   Your short 5 months on your membership so pay the $45 for a new year and I'll give you a $15 refund for being a military person...  I was tired of fighting so it was close enough...

So now I am a completely new member in my own single name with a new year starting in March..  The lady that I had been working with seemed quite perturbed that he gave me the credit...  But I have a new card and it will be good for another year...  Oh, and two more golf cart batteries to put under the step in the motorhome...  Hey, and I'm only out $530...

I'm beginning to think something is wrong with me.. I seem to attract confrontation over bank accounts and memberships....  Or perhaps I am just strong willed enough to stand up for my side of the story...  Do other folks just cave in and let these people take advantage of them because they don't want the confrontation...?   I was reassured with myself today though, as I never got mad at them.  Never lost it with them or used any threatening language...   I just wouldn't go away....

Retired Rod

10 comments:

  1. Remember, you can't fix stupid.

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  2. Had a similar issue at CostCo. I wanted to renew my membership at the membership desk (seemed reasonable to me...) and they guy there kept saying I needed to just do it at a register. I had a $2 CostCo refund check. He was finally going to sell me the $55 regular membership, but I'd had the Executive membership, and when I'd gotten it in Olympia, WA they said that every year they would ante up the difference from what I got back (the $2) and the difference in the two memberships so I'd keep the Executive one every year essentially for the price of the regular. The guy kept saying I didn't 'need' the better one as I only got back $2. I wanted the new one. He said he'd have to give me the lower one for it to be 'free'. I said, then I'm going to give the the $55 to raise it. So, why not just give me the higher one for the $2 check and $55 as I asked the first time. He glowered. I said 'that's why I wanted to do this here, not at the register, I figured you folks would make it difficult'. In the end I walked out with what I wanted.

    Then it turns out they don't seem to carry the cat litter I wanted that was a staple in WA for the cats I had then. The new cat was the reason I was going through all that in the first place.

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  3. Your persistence paid off, good for you. Battery's massive amount of lead do make them heavy and my older age has made them beyond heavy. I had always had a workout replacing the single start battery on my 94 Winnebago, but two weeks ago it was almost beyond my ability. So I feel your pain and exhaustion at getting those things removed and replaced. Hope they last another 3 years.

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  4. Why to go ROD! Persistence paid off, sometimes I wonder if the "Where you in the military " question is to find out if you are going to come back with a weapon of some kind.

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  5. Once again, customer service doesn't exist. I'm glad to hear you just hung in there and got almost what you wanted. So welcome to Sam's Club!!! lol At least the batteries are working. I think our coach batteries are starting to think about dying but Jim thinks they're good for this summer.

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  6. Good for you, Rod. Some of these companies are simply amazing with their customer service. That seemed like a lot of work hauling batteries around, I got tired just reading about it.

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  7. Glad you got the batteries all changed out and glad you stood up for yourself. I have a Mom who always taught me, "stand up for yourself, don't let people push you around." We just let our Sam's Club membership expire--even in Billings I would get so irritated when shopping there. We are die hard Costco fans.

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  8. I don't have the patience you have, nor do I want to deal with any business that puts those kinds of roadblocks up. I would have walked out and gone somewhere else, even if I ended up paying more. I have never dealt with Sam's club, and have never had a problem at Costco.

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  9. Nah, ha.. snicker... lol.... GOOD for you, gave it to you just to get rid of you :) yes, we just give up and let them have what they want.... I need new house batteries, never having had to buy them b4.. worried about that price... geez!!!!

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  10. Once upon a time we had a Sam's Club card but found they don't have anything different than what you can get at Costco and I just like the way Costco runs there business a lot better. The staff always appears happy to be there while the Sam's/Walmart staff always seem like they are serving some kind of court ordered penance.

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