JC Penney Trickery

I feel duped. Suckered. Embarrassed at my stupidity. All because I'm a cheapskate. And because JC Penney sucks.

Miles had his Christmas pictures taken at JCP a couple of weeks ago. The pictures turned out fine, sort of. However, here's the tale of why we won't go back.

We showed up for our 11:00am appointment a week ago Saturday in good spirits. Despite my worries, Miles ate when he was supposed to, had a nice nap in the car on the way over, was in a pleasant mood, and hadn't managed to puke all over himself. When the elevator doors opened to the Portrait Studio, mass chaos ensued. There were babies crying, kids whining, toddlers darting, parents scolding, all of them dressed in their Sunday best. Reds, greens, reindeer sweaters, and glitter dresses abounded. Why did I think that a Saturday afternoon before Christmas would be any different? Because, I am an idiot...I mean, an optimist.

After I was able to finally flag down the girl to check in, she told us it would be 40 minutes until they would be ready to take Miles' picture. An hour later, we finally made it into the studio for the session. Miles made it through the first round of pictures with a smile on his face, thanks to my obnoxious rendition of the Hokey Pokey behind the photographer. I'm pretty sure the 30 or so people in the waiting room enjoyed my performance too. The hotter the lights got, the less patient Miles became, so we did have a couple shots of him crying and staring off into space in our proofs. Overall, we thought Miles was a super good boy - he ended up coming out of there in a better mood than we did!

That's only the beginning of my complaints with JCP though. I don't have enough creative energy for a continued narrative, so here's the rest of the why-JCP-sucks list:

• It took another 30 minutes for someone to review our proofs with us.
• I knew more about how to "edit" the pictures in the JCP system than the sales clerk did.
• We ordered the package to see the pictures online...our prints came back 4 days before they posted them to the internet!
• The online prices are not the same as the deal we got in the studio. If I want to reorder, it will cost almost SIX times as much for the same sheet of pictures I bought the day of the shoot.
• You cannot use coupon codes on reorders, even the one I got from the survey I filled out about my horrible experience.
  
• The resolution on the pictures online is so bad, you can't even read the type on some of the "enhanced" pictures. Plus, they're so low res I can't print them someplace else.

This is where JCP is sneaky. They outline all of this stuff in the small print and hidden away in their FAQ section. So, I'm the one to blame for ASS-uming that they would honor my coupons, my original price, and that the pictures I bought online would be of high quality.

All of this b.s. is worth it, though, because of this:



And this:



And this:



Sucker.