Today my wife and I took our infant daughter to Claire's to have her ears pierced. I brought our son to another store while my wife waited at Claire's to get the piercing done. While in the store (#6906, Westover Marketplace, 8203 Texas 151 #109, San Antonio, TX 78245) the sales associate (Leslie C.) told my wife that she's not allowed to pierce babies ears with stainless steel or any material other than 14k gold according to their policy. She told her this after my wife had already chosen a set of stainless steel earrings as part of a $19.99 package. This required my wife to find a set of 14k gold earrings that were more than double the cost at $44.99. After the ears were pierced and my wife checked out, she looked in the bag and at the receipt to discover that the sales associate had swapped out the standard included cleaning solution for the rapid cleaning solution and charged her an extra $12 for the upgrade. Something my wife was neither told or even aware of until after she paid. In total she went from purchasing a stainless steel earring package for $19.99, to being forced and unintentionally upgraded to a 14k gold package with rapid solution for $56.99. This resulted in a 285% increase on what she had intended to spend. If I had been in the store at the time we would have left without a word just from the sales associate trying to tell me that I had to buy earrings that more than twice as expensive from what my wife wanted.
After learning about this I attempted to contact Claire's for a copy of the policy requiring only 14k gold, with no response. Add to this the "up sale" of the rapid solution for $12 without even mentioning it to my wife and I can promise that neither me nor anyone else in my household will ever shop at Claire's again. I will be retelling this story to any person that ever mentions earrings or Claire's. read more