Hot Topic

I don’t know what it is about this Hot Topic but I’ve had two poor experiences.
1^st experience — I go in to return some stuff from online that didn’t fit. I beeped when I went in figuring it was the clothes I was returning. They gave me a hassle about the return but I got a store credit because they really didn’t know/​want to do an online return. I beeped when I went out. Thought it was weird so I started looking for something on me that might do it. Turns out the new purse I had had a security tag in it. Except about two seconds after looking the employee asked to look in my bag. I never even walked around the store, give me a break I beeped when I went in. I took my bag back from her finding the tag another store left in the purse. Thoroughly embarrassed, if she had just let me look I would’ve found it and shown her it.
I e-​mailed the company and the DM was not happy about it and gave me a $ 25 gift card.
2^nd experience — First I went to HT in the Meriden mall. They didn’t have what I needed for an exchange and the girl was super nice. It was a couple of days in between so I didn’t have them hold the product I needed for exchange. 1 was a t-​shirt which they no longer had the size I needed and the other was a pair of Hello Kitty tights. They would not let me exchange the Hello Kitty tights even though the Meriden store would have.
I hate this store and I am never walking in it again. Not that I do much shopping at Hot Topic as I did when I was a teenager but I have just been thoroughly annoyed especially every time you want to return something you are treated as a criminal.

My friend wants to be a fallen angel for Halloween so we thought we might pop into Hot Topic to see if they had any black wings. We did a quick sweep of the store and we were about to leave when I pointed to some t-​shirt displays that had wings with them. Jeff asked an employee and she eagerly pulled a pair of white wings and black wings from behind the counter (why they were behind the counter and not on a rack I still don’t know).
That employee was Jeff’s personal angel. She carefully listened to his costume idea and went so far as to hook him up with a pair of faux leather booty shorts and black mesh tank top. While he was trying them on in the fitting room, our angel employee explained that she needed to go on break and that another person would help us. That’s when it went downhill.
The new employee only manned the register, but did answer questions about the return policy. The line was so long and that employee so slow that Jeff nearly gave up and left.
So, between those two employees, the experience was A-​OK.