Burlington Coat Factory

Burlington Coat Factory • Returns • Price disputes • Defective items • Discount coupons • Baby Depot

Rustic junk shops used to have signs saying, "You break it, you buy it." Burlington has taken this a step further, decreeing that all purchases are final, even if the merchandise is defective, incorrectly priced or otherwise not as described. Take Leon. He's trying to decide how he's supposed to wear the two left shoes Burlington sold him.

To put it mildly, Burlington takes a hard line on just about everything. Even the everyday return of an item that doesn't fit becomes an exercise in frustration.

Then there's the store's security policy:

Christina of Salineville, OH (11/5/05):
I went through the checkout and paid for my items at Burlington Coat Factory today. After doing this i went to the bathroom with my purchased items. When I stepped out of the stall there was a manager standing there with the door open. She said that she was standing there because I had brought merchandise into the bathroom and that was not allowed. I told her that i paid for them but she did not care.

She stood there until I washed my hands and escorted me to the front door. She was very rude with the things she had said and treated me like a shop lifter. I told her that I was a paying customer and that the merchandise no longer belonged to them, it belonged to me. I told her I was not a thief and did not appreciate being treated like one. I was very embarrassed and felt that she had no right to bombard me in the restroom and escort me to the door. By the way, the manager had been standing right at the checkouts when I checked out, so she had known that i did pay for the items.

Steven of Los Angeles (11/1/05):
On Oct. 29, 2005 at 7:20 pm, I purchased 5 DVDs containing children's movies for my 18-month-old child. The Burlington store clerk failed to remove security devices from the DVDs and they set off the security device at the door. Male employee roughly yelled at my wife carrying package to come back into the store.

My wife told male employee that the cashier must have failed to remove or deactivate the devices. Male employee said he didn't care and it was not him that failed to remove the device. I then spoke to employee and told him that there was no reason for his tone of voice with my wife.

While the employee was looking at the DVDs in the bag I reminded him that he was a representative of Burlington and that Burlington is responsible for the failure of the cashier to remove the security devices. The male employee looked at me with disdain and said in a loud voice (in a crowded store) that: "You are no longer allowed in this store".

My wife and I were shocked by the employee's conduct and said nothing further as I left the store with the alarm again sounding because the employee still did not deactivate the security devices.

Marie of Plantation FL (10/19/05):
My four-year-old and eleven-year-old children were harrassed, falsely accused, and treated like criminals by an overt, bluntly racist security officer. He screamed at my children, accussed them of opening a Lego box without paying for it. In fact, the toy was purchased at another store with the bag next to the children including the receipt.

He made no assessment. He simply judged my children based on their skin color and automatically assumed that they were criminals. My kids felt embarrassed, ashamed and dehumanized. My son is only four years old. No children should be humiliated and treated like criminals based on their skin color. I am seeking justice. The store failed to apologize or admitted any wrongdoing. My children went home sad, feeling hopeless. Frankly, so do I!

Angelina of Southfield MI (9/29/05):
The line was going slow. I waited 10 minutes in line to pay at the register. Then they switched me to another line. The cashier didn't know how to work the cash register and somehow broke something. Then they switched me back to the original line. There they rang up my items which came to $298.78. Apparently they didn't fix a sensor or something. When I started to leave the alarm went off.

After standing in line all that time and paying for each item somehow something went off and they were treating me like a criminal. The store manager refused to compensate me for the horrible service and the embarrassment in any way.

Dean of Phoenix (4/22/05):
As I rolled the shopping cart toward the front door to exit the store, a bell went off. A woman grabbed my bag of recent purchases angrily, and went through them and found a security button that a clerk failed to remove at the cashiers checkout. She handed me back my bag and I asked if I could use the shopping cart to get to my car in handicap parking as I have to carry an oxygen tank 24 hrs/day and the shopping bag was also bulky and heavy. Today is also an "ozone alert" day in Phoenix and the air is particularly hard on me with any exertion.

She looked at me as if she was mad at me for having to correct the cashier's error and bluntly said "No" - "You cannot remove the cart from the store!" Other stores I shop either allow you to take a shop out or most even provide electric carts for handicapped people. Neither I nor my family will ever shop at another Burlington Coat Factory outlet.

I was fully exhausted and panting for breath as I got to my car and was dizzy and had to sit still a few minutes and came home still having difficulty.

April of Cape May NJ (4/1/05):
I took my 2-year-old daughter to try on some clothes and was told that I could not enter the fitting room with the stroller, which I would have used to keep her secured. Upon exiting the room, I handed the attendant (who had replaced the first attendant) the (5) five articles of clothing that I had fitted for my child.

At this time, my daughter darted away from me and into the aisle. When I located her, she was headed towards the outside exit of the store. When I returned to retrieve my stroller, the attendant explained that I could have taken my stroller into the fitting room.

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