Yesterday was a mixed-bag of epic proportions. I had an awesome day with my son. He developed a cold overnight on Sunday but finally began to feel better yesterday. He ate, burped, and slept. It was a great day with him.

I downloaded necessary tools for my freelance trade: SnagIt and Adobe Acrobat Standard. Sure, those two pieces of software cost quite a bit of money together, but I’ve decided it’s better for me to have them and recoup my expenses through earning income than to lose income and not spend the money at all. I have used Adobe Reader’s basic sticky note feature extensively and felt as though I needed to upgrade to more advanced annotation for PDFs. I have used SnagIt in my freelance career and at home for a free trial and decided it was worth the expense if I’m going to edit/proofread websites.

But nothing, oh nothing, compared to the frustration I experienced with my Target card.

I received my basic store Target card sometime last year in 2013. If I had paid attention, I would have noticed that it said I had been a cardholder since 2011. But I didn’t pay attention. All I knew was that I had opened a Target account and could use my card anytime I chose to do so.

Cue the Law & Order theme song.

I tried using my Target red card at the store sometime before the holidays. The card wouldn’t work. I didn’t think much of it because I remembered I hadn’t really activated it. Then I read on the Target red card website that the Target store card does not need to be activated. So I wondered why my card didn’t work but was too lazy to call.

Last night, when I tried to purchase a gift that would have cost me $8.20 in shipping & handling on the website, I noticed the fine print that said “No shipping fees when you use your red card!” Of course! So I whipped the card out and entered it into the payment section and was puzzled when I received a SQL error. When I tried again, the website took me all the way to the final screen and then back to billing where it asked me to enter another valid form of payment. So Target.com recognized my store card as a valid Target card but then didn’t.

Finally frustrated enough to save $8, I called the Target number to speak to a representative. After becoming even more puzzled (and more frustrated) as to why my account number was not being recognized, I kept pressing random buttons until I reached a customer representative. This customer representative informed me that because I had not used my Target card within 2 or 3 months, it was cancelled.

TWO or THREE months?

Cancelled without informing me?

The customer representative proceeded to tell me that if I wanted another Target card to go to the store and open a new one. K? Thx. Bai.

I hung up, absolutely livid. This isn’t the first lousy experience I’ve had with Target and (THANK GOD) haven’t even been hacked. So below is an open letter to Target:

Continue reading “Eye on the Target and other assorted ramblings” →