It’s been a while since we had a good Target registry complaint—as readers know, we collect these stories like other folks collect porcelain figurines.

Yes, Target seems to have a dedicated staff at its HQ to think up new ways to frustrate users of their baby gift registry. Reader Alexandra M shares their newest trap: registries that expire like a gallon of milk:

I am writing this e-mail to tell you about our experience with the Target registry.   We came very close to not registering at Target because of your review explaining the difficult time some customers had returning registry items.  As a result we registered for most items at BRU and left just a few items on the Target registry for those family member who don’t live anywhere near a BRU.  We’re glad we did.  We made one return before our son was born without much difficulty by printing the purchase log at the store. 

BUT we received another round of gifts just after he was born.  Since some of the gifts were duplicates my husband took them to Target to be returned.  He was told, like before, to print the purchase log (we did not have store receipts).  The option for the log was no longer on the screen.  After talking to several condescending store reps and telephone reps, my husband was informed that the registry was expired.  Apparently the registry expires after the expected due date of the baby.  He was told that this new policy went into effect on August 1, 2007.  Our son’s due date was August 6 and he was born on August 12. He spent a couple of hours talking to different people at the store and on the phone, but no one could help.  He’s vowed never to set foot in a Target again. 

We were able to return the items the next day by printing out the on-line gift receipts (we lucked out that both the items we returned were bought on-line).  However, that did not make the experience any better.  We were very disappointed.  We are also writing Target and will share any response with you.