You will inevitably have a baby registry and a lot, if not all, of your items will come from Babies R Us. Just accept it. There are alternatives (like Amazon, which we used), but one segment of your baby shower invitees is still learning the internet (this is a fact, not an insult) so they will gravitate to the familiar and avoid the unknown.
It all started with a trip to the local police station to have them check the installation of my car seat (check your local area for participating locations). I scheduled the appointment well in advance of our due date, which turned out to be a good thing since our daughter came early. I arrived on-time and received a B+ for my effort at self-installation (more on that later). Then the officer informed me that the chest clip was missing. Kind of embarrassing, but why would I have even thought to look? The seat looked brand new. But more importantly, how the hell does a reputable company sell a defective car seat? Pretty unbelievable.
Next came the really frustrating part.
I immediately came home and called Babies R Us to figure something out. The first rep said that a few LA area stores “might” have some in-store. I called every store in an hour radius and apparently not only did the stores not have the stock “the computer” said they did, but our particular car seat was no longer sold in stores.
So I called customer service again to start processing an exchange. Easier said that done. A registry is designed for others to buy you things, right?! And if you don’t like said items, or need to return a defective car seat, you should be able to return/exchange them, hassle free, right? Not really.
In order for me to exchange the seat, I had to call my cousin who bought the seat and get her credit card number “for verification”. Luckily I got a hold of her and they ordered a new seat. But since she had ordered it and had it shipped to her, that is where they were going to ship the new seat. WTF? You mean to tell me I have to drive to her house to pick-up my new seat because YOU screwed up? It gets better.
As I said earlier, my daughter arrived early. And we didn’t have a car seat (FYI – the hospital will not release the baby without a car seat installed). So a friend had to bring us a car seat in case our new one didn’t arrive in time.
Luckily the new seat arrived and my dad drove 60 miles round-trip to drop it off at the hospital one night.
But this fiasco still hasn’t ended because now I had to return the defective seat. Previously, the rep that processed my new seat said I could go into any store and return the defective item. NOPE! I got to the store and they could only give me store credit – which means my cousin would have been charged for the new seat. So I then sat on a Babies R Us telephone, talking to two different Babies R Us reps, for at least 30 minutes. Ultimately I had to go home, send the defective seat back in the original box (which I had thrown out, so luckily my parents still had the box from the new seat). Babies R Us couldn’t even send the damn seat back for me!
Oh, but the rep did give me a restriction free promo code so that I wouldn’t hate Babies R Us. Yippee!
P.S. My wife eagerly opened an order from Babies R Us the other day. They had the right packing slip, but nothing she actually ordered was inside. Oh, but we got to keep the contents. Whoo hoo!
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