CVS pharmacy

Long lines at pharmacy– always. High prices should reflect in quality service but not here. Hate this place with a passion.

This less than lukewarm review is for the actual pharmacy at CVS. I walked in on Wednesday at 4:20 pm (after driving there from another CVS pharmacy that didn’t have the shingles vaccine at their location). I stood at the window waiting while the pharmacy tech was on the phone; in the meantime I noticed the glass between the retail area and the pharmacy was grimy with handprints, and a half-​eaten cookie was sitting on top of the blood pressure machine.
Eventually she took my information and entered it into the computer. But when she turned to the pharmacist standing next to her and told her I was there for the vaccine, the pharmacist announced she was going to leave for lunch. The tech then told me I had a choice of coming back later or the next day. Well, as a medical professional, the pharmacist should have said something like this directly to me (I was standing right there) «I apologize but I have xxx other customers waiting and I need to clock out by 4:30, so if you have some shopping to do in the meantime, I will be happy to get that vaccine taken care of when I return.» But instead, she talked around me as if I weren’t even there. Well if you don’t have time to even make eye contact, I don’t have time to spend my money here waiting for you to come back from a lunch that none of the staff knew you were taking until now. Especially since you advertise that no appointment is needed to get vaccines here.
Instead I went over to Huy Trinh, the pharmacist one block away at Von’s Pharmacy, who was cordial, extremely professional, and very happy to immediately give me both the shingles and influenza vaccines, plus two 10% off shopping coupons. That amounted to about $ 265 in vaccines, plus another $ 128.00 of shopping that Von’s received instead of CVS. Almost $ 400 worth of lost business, plus future business, forfeited simply because CVS didn’t think a few seconds of communication was worth the effort.

This week CVS had a spend $ 30 deal on diapers and get $ 10 Extra Care bucks back to use in the or stores as cash. If you do these purchases for this reason you will understand what a great deal it is especially because diapers are so expensive. So I purchased my diapers in Rancho Bernardo store off Duenda and then on my way home I needed paper towels and detergent so I stopped at this store.
The nice man rang everything up and then tried to scan the $ 10 and the computer would not take it. After several attempts of making sure my phone number is correct it still would not take. I was frustrated standing there holding up the line looking like an idiot like I don’t know my phone number. I explained I just got the $ 10 ECB and it’s odd it will not go through. He said maybe the checker at the other store entered your phone number wrong. I said ok well what do we do because that can happen but the whole reason I spent $ 30 on diapers was to get the $ 10 back to spend later.
After going round and round that he can’t except it because I could have found it and it’s not mine to use. This went on for several minutes moving customers behind me to other lines at this point. he finally just accepted it. I then went to my car and had the receipt from earlier and went back in to show him that yes I did spend the $ 30 and wether the cashier their put my number in incorrectly or not I wanted to prove my honesty due to looking like a liar in line. The cashier said even with that receipt I can’t prove anything. Well it makes me feel better anyways to show my proof.
Honestly coupons and deals are great but I hate that feeling of how cashiers make you feel for using them. I appreciate the young man putting this deal through after several minutes of disputing it but feeling like I went home and printed my own $ 10 ECB or found it some where on the road was not cool.
Cashiers be careful entering customers phone numbers when you ask or someone may get hassled latter if the number does not come up.
Three stars because I felt horrible

It always feels nerve wrecking when I go to this location. So sad because it’s a few blocks from where I live. I have had several incidents with the same lady.
1. I have two extra care cards don’t know why. I only use the one linked to my current phone number. On occasion I get coupons for the one linked to my old phone number. One day I accidentally gave her the number for my current card and off course my 30% didn’t show up because it was on the card linked to my old number. I told her I would give her another number. She called the manager to get approval to use the coupon since I have two accounts. The manager approved it under on condition that I call and cancel one.
2. On another occasion I went in to buy a gift. I was hesitant about buying a gift bag because I couldn’t remember if I had one at home. At checkout I asked her if I could return the gift bag she looks at me and replied why would you want to return a gift bag? First of all I think it is none of her business to ask me why I need to return it I felt like I didn’t need to give a reason (which I did). Then she goes on to tell me that I have two days to return it. I the proceeded to ask her about the return policy which I know is not three days.
3. I go in today and she was there so I decided to use self checkout to avoid her. I brought my own bag. Before I started the transaction I placed by bag in the bagging area. Well, the motion sensor caught it because the machine immediately asked me if I had brought my own bag. I tapped yes. Everything worked out. Scanned items, bagged them, paid and I’m good. I was getting ready to start my second transaction so I figured I am going to follow the same steps with my bag. Well, this time it didn’t work. The light start flickering and guess who had to come and help me? She gets there start shaking her head and tells me, «you don’t want to do that».
I was fuming!!! Why couldn’t she just help me without making a comment. I raised my voice trying to explain to her that I was trying to do exactly what I did the first time since it work just fine. She the proceeds to tell me to do it the her way. Well, had to call her again! In the end we talked it over, I calmed down, she took my cart and I went on my way.
Her comments make me feel uneasy. It’s not like I am an extreme couponer. I bought six items today.

I’m really not a huge fan of this location. CVS is good for two types of customers; really old people and couponers. I fall into the latter catagory, but not the extreme bider carrying, spends 80 hours aweek couponing kind.
I always have coupons when I come and becuase of that I prefer to just go through the regular line rather than the self check out. If you havent used coupons in the self check out just know that its a nightmare, the machine beeps for cashier approval every other coupon and it ends up taking a half our to check out becuase the cashier not surprisingly is busy checking people out in the regular line.
Today the cashier, was particulalrly unfriendly I handed her my coupons one at a time so we wouldnt miss one and have to re-​ring. She got really snippy with me and angrily hit the totaly button and told me my total while I still had two coupons left. I asked her nicley to scan my last two coupons and she did grudingly, I paid and left.
That pretty much sums up ⁹⁄₁₀ experiences with the employees here.