RALEIGH, N.C. – Two Raleigh moms are scrambling to re-do all of their Christmas shopping after KMart lost their items saved on layaway.
“I was pretty much in tears when I was there,” said Erin Parks.
Parks had her Christmas shopping done well in advance until she found out the Big K, made a big mistake.
“I was going of town for the weekend and right before I was leaving I stopped into Kmart,” recalled Parks.
That’s when she found out her layaway had been lost.
“They basically were like, ‘we can’t find it,’ here’s four items out of the like 12 items I had on layaway,” said Parks.
They were all gifts for her daughter.
“Here it is the week of Christmas and I basically have to start all over,” Parks said.
And she’s not the only one.
“It’s the worst experience ever,” said Kerry McLeod.
The mother of two says she paid her off her layaway online. Twenty minutes later Kmart emailed her saying it was canceled.
“Bath Time Elmo was out of stock so they canceled the entire layaway. I go to the store, and find six Elmos on the shelf,” McLeod explained.
Both single moms, both left without gifts.
“The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing,” said McLeod “They couldn’t’ even find my layaway.”
Frustrated, McLeod just took a refund.
As for Parks – “They didn’t give me an explanation and I even said what are you guys going to do about this?” she said.
WNCN reached out to the Kmart corporate office who apologized and issued the following statement:
At Kmart we do everything we can to ensure our members have the best shopping experience possible. We welcome all feedback and if a member experience falls short of expectations, we want to make it right. We have been in contact with Ms. Parks, who was provided a full refund and a gift card for the inconvenience. We have also been in contact with Ms. Macleod, whose contract was refunded at her request several weeks ago.
Kmart is a leader in providing layaway options to shoppers, and we have been a pioneer in offering No Money Down layaway plus layaway options 365 days a year on a cross-category assortment of hot products including toys, apparel and electronics. We’re dedicated to building strong shopping experiences that allow us to serve, delight and engage our members while they shop their way.
“They were like oh we’ll give you a $15 gift card, which doesn’t even cover the savings I would have gotten by getting items there,” said Parks.
Only after WNCN reached out to the corporate office, Parks was given an additional $60 dollar gift card. Both parents say they still have some shopping to do.
