We’ve been around the track a few times since we first started wrestling with Safeway’s latest promotion, which promises personalized discounts via a computerized system that tracks prior purchases.

Safeway calls it “Just for U”. We are still calling it “Not 4 U”.

When I last wrote about it, we had finally managed to get our first discounted items and were feeling like early kinks in the system were being worked out.

Then came another series of shopping trips where expected discounts didn’t ring up at the cash register and we were charged full freight instead.

We weren’t happy campers.

So I called Safeway’s “Customer Care” number and explained the situation. Meda and I both have Safeway club cards. They are registered using our home address and phone number, which, we were told, would link them together.

After a few minutes checking, Mr. Customer Care pronounced that there was a third Safeway card registered to us which is not signed up for the “Just For U” program. This must be what was causing the problem, he said, because when you enter your phone number at checkout, the system must be linking to this old card.

The problem with his theory is that we use our cards to sign in when we check out, not the telephone number.

That set him back a bit, but he bravely told me that all of our cards/accounts had now been linked and this should take care of any remaining problems.

Okay. Time passed. Two more shopping runs to Safeway. And both times we failed to get expected discounts.

Back on the phone to customer care. Didn’t our cards get linked? I thought that meant each card could access the promotional items available to the household.

A different Mr. Customer Care responded. “Yes, your cards are now linked, but you still have separate accounts.”

So?

“So you have to load the specials onto each card separately. And you have to use the Safeway card that has the discount you want loaded onto it.”

Aha. We thought, and I’m sure I was told, that proper linking of our cards/accounts meant that each card would be able to access the same specials. If not, then what does the linking accomplish?

“They’re working on it,” Mr. Customer Care said.

Now we find ourselves shopping at Safeway again just to test the system. We stopped in Kaneohe on the drive home Thursday evening.

This time…this time…we were prepared. We went for the specific discounts. Meda had the good sense to print out her personalized shopping list from Safeway.com listing out the special prices she was registered for. She had the Knudsen cottage cheese and Dannon yogurt. I had the box of small MilkBone dog biscuits (for the smaller dogs on our morning walk). All three items promising discounts.

Meda was first in line. Items were scanned. We look–no discount on either of her items. We show the clerk our printed list. He calls a manager, and a couple respond. There’s a huddle over our list. They recheck the items. Cottage cheese, right size, right brand, check. Yogurt, right size, right brand, check. No one can explain what has happened, but they manually override the system in order to refund the difference.

Meda mentions that I had blogged about “Not 4 U”. They laugh. They’re on Safeway’s front line dealing with the blowback from these problems. And it’s obvious that we’re not the only ones having problems.

I step up with my dog biscuits, and they ring up with the proper discount. Go figure.

So they invite us to walk over to the computer in the front of the store and sit down with a manager to check Meda’s account online. They’re assuming, of course, that we’ve skipped some step, ignored some instruction, or just did something wrong.

Fine. Meda logs on. Gets to her account. Displays her shopping list. There are these items, with promised discounts, prominently displayed. Just for U!

The manager looks, puzzled. Looks again. Expresses surprise. Then shrugs her shoulders. That’s it.

As far as we can tell, there’s no logging of the error, no flagging of the problem for further action.

Time to leave.

Yesterday I called Mr. Customer Care again.

It begins with that fulsome voice. “Well, let’s just take a quick look at your account.” The unstated phrase, hanging in the air, “…and see how you screwed up.”

Accounts are linked. Check.
Items are listed in the personalized discounts. Check.
Items are “grayed out”, indicating they had been “loaded” to Meda’s card and ready to use. Check.
But despite appearing to be ready to use, they didn’t show up on the Safeway side of the system.

Ah, now I’m getting it. There’s a whole separate front end system that runs the Just For U web site, displays discount offers, and then processes the ones that you select.
Then this front end system sends the results to the point-of-sale computer system accessed by each Safeway store.

In Meda’s case, that transfer apparently failed.

Mr. Customer Care has a technical assessment.

“There must have been a hiccup in the system,” he says.

Well, yes!

He says that he has manually transferred these two items so that they will ring up properly on the next purchase.

We’ll see.

I don’t find the hiccup diagnosis reassuring.

Just for U? Not yet!