Archived Gift Cards!?!

[IWishIKnew]

How is that different from AP? Functionally speaking, I mean. Or do different stores use one acronym vs the other? My store is always AP--I've never heard TPS.

 

[Yetive]

AP is the whole department. There are different roles in AP.
ETL AP, AP Team Leader, APS, and TPS. Some stores have people in all of these roles, while others have only a TL. Your store may not even have a TPS.

 

[BadWolf4531]

Maybe it's a district thing. When I was a TPS, unless the APBP and HRBP both gave the okay, we couldn't take non AP roles in the same store. They made exceptions for TL promotions if they really wanted you in the role. But more often than not I saw AP get turned down for work center changes within the same store.

Normally that’s the case for us too. I think I was an exception because I got signed off for ETL, but couldn’t move to the store they wanted me at right away (2 hours away). Then Spot eliminated ETL-HR in most stores and put our district over headcount, so it put me in limbo for awhile.

Anyway, I got approval from the DTL and Group AP Director to go back red shirt. But yeah, normally it’s a no-no.

 

[HRZone]

How is that different from AP? Functionally speaking, I mean. Or do different stores use one acronym vs the other? My store is always AP--I've never heard TPS.

Target protection specialist are always in uniform. They look for theft trends, merch protection, guest service potential thieves. They are generally not hands on with shoplifters but do a lot behind the scenes to deter theft.

Assets protection is usually undercover and combats internal theft and shortage as well as when necessary apprehending shoplifters

 

[Shoomm]

Our store has slowly figured out the gift card fiasco...

A guest made a major complaint that we did it on purpose so as to inconvenience her. And then came back to tell everyone who would listen that she made said complaint.

This is FUN. 😕

 

[BullseyeBabe]

Anyone know if we will get the ability to combine gift cards again?

 

[Sanzano]

Wait, we can no longer combine gift cards? Oh hell. I hadn't even noticed. They really like making our lives more difficult...

 

[BullseyeBabe]

We haven't been able to since the update. Our guests aren't amused.

 

[slowhands]

Yeah yesterday was fun. I got to ring up a $1300 transaction...all paid with $5, $10, $15, and $20 gift cards.

It was a group of teachers shopping for new clothes and toys for some of their less fortunate students. And the gift cards were all donated by other families to the school. Took over an hour to do the whole transaction... scratching and keying the gift cards alone took at least 20 min.

This was my first fear when I started reading this thread. So glad I'm not on the sales floor anymore. I remember guests paying with huge stacks of gift cards. Makes me shudder thinking about how long that would take now.

Frankly I'd be likely to send the guest to guest services and let them deal with it. Sorry GS!

 

[bullseyehomie]

The biggest issue my store has had with this, is when the person using a gift card has also bought a gift card in the transaction. We know that they can't pay for a gift card with a gift card, but they still have plenty of other items the gift card would apply to. It calls for the gstl override code to pay, supervisor numbers, and we have to type in the amount that is on the gift card they are using. The weird thing is - after the transaction is over, when we've done price inquiries on the gift card used it still shows the full balance, as if it wasn't even used.

Has anyone come up with a good solution to this yet? At my store we've just been ringing up gift card purchases separately if they have a gift card they want to use on the other items on the transaction, but it's an inconvenience.

 

[IWishIKnew]

Target protection specialist are always in uniform. They look for theft trends, merch protection, guest service potential thieves. They are generally not hands on with shoplifters but do a lot behind the scenes to deter theft.

Assets protection is usually undercover and combats internal theft and shortage as well as when necessary apprehending shoplifters

Interesting. We have one undercover person, but both the uniformed and undercover person are referred to as AP at my store. ASANTS, indeed!

 

[HRZone]

Interesting. We have one undercover person, but both the uniformed and undercover person are referred to as AP at my store. ASANTS, indeed!

Makes sense

Officially a tps is considered ap. They are just not an aps (able to initiate apprehensions)

 

[pellinore]

Our gift cards have to be scratched off.....we don't have ones with stickers covering the access code.
I was hoping that this "access code" stuff was only going to be used through the big shopping season to help slow down fraud.......let's hope that this is the case!

 

[pellinore]

Yep.....I was afraid of the multiple gift card users......I had a guest with 12 cards and that took awhile.......$1300....holy sh*t!
Just two weeks ago my family bought a new TV and we had 17 cards...thank goodness this new screwy process wasn't in place yet.
A lot of people save their cards to use for special purchases and will have a ton of cards.......I think that they need to think of another way to deal with this issue.
At least the merchandise return cards don't prompt for the code. However, I'm sure that this will be noticed and changed.

 

[slowhands]

The biggest issue my store has had with this, is when the person using a gift card has also bought a gift card in the transaction. We know that they can't pay for a gift card with a gift card, but they still have plenty of other items the gift card would apply to. It calls for the gstl override code to pay, supervisor numbers, and we have to type in the amount that is on the gift card they are using. The weird thing is - after the transaction is over, when we've done price inquiries on the gift card used it still shows the full balance, as if it wasn't even used.

Has anyone come up with a good solution to this yet? At my store we've just been ringing up gift card purchases separately if they have a gift card they want to use on the other items on the transaction, but it's an inconvenience.

My store doesn't allow guests to use a free gift card in the same transaction. No splitting of the order to get around it either. I thought it was a new company policy, but maybe ASANTS.

 

[Anelmi]

You can never use a promo gift card in the same purchase. It's been that way forever.

 

[Militantagnostic]

They keep a penny or two on the top of the register keyboards at my store for scratching the cards now. It processes instantly once to code is inputed. What I did notice yesterday is it takes forever to activate a new gift card now. The register just hangs up for a good 30-45 seconds now, fucking up my flow. We were swamped last night and I'm just standing there like an idiot waiting for the system to catch up...

 

[REDcardJJ]

This was my first fear when I started reading this thread. So glad I'm not on the sales floor anymore. I remember guests paying with huge stacks of gift cards. Makes me shudder thinking about how long that would take now.

Frankly I'd be likely to send the guest to guest services and let them deal with it. Sorry GS!

uhh if you could maybe not, because aside from the fact that we don't have the space to scan and bag all of their items, we don't have the time to scratch off a million different GiftCards either. I know personally whenever I'm doing Guest Service there's always a bunch of different projects to get done, salvage has to be put into a new box because the opener taped it up in a DC box, the CRC book hasn't been updated all day so I've got to find the time to do that, paid and lefts have to be audited and reshopped, there's a cart or two that needs to be sorted yet, and that's not even getting to the Registry Kiosk or dealing with guests.

in short, please don't send people to Guest Service unless it's something you can't complete at a checklane.

 

[BullseyeBabe]

What is the CRC book?

 

[Anelmi]

Our CRC book is just for auditing signatures. 2x a day we close salvage/CRC and the GSTL/A and LOD need to sign off. Maybe someone else has a different use for theirs? Like actually logging all CRC items?

 

[REDcardJJ]

What is the CRC book?

Our CRC book is just for auditing signatures. 2x a day we close salvage/CRC and the GSTL/A and LOD need to sign off. Maybe someone else has a different use for theirs? Like actually logging all CRC items?

yeah we log all defective CRC items into the book and also write down:

• DPCI
• Price
• Defective plate number (the numbers on the sticker)

TM who defected it signs it, and it has to be checked nightly before carts are closed and CRC is pushed back.

it's not very complicated, but it turns into a lot of work when others don't keep updating it

 

[Anelmi]

Ugh I'm glad we don't do that.

 

[BullseyeBabe]

Wow! We've been never done that! But our store is really lax about stuff like that.

 

[GoodyNN]

They keep a penny or two on the top of the register keyboards at my store for scratching the cards now. It processes instantly once to code is inputed. What I did notice yesterday is it takes forever to activate a new gift card now. The register just hangs up for a good 30-45 seconds now, fucking up my flow. We were swamped last night and I'm just standing there like an idiot waiting for the system to catch up...

I thought this was just third-party gift cards but I noticed it's doing so on Target cards as well. And not only does it hang up mid transaction when I scan them, it also hangs on printing the receipt.


Also, I've never seen a CRC book.... yikes.

 

[RTCry]

I thought this was just third-party gift cards but I noticed it's doing so on Target cards as well. And not only does it hang up mid transaction when I scan them, it also hangs on printing the receipt.


Also, I've never seen a CRC book.... yikes.

YES! I had this happen today while up for fast service. Some lady bought three gift cards and OMG did that slooooowwww down the entire transaction. The receipt took forever to print too.