Shoppers Drug Mart
reviews and complaints

I don't know why they wouldn't give you your prescription back. If it has not yet been filled (and since it's not a forgery), then you have the right to go a less busy pharmacy. If they ended up already irreversibly mixing something in order to fill your prescription, then they might have had a reason to be annoyed. Otherwise, I'd think they should be happy for you to go somewhere that fit your schedule, instead of trying to pressure them like some people do.

Once you've filled a prescription at a pharmacy, they have to keep that piece of paper. However, most prescriptions (with refills remaining) can be transferred to another pharmacy. Narcotic and controlled drugs can't be transferred. Certain targeted substances can only be transferred a total of one time. Just remember that both pharmacies have to be open for the transfer to take place.

Good luck with your next pharmacy.

Renfrewite,

I have been doing customer service for over 30 years at Shoppers and just about everyone loves my store. If you hate Shoppers so much, then go elsewhere and don't spread the gossip and hate as it will do you no good.

Henni Katzer,

I am sorry you had a bad experience. Have you contacted the store Associate (Owner) for an explanation? I know this store and believe that stress got to the staff. Unfortunately our head office has been cutting back everyone's hours and increased their workload ten-fold. It is not an excuse, just a possible explanation for their behaviour. To clarify the "being asked to leave", every store has that right as you are technically on private property. They also do not have to explain themselves to you at the time that they ask you to leave either. They would have to explain themselves however if you were to ask them later or file a complaint with our head office.

If you wish to file a complaint, please do NOT do it by email or telephone. Write a letter and make sure you have the date in question, people involved and what exactly happened. When you are done that, mail it to the attention of Mr. Jurgen Shreiber, CEO Shoppers Drug Mart. Do not mail it to any other person if you want the quickest possible action. If that does not generate anything, then you have two options. Either you pursue other venues (e.g. newspaper editor, blogs such as Facebook, this board, etc...) or you drop it and move forward to another store.

Take care and don't let one bad experience stop you as there are still lots of good people left in shoppers. Try the smaller stores like the one I am at, we are not perfect but we are better then most.

RedEagleOne

They were arrogant to say you couldn't have your prescription back, they should have told you that you can go to another drug store, and have that drug store call to have the prescription transferred over to them. I hate shoppers drug marts, they are all the same with poor service.

Kinda bad to blame all shopper's drug marts because you don't like the service at one. We use shopper's drug marts and haven't had this problem with any of them. In fact we had one prescription refilled at another drug store all together (ben's pharmacy). They just took the prescription from the pill bottled and called shopper's for a transfer.

Maybe's it's a matter of location...or pharmacist. I dunno. Never had any problems with them.

The pharmacist is the person who told him it was acceptable policy in the first place and he phoned the other pharmacy and confirmed before he drove all that way. If the pharmacists don't know the procedure themselves or are too lazy and/ or incompetent to give proper information, then they are in the wrong, not the customer. How arrogant and rude are the responses here. They sound like responses from arrogant Shoppers Drug Mart Pharmacists which is probably exactly what they are. If the head Shoppers Drug Mart office would respond to this very legitimate complaint by laughing at you, I would say that Shoppers Drug Mart does not deserve your business. (I would recommend that you "email this to head office" and see if they are as rude and arrogant as their employees.) In addition, he did not "get lucky" if someone did this for him before, what he got was another pharmacist who did not know or follow policy. This whole situation could have been avoided but for the incompetent behavior of the pharmacists in question. It is reassuring to know that the people who are doing the very important job of preparing and handling our medications are such consummate professionals.

you need to know the rules in pharmacy before you go ranting about pharmacist's screwing you out of filling you rx.
When you go to a different pharmacy and want an RX transferred, it's the LAW that they need to contact your
usual pharmacy before filling it. Instead of complaining, you should have done a little research on this before making
yourself look like a complete idiot. I hope you didn't email this to head office...they will laugh at you.

I find that most pharmacists are either arrogant or have very poor social skills so I am not shocked by this story. I suspect that the problem mostly came out of a failure to communicate properly in the first place and then escalated.

Essentially, I agree with "aufu", but I'll provide some further explanation. While my comments come from experience in Ontario, I believe that this is pertinent to this situation too.

If someone told you that that you could come in to fill the prescription at the 24-hour store without contacting the original pharmacy, that person was mistaken. The pharmacist at the original pharmacy should have made it clear that *both* stores need to be open for a prescription transfer to happen. Even just this past shift, I was explaining this to a patient in order to make her future transfer go more smoothly.

Prescriptions only exist in one pharmacy at a time. Pharmacies can't see into each others' files. While this predates computers, I suspect that it persists for security and privacy reasons now (as well as some concurrency issues). The receiving pharmacist is supposed to get the prescription transferred before filling it. Occasionally, a pharmacist might defer the completion of the transfer until the morning, but this might get that pharmacist in a bit of trouble.

As "aufu" said, if someone did this for you before, you got lucky. It is not valid to assume that a pharmacist is "probably lazy" or "inconsiderate" because they choose to observe the law instead.

If the pharmacist doesn't receive the transfer before filling the prescription, there is the possibility of being left hanging. I have had prescription transfer requests get drawn out because the prescription was already transferred to a different store and filled. I have had ones where there were no repeats to transfer because the prescription was already filled after the date on the label that showed a refill remaining.

The label, or the receipt-like slip of paper given to you, just makes it much quicker for the receiving pharmacy to contact the correct original pharmacy, and for the original pharmacy to find the desired prescription. It is not a real-time guarantee to the receiving pharmacist that there is a valid medication to be filled at the original pharmacy.

Yes, it is true that refills should not be left to the last minute. You might experience delays because of the pharmacy being busy at the time, or because the pharmacy might be temporarily out of your medication. It also helps the pharmacy work more efficiently evening out the workload, so that the pharmacist can be more available to speak about medications, answer questions and to address issues.

Yes, it is better to remain at the same pharmacy as much as possible. It allows for checking for medication incompatibilities, checking timing. Also, especially for regular but uncommon medicines, it helps the pharmacy know how much stock to keep of a particular medicine, so that it is more likely to be available to fill when it is needed.

However, you probably should have been told by the original pharmacy that you need to make sure that the transfer request come when they are there to process it. Also, before you made the drive out in the middle of the night, you should have been told that a transfer can't be completed while a pharmacy is closed.

wow... get over it. They are following procedure, if someone did do this for you before they were in the wrong and you go tlucky.

Contact a lawyer and sue them! Keep the bottle, and receipt to prove date of purchase. Shoppers drug mart is bad for selling expired crap, the same thing happened to me, but mine was foot cream, so not life threatening. I have reported them to the health board, but you should sue since it's something that was taken internally.

Hello,

I was looking for info when i found this page.
I had the same problem: bought some tablets at Shopper two days ago, and upon coming home and opening the bottle, i noticed that it is already expired.

i am not sure where to complain, and if it will have any result at all.

Why did you just stand there and take the abuse? I would have demanded a refund on the items you purchased that day that gave you the $10 gift card. As for the fan, well, I guess I'd bite the bullet on that and return it to the same location where it was purchased.

Damn! I live here in the states, but I really had my heart set on relocating to canada. But I must say I'm really surprised that
even happened to you two considering the fact that I've always been told that canadians were a helluva lot nicer, and much more
friendlier than us over here in the states. Just what I heard that's all!

I TOTALLY AGREE!

I just called the pharmacy and they are RUDE. After telling me they didnt have my medication, they just hung up the phone without saying bye...how hard is to say BYE before hanging up the phone to someone!?!?! NO MANNERS at all here. I will never shop there !

I haven't been to Shopper's for a prescription in many years. They charge high fees and the wait times are long. Most of their pharmacists are good but there are some that really don't have much to offer. I found a small independent pharmacy that I am completely loyal to. they do not charge me any out of pocket fees for dispensing and it is a very well run place. I never have to wait more than two minutes to have my prescriptions filled. The pharmacists on duty are always helpful and knowledgeable. One even went so far as to help me find a specialist - the best I have ever been too. I think the best strategy is to find a good pharmacy that specializes in medicine (not perfume) and stick with them.

Wait what does a Sears complaint have to do with pharmaprix?

Have been getting prescriptions at the Drug Store at Greenbank Mall 250 Greenbank Road for over 25 years. This drugstore has recently been taken over by Shoppers Drugmart. I submitted 16 prescriptions from the Doctor to cover me until December on 6 sheets on the 16th of June . Copies of the prescriptions were made. Over the next month and a half I received some drugs off the list. In November when I needed a refill I was told I had no refills. Copies were taken to the store to show that I had submitted the prescriptions. The clerk rudely told me I never submitted the prescriptions implying that I was lying when I insisted. If she had been polite and admitted there was an oversite I would have understood and thought nothing of it. Instead I have taken my business elsewhere.