I am so happy. Moody's cuts Walgreen's outlook to negative.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Moody's Investor Service on Friday cut Walgreen Co.'s rating outlook to negative from stable.

"The change in outlook to negative reflects our concern that the contract standoff between Walgreen and Express Scripts has become more contentious than originally anticipated," said Maggie Taylor, a senior credit officer at Moody's.
The ratings agency warned that Walgreen's A2 rating will be downgraded if it is unable to negotiate a successful contract with Express Scripts.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/moodys-cuts-walgreens-outlook-to-negative-2011-09-16?link=MW_latest_news

Why am I happy? Because I just watched Walgreen's blow into our tiny town a year ago, buy out the one remaining local pharmacy that offered lowest prices in town, great service, and then charged THREE TIMES the amount for the same script, while offering lousy service, always busy phone lines, telephone trees in stead of human beings to talk to.
Not only that, but the buyout was a SECRET until it was done deal, MY prescription was sold to Walgreens, who filled it long before refill time and left us a message saying we could come pick it up.
Even worse, they used the wrong prescription, for wrong dosage.
And they print weekly sales flyers with bait and switch items.

We have since found a decent alternative, but it took several days over the course of 3 weeks to do so.

A pox on them.I will not be happy until they are an empty storefront on that street.

[elocs]

1. For years in my city there was 1 Walgreen's, now there are 4.

We don't even have 4 McDonalds here.

[sethgrogen]

2. and how hard is it to open a second register?

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Well, you would have to PAY someone to do that, right?

The lovely thing is, they PAID for the patient subscription list, and from what I am hearing, a lot of the former local pharmacy patients have gone elsewhere, all complaining about Wal-greens screw ups, 3 days waits for script fills, etc.
Word travels fast in a small town.
heh heh

[LoZoccolo]

9. Just go on the PA system and say "IC3". n/t

[sethgrogen]

17. omg! a guy that got sacked from home depot wemt on the pa with a rant!

Funniest damn thing I ever heard!

[RKP5637]

3. The pharmacy at Walgreen's here was so consistently nasty we left the place

and have never been back. n/t

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. It's tough being an independant pharmacy or anything else these days.

The owners are probably lucky that Walgreens decided buy them out instead of driving them out. And if Walgreens didn't do it, sooner or later CVS or someone else would have.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Owner is past retirement age, had been mulling options for several years.

His selling out I understand.
His selling MY prescription info. to Walgreens without my knowledge or consent, that is a whole different story.

[azul]

7. If there was an error you should make a complaint

to the state board of pharmacy. They usually have to investigate, and it helps to keep them honest and accurate.

Many chain pharmacies are understaffed and it escapes me why people patronize them if a better service store is an option.

This from someone who works in the last independent in a town competing with 7 chains. We have prescription records going back to the 1890's, and boy was it ever a curious business back then.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Walgreens wants to take over the world

I've been saying that for years. Walgreens and WalMart.

Walgreens just so completely messed up my prescription I can't sort it out to report all the details. But in the end, I asked them to transfer my prescription to CVS and they refused! All of a sudden, the prescription I had been trying to fill for three days was ready! LOL

[RKP5637]

10. We switched to CVS here some years ago now and they've been pretty good. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. The trick is to ask CVS to fill it, and they will get it transferred.

They refused to transfer your script??????????
Arrgghhh.

I just called my Dr. office and asked them to call in the correct script to the pharmacy I wanted to use.

Instead of having to pay Walgreen price of $35.00 for generic 30 days supply,
I pay $10.00 for 90 day supply at another local place.

And the local place delivers, for free!

Dr. office here is great about calling in scripts.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. This was too bizarre

The phone system at my Walgreens was down for a day. So when my doctor's office called, the call went to ANOTHER Walgreens and they filled my script. The manager explained it was some kind of fail safe system Walgreens has to keep those scripts filled.

My doctor's office had no idea they were talking to a different Walgreens. And the second Walgreens never called the first one to let them know THEY had my script. My doctor's office ended up calling three times, and Walgreens wouldn't fill the script again since their system showed it had already been filled.

It all got worked out when I went in to the store and asked to see the manager.

Next day I transferred the script to the mail order company.

[golfguru]

15. Forget Walgreens, go with Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart has never screwed up any prescriptions, always ready when promised, and they were the 1st to offer $4 generic prescriptions, for which don't even need medical insurance, since it is so cheap. They cover something over 400 different medications for $4. My 3 month HBP meds are only $10!

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Sorry. I avoid shopping at WalMart.

[golfguru]

20. and you have that choice

like shopping at Walgreen's.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. I do.

And I chose mail order from yet another evil corporation. :)

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. Sadly, Wal-Mart is only 1 of 2 grocery options in our area.

other than Dollar Stores.
The Winn Dixie is hideously expensive.

[golfguru]

25. Luckily there is a Winco food store here

not too far from the house. It has better prices than Wal-Mart on 90% of items. As you probably know, Winco is 100% owned by employees. I love their open bins, where I find so many things at discount prices.

[dixiegrrrrl]

26. Never heard of it. Sorry we are missing out on it down here.

[golfguru]

28. It started out as Cub Foods many years ago before becoming Winco

They had stores in Chicago burbs then. I am glad there is one here in burbs of Seattle.

[Mojorabbit]

27. This happened to my husband

when he was calling in a script for a patient. It was the weirdest thing. It must have been a huge outage they had.

[skippercollector]

13. is it only prescriptions?

I don't get my prescriptions filled at Walgreens. Are your complaints only about the pharmacy? Because I have been to a number of local Walgreens in my area and have not had a problem with their merchandise. In fact, some of it I really like!

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. My complaints are about the chain and its practices.

It moved into town, directly across from the Rite-Aid pharmacy that had been there for years and a block away from the old time local pharmacy that had been there for decades, then bought out the old pharmacy,
which I had gone to for years, filled my prescriptions without me asking them to, and called me to come pick them up, but the pharmacy was "too busy" to answer my phone calls to them.
Turns out they screwed up the prescription, wrong dosage.

It frequently advertised items for sale that are not available a day after the ads come out.
There is ONE clerk available who is always at the cash register, getting help is impossible.
" I'm sorry I cannot leave the cash register area and no one else is available".
It charges much more for scripts than any other place in town.

The pharmacy problems are a whole other long list.
I have heard tons of complaints about that from doctor offices, neighbors, other pharmacies.
I live in a town of 6,000 people and was told it would take at least THREE days for Wal-Greens to return a call to another pharmacy to transfer my script which needed filling.
I got my doctor office to call the script in, took them 30 minutes.

[seeviewonder]

14. I worked for a Walgreen's store when I started college back in 2005.

I worked there for about a year and a half as a grunt working the front register as well as the photo dept. on occasion. I hated every second of my time there. Management was awful at best and the pay was an insult for as much as we did for them. From the anti-union training video I should have known what I was in for when I was hired, but I was young and naive. The store manager was the type who never stepped foot on a college campus in his life (not even a CC) but gained his position only because of people he knew. That is a fact. He would come in around 10 AM everyday and leave around noon or so. All he did was walk around drinking his coffee and pointing out how you were fucking up. I'm glad to see them beginning to fail, if that is indeed the case.

[GeorgeGist]

16. If you lived where I do ...

everything you said would be true of CVS. Our Walgreen's isn't at all like the one you describe. :shrug:

[kickysnana]

22. ditto

[benld74]

18. Walgreens is ALSO buying the LAND the buildings are on,,,,,,