OPEN LETTERS
An Open Letter to Safeway
When is a deal not a deal?
To The Sneak-Thieves At Safeway:
When is a deal not a deal? How about when it’s listed as a deal in your Weekly Savings ad?
What I mean to say is, the ads posted on the front page of your weekly ad always look good — like watermelon for 29 cents a pound or three or four ears of corn for $1. The problem is, the stores don’t seem to honor those deals unless you complete the right combination of (apparently secret) tasks.
Some deals, for example, require you to open the Safeway app and clip the digital coupon and that’s it. With others you have to clip the digital coupon on one page of the app, then confirm the clippage somewhere else within the app. Yet another type of deal requires you to open the app and then scan the UPC code of the item you are buying and may or may not require you to clip the virtual coupon. I’m also now hearing rumors that there may be a secret level of deal where you have to spill pureed eye of newt near the produce section, say an incantation and greet the cashier with a secret handshake.
Of course, none of this is explained anywhere in the weekly ad. Apparently, customers are just expected to know all this when they walk in.
