Letter to Babies 'R' Us

I am pretty upset with Babies 'R' Us right now. I got so frustrated with them that I decided to delete my entire registry and write a letter to the company. I have finished the first draft of my letter and have decided to post it here. It will undergo some revisions as I am angry and not thinking straight right now. But this will give you the general idea of why I hate Babies 'R' Us. I will be emailing this to Babies 'R' Us and copying the friends and family members who already knew we were registered at Babies 'R' Us so they will now know why we no longer have a baby registry there. (Actually, I didn't erase the registry completely. I deleted every single item from the registry. Now all that shows up is the "registrant's information" including a special notes section where I have advised people to go to amazon.com to buy baby gifts for us. I figured that it was more effective retribution to utilize the babies r us website to advertise our amazon.com registry than to completely delete all records of ever having a babies r us registry).

Here is the letter that I have written:

Dear friends and family,

Please note that I have deleted everything from our Babies 'R' Us gift registry and am asking that you all please shop from our Amazon.com baby registry. For our reasons, please see below.

To Whom It May Concern:

My husband and I are expecting our first child in December. We decided to make two baby registries from which our friends and family could purchase gifts. However, due to many reasons, listed below, we have decided to delete our Babies 'R' Us gift registry and have asked that all of our friends and family please shop for us at Amazon.com instead.

1. Expense: Most items that I registered for were much more expensive at Babies 'R' Us compared to Amazon.com. I thought that the price might be comparable when using coupons, but even with coupons many items are still more expensive at Babies 'R' Us. Furthermore, your coupons are very restrictive. When examining the exclusion categories (car seats, furniture, breast pumps, baby gear, etc.) it became apparent that most of the items on my registry were excluded from the use of coupons. I recognize that you often have sales for 10-25% off of several items, however the sales generally do not apply to items for which I have registered and the products are often still more expensive than at Amazon.com.

2. Unreasonable shipping rates: Amazon.com provides free standard shipping on most purchases of $25 or more. While Babies 'R' Us claims to provide free shipping, this is only for purchases over $75 and for shipping costs up to $20. I placed one large order from Babies 'R' Us and was extremely dissatisfied to find out the shipping costs. While the $250 crib that I bought only cost about $2 to ship (with the $20 shipping discount), I also bought 3 blankets which, according to the order breakdown, cost more than $40 to ship. It cost more to ship the blankets than to purchase them, and I would never have purchased the blankets had I realized the cost to ship. I had another order where I tried to add items that cost only $3-5. However, each time I tried to add an item in that price range, shipping rates would jump $6-10. It is ridiculous to charge $4 for a pacifier and then $7 to ship it. I get items from Amazon.com faster and cheaper.

3. Rewards 'R' Us is not all that it is cracked up to be: My main motivator for shopping and creating a registry with Babies 'R' Us was the Rewards 'R' Us program. However, when I tried to print my $15 in Rewards 'R' Us dollars (from spending $469 in June and July) I discovered that my balance of Rewards 'R' Us dollars that I was able to print was $0. After calling your customer service department, being placed on hold for 15 minutes while my customer service representative tried to figure out where the $15 had gone, being disconnected from the phone call, and calling back and speaking with a second customer service representative, I found our that I am no longer able to print the $15 in Rewards 'R' Us dollars online; I have to wait for them to be mailed to me. I would not mind this except for the fact that they are not being mailed in a timely manner. The 'R' Us dollars were removed from my online account August 1st for mailing. The anticipated delivery date for the last five 'R' Us dollars is September 14. It should not take 1.5 months turnaround time to get my rewards dollars. Furthermore, I was planning on using the $15 all at once to purchase a Medela breast pump at $300. I found out this morning, upon calling customer service, that each $5 Rewards 'R' Us certificate has a different date for use. The first $5 has to be used by 8/31. The second $5 can only be used from 9/1 through 9/15. The third $5 will not arrive until 9/14, and I can only assume cannot be used until 9/16. I spent over $450 in order to earn $15 in gift certificates just to find out that the gift certificates are essentially useless. Needless to say, this is the last $450 that I will ever spend at Babies 'R' Us, and I am going to advise my friends and family to do the same. As for the breast pump that I was planning on purchasing from you for $300: I will be purchasing it from Amazon.com now for $260, including free 2-day shipping.

I find many of your business practices, as well as the customer service that I received, to be unacceptable. I will no longer be doing business with your company.