Banana Republic,

172 Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto, CA 94304

"I was a loyal customer of Banana Republic but this store trashed my confidence in the brand. I spent about an hour trying on different clothes. I went to check out - but my Apple card was declined. That was weird, I thought, since I made a purchase just beforehand with it. It was declined three times. The store told me to get on the phone to my bank (of course they wouldn’t assume it was their system being broken). Sure enough, nothing on Apple’s end at all. I was made to feel embarrassed. The person “helping” would not even consider that their system was broken. After spending time talking with Apple who confirmed that my card was fine, I went back to the store to get a manager. She said they’d had an issue all day with AppleCard and asked me to use a different card. Totally inconvenient. It’s the Banana Republic system that’s broken, and I have to convenience them by using a different card? No, I don’t want to use a different card for good reasons! I then asked if they could just use the card number, but they said they would not do that. So their system is broken and they won’t make an effort to make things right. Finally, sense prevailed and the manager restarted a different terminal. We tried again. It worked. My card was approved. This is why I’m giving two stars, not one. But next time, Banana Republic: don’t embarrass your customers, don’t assume your system is working when it’s not, and maybe work with you customer when your system is b0rked (ie for goodness sake, take a credit card number!)"

"Don't work here! Absolutely toxic management. Managers told everyone they'd be fire if they shared their paychecks or told others how much they were getting pay. All of this, pretty illegal BTW. Not worth it! Additionally, management's favorites got to take off time whenever or call out the day of. But if you ask for time off plenty in advanced, they'd threaten you'd be fired."

"Sales people on the floor were just horrible. No one was willing to help me or my wife find the size we were looking for. Sad to see a reputed brand lose its potential appeal just because of some entitled kids they hired for in-store sales. They wouldn't care if the customer screamed for help! Much better experience with J crew that was just a couple of shops down the line. Less premium brand but far better customer service."

"Had a really good experience. One of the floor sales people helped me figure out a few outfits and shoes. I don't think it was in her job description to help style stupid middle age men to figure things out, but I am really glad she did!"

"Went in yesterday to buy some belts and the selection was great and I had an easy time finding what I was looking for. I generally like the clothing and styles at banana republic and this store was no different. This store in particular has some pretty bad customer service though. When I got in line the cashiers had one line open but a bunch of them (2-3) looked like they were just standing around. One finally called me up and didn't bother asking me if I had their rewards program (which I did and would've liked to earn points) and seemed generally apathetic. She ended up just handing me the belts I bought and didn't say any typical "have a good day" kind of remarks. I get that it's the day before Christmas but other stores still manage to have friendly cashiers that maintain customer service."