If I were a Safeway executive, or a Safeway stockholder, I might be a little worried about the problems with “Just for U”.

But I would be extremely concerned about stories like the one that follows, which came via email yesterday from a regular reader.

She writes:

We shopped at the Waimalu Safeway for seven years or more until last year. Then someone stole my husband’s wallet, which held some credit cards, some cash and one blank check. (It was later found on a bus, intact, except for the missing cash.) In the meantime, we canceled the credit cards and went to our bank to end our joint checking account and open a new one.

The next time we shopped at Safeway (we had the red Safeway card from the beginning), we used an imprinted check with the new number. As we went through the checkout, the clerk informed us our check was not accepted. It did not have the account number we’d always had, she said. I said, “But we have shopped here for years. You know us. And we have Safeway’s membership card.” No deal, we would have to pay for our groceries some other way. I paid with a credit card.

Then I asked for the manager’s name. I called him when I got home and he said they just had too many bounced checks and could not allow a new checking account for our names. Then I e-mailed Safeway’s customer service on the mainland. You would not believe the idiotic response I got (or maybe you would.) Basically, as you said, with Safeway the customer is always wrong. I replied and got another idiotic response.

At that point we decided there are plenty of other grocery stores in our area and we now shop in them. We never did receive a clear answer as to why Safeway could not put our new check number in their computer, along with our Safeway card. We have excellent credit and spent $800 to $1,000 a month at Safeway.

At first I thought this was unrelated to the “Just for U” issues. Then I realized it was the computer system that rejected the new checking account, and apparently no way for managers on the ground to bypass it.

Safeway, if you’re listening–this was a very good customer driven away from your store, apparently by the rigidity of a poorly designed computer system that store managers and customer service agents are unable or unwilling to override. Add in you poor customer service, which appears set up to deflect complaints rather than solve problems, and it was too much.

I suppose that although I’ll shop at Safeway, at least some of the time, I wouldn’t advise anyone to invest in the company, at least under its current management.