Food Lion

Around 5:15pm on June 27th, 2023, I went into our local food lion to grab a couple things my kids needed. I got to the checkout, waited in line for a few minutes, and placed my items on the counter. The cashier scanned all of my items, bagged them, and I put them in my buggie. My kids are on WIC, so I pulled my WIC card out as my form of payment since everything I was purchchasing at that time was all WIC approved items. I got 1 gallon of 2% milk, 1 gallon of whole milk, 2 containers of peanut butter, 4 boxes of WIC approved cereal, and 8 bottles of juicy juice. They are currently on sale, but one get one free. My kids get 4 bottles of juice a month on their WIC, which means I should have gotten 4 more bottles free. My total came to $48 and some change after I entered my mvp number, because the buy one get one free sale wouldn’t have reflected without my mvp card. It also took off my $4 ship and earn money, which I wasn’t happy about because everything was to be paid for by WIC. When I pointed it out to the cashier, her reply was, “Sorry, there’s nothing I can do now. You should’ve said something sooner and not put your mvp card number in.” I didn’t know I had shop and earn money, or I would have said something about it beforehand. I didn’t feel like fighting, so I slid my card, expecting to have a $0 balance at the end, but it only approved $40 and some change out of the $48. I told the cashier that was wrong, and we both proceeded to check the WIC redemption slip to make sure everything had been approved. Sure enough, everything had been approved just like it was supposed to, and the cashier even double checked that she hadn’t accidentally scanned anything twice. After double checking everything, she called another cashier over to help. The second cashier double checked everything and was confused as well. They voided the entire transaction and started over, with the exact same outcome. They called over a grocery manager, who proceeded to check and double check everything. Then he pulled his phone out and called somebody. After 30 minutes on the phone, I was still waiting and getting nowhere. He then proceeded to call someone else for help and I waited for another at least 30 minutes. My husband and kids were in the car waiting on me, and I was getting very aggravated that I had been in the store for over an hour and nothing had been resolved. My husband and kids eventually came in looking for me because this whole process was taking so long. The manager finally did something on his end and the transaction processed and everything was approved with a $0 balance. I thought I was good to leave and he started taking juices out of my buggie. When I asked him what he was doing, he said I was only allowed to have 4 juices because that’s all my kids get on WIC. I told him that yes, WIC does pay for 4 juices a month, but since the sale is buy one get one free, I should be leaving with 8 juices total: the 4 that WIC PAID for, and the 4 FREE ones. After arguing with me and being rude, I got upset and started crying and left, without my free juices. The exact same thing happened to me a couple months ago, in the exact same store. The sale was buy 2, get 1 free. I went up to the checkout with milk, 6 juices, cereal, and a pack of Gatorade for my husband. Everything should have been wic approved except the Gatorade, I already knew that I would have to pay the $6 for it. After everything was rang up, my total was was much higher than $6. When I questioned it, a lady from management very rudely told me that I had gotten too many juices and if I didn’t want to pay for them, I had to put them back. When I explained the sale, she said it didn’t apply to me. She was extremely rude and hateful, and again, I ended up getting so upset and crying and leaving the store without any of my juices. It shouldn’t matter WHO pays for the juice or HOW it’s paid for. If the sale is buy one get one free, or buy 2 get 1 free, I should leave out of the store with my free items for every item was paid for. We are a low income family, living off one income with a house payment, bills, and 2 kids. WIC and sale prices help us out tremendously to make sure our kids are fed and have milk. But to be rudely told that the sale doesn’t apply to me just because we’re struggling and have to have a little bit of help from WIC, it’s very upsetting. The sale price should reflect for everyone, not certain people. That’s extremely discriminative against families like us and I really do not appreciate being talked to and looked down like that, not to mention they made such a big deal and fuss about it, every employee and customer at the registers could hear what was going on and knew my business.