CVS — Local services in Simsbury

Day 1 of our cross country move to Simsbury and one of my kiddos runs out of insulin in the middle of the night. I got to the pharmacy right when it opened and a man walked up at the same time while an elderly woman was sitting. She saw me walking towards the register and jumped up and cut in front of me. No big deal, so I turned and the man was standing at the start of the aisle. I motioned asking if he was in line and he said he was but insisted I go first. I thanked him and waited - chatting with my son who was sitting. I was 5 feet away from the woman in front who kept glancing behind me. After a lot of whispering with the pharmacist and other employee she started speaking louder saying this should be like Covid times and people should stand 6 ft apart. She asked them both to relay to the manager that buying prescriptions should be private and they should have the pharmacy set up that way. Realizing she was upset about me I looked back and took the only step available between the gentlemen in line and myself. The man ringing her up nodded in agreement and said “people usually stand back there” nodding to the man behind me. I’m not sure if I could care any less about this woman’s hemorrhoid cream or whatever she was picking up that was so secretive that she had to make a big ordeal. All the while taking her precious time jabbering on about this most grievous act, my son was patiently waiting with a very high blood sugar just wanting to get his insulin into his pod so he could finally eat breakfast at 10 o’clock in the morning. I wouldn’t have been so bothered if the employee hadn’t been in such agreement with her about where to stand. If this is a policy - put up a “stand here” or “line begins here” sign. It’s so simple. I changed my pickup location to another CVS so I can limit my experiences with this...

Bought a pre-paid card and ended up finding out that it wasn't what I needed. Never opened it, never registered it - brought it straight back to the store and asked for my cash back. I was told the store policy is "pre-paid cards cant be returned unless required by law". I'd say this is pretty ambiguous to say "unless required by law". Anyway - the manager refused to return my money to me despite my intention to turn around and spend the same amount on a different item that would suit my needs better. After a brief argument in which I admittedly used some inappropriate language he said fine I'm doing you a favor and attempted to process the return. He told me it didnt work as his computer system simply wouldnt allow it. At this point I returned home and contacted the bank in charge of these cards. Within 5 minutes I was informed that the CVS Manager had successfully processed the return - and I was now left with a card with zero dollars on it - and no cash refund. I contacted the local police and they went down to the store to speak with the manager. They looked at his system together and found that the return had in fact been processed. I was then called to come claim my cash at the store. I was given two excuses - first I was told that a delay in the systems return process is what caused the manager to think the return didnt work. However, upon leaving the store with my cash in hand the manager told me that it in fact had something to do with a card being swiped twice. In the end they did the right thing and gave me my $50.00 back - but not until I had to jump through multiple hoops and contact local law enforcement to assist as I am CERTAIN that without their help the manager would have continued to tell me to go away. I'll not be returning to this store ever, and I doubt that they want...

I’m not sure what’s happened in the past couple years, but the experience gets worse every time we go. They are clearly understaffed which is surprising for a major corporation.

There have been a number of times, where the wait is 20+ minutes or the employees clearly don’t want to be there. Nobody ever says welcome or hi, they give the vibe that I should be serving them.

Last time I went, I waited 10 minutes in the drive through. I finally went inside and asked if the window was open (given no sign). Her response, sorry we didn’t have anyone to work the window. It’s a 50/50 chance of the drive through is open. Even when it is open, you just sit there.

My wife went today to pick-up a prescription because we were leaving for vacation. She was waiting in line and as soon as 1:30 hits . . . Everyone is turned away. The pharmacist rudely says, “it’s our lunch.” I’ve never heard of a business just shutting down at lunch, never-mind a national brand. My wife said, we’re leaving for vacation and the pharmacist just says, “it’s our lunch.” No mention of closing at lunch when you call and you really have to hunt for it on the website.

I’m not sure what happened to the culture in CvS over the past several years, but hopefully they get back to the customer focus I...