Lone Star Souvenir & Food Mart — Local services in Austin

Terrible experience here. They scammed us with bogus promises and pushy salesmanship.

My wife and I went in here to buy a couple t-shirts. All the shirts all had tags on them saying they were $24.99. While we were looking, a manager came up to us and asked how many shorts we were getting. We told her two, but we were still looking. She assured us she'd give us a "good deal," which she later clarified as 20%. She hovered around us constantly.

We had picked out one shirt (which had a price tag on it), and she offered to take it up to the counter for us. After we picked out the second, we went up to the register, and I went through the payment on autopilot. After paying and exiting the store, I realized we hadn't gotten a discount. They charged us $54.54, which, doing some rough math, would be about what two $25 shirts would cost after tax.

So we went back to try to get the transaction canceled and rerun. The manager had left in those few minutes we were gone, so we spoke to the cashier.

The cashier (who would not give his name; picture of him attached) said the base price of the shirts was $27.99 (in fact, the marked price was $24.99), so he gave us a 10% discount on each shirt, and in his telling, 10%+10%=20%.

That is not how math works. Two items at a 10% discount each is still just a 10% cumulative discount. Our bill should have been $43.29 at a 20% discount.

We went back and got other shirts off the shelf to show him that the base price of the shirts was $24.99, not the $27.99 he was claiming. (Mysteriously, the pricetags were absent from our purchased shirts. I'm confident the manager who took them to the register removed them.) He refused to do a charge back and rerun the purchase at the appropriate price, continuing to assert that two 10% discounts equal one 20% discount.

He eventually gave us $6 out of his pocket, insisting that made things square. It would, if we'd been promised a 10% discount, but we'd been promised 20%. We kept insisting we were owed 5 more dollars, but he just waffled between his prior bad math and insisting that was how the shop owner had taught him how to do his job.

I don't doubt the owners taught him to do business like this, as it's clearly aimed at bilking people. But he was unrepentant. Do not shop here. They will...

My first trip to Lone Star was Monday 1/14/19. The hotel told me they were the closest convenience store. Paid cash for a few items and left.

Wednesday 1/16/19 I wanted to pick up a few souvenirs so I headed back to Lone Star. I decided to check their reviews this time and saw tons of bad reviews. It made me glad that I didnt charge anything on my first trip but I needed to use my credit card for the souvenirs.

When I entered the store I let either the manager or the owner know about all the bad reviews a had just read. He assured me that every items price is properly marked and no overcharging takes place.

I purchased a few shirts that were reasonably priced and received a 5% discount and was charged exactly what I was told and my...

DO NOT COME TO THIS STORE!

Do not come to this store! I was scammed here. The items had no price tags, and when I placed my money on the counter, they took it before even telling me the total amount. The price turned out to be more than four times higher than at other stores. When I asked for a refund on the spot, they just yelled, “Don’t waste my time.” They didn’t even give me a receipt.

When I spoke to the store’s security, they told me, "It’s normal to get scammed downtown," and refused to listen.

I highly recommend going to another store.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS STORE!!

P.S. When I spoke to the police, they acknowledged that this store has been...