Stop the Walgreens flu shot harassment! Employees rewarded with iPads for meeting vaccination recruitment goals?
Thursday, October 13, 2011
(NaturalNews) Accounts are pouring in to NaturalNews that Walgreens customers feel they are being verbally harassed by Walgreens employees at the checkout counter over flu shots. Multiple accounts from NaturalNews readers describe aggressive verbal harassment by Walgreens employees who appear to be "over the top" in pushing flu shots, even onto pregnant women!
"I get my scripts filled at Walgreens so they know me real well at the one I go to," one reader told NaturalNews. "When I was pregnant they kept trying to push one on me and I kept refusing them."
Several readers who say they are Walgreens employees have also reported to NaturalNews -- and requested anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs -- that they were being rewarded with incentives or threatened with reprimands if they met a certain "goal" of pushing a certain number of customers into getting flu shots. "I have been told that I have to push the flu shot on my customers, arrange flu shot clinics at off-site locations and draw up flu shots to give to the customers," one person who claimed to be a Walgreens employee told NaturalNews. They added, "Please don't blame the employees who are asking about the flu shot, they are having their jobs threatened," indicating the existence of a feeling of intimidation by their employer.
"Another employee informed me that they do not receive bonuses but will receive write ups and threats if they forget to ask each customer who enters their stores if they want a flu shot," says blogger Aydan in Oak Park, California (
http://aydansrecovery.blogspot.com/...).
"A Walgreen's employee who checked me out yesterday asked if I had gotten my flu shot," reports another NaturalNews reader. "I said no. She pressed me to get it. Then, she added that their entire staff was going to be rewarded with iPads when they met their quota."
CVS pharmacies also appear to be using employees to push flu shots: "I work for CVS and they are making us wear shirts that say get your flu shot today, and [they give a] 50 dollar bonus for whoever has the most sales. I hate my job..." says another NaturalNews reader.
Walgreens corporate claims no awareness of any of this
I called Walgreens media relations department to ask whether this pushing of flu shots onto customers was a corporate policy. There, I spoke with Robert Elfinger, a media relations representative for Walgreens. He said he was unaware of any corporate policy asking employees to verbally promote vaccines. He also stated he was unaware of any complaints from customers about Walgreens employees wanting people to get flu shots. So this is neither a denial nor a confirmation of anything; it just says that the Walgreens media relations department isn't aware of any of this.
Let's get 'em in the loop on this, shall we? A lot of people are not happy about how they are being treated at the Walgreens checkout counter. Some Walgreens stores are reportedly getting very aggressive with their pushing of vaccines onto customers, so we have decided to launch a public complaint campaign called Stop the Walgreens Flu Shot Harassment!
This campaign also encompasses CVS pharmacies, by the way (see below), which has its own special ways of pushing flu shot vaccines onto customers.
Lodge your complaint with Walgreens and CVS
Were you verbally bullied by a Walgreens employee over a flu shot? Did you feel uncomfortably pressured, or were you scowled at when you said NO to the flu shot?
Lodge a complaint with Walgreens!
Call their customer service line at: (800) 925-4733
Or file an online complaint through their contact form at:
http://www.walgreens.com/marketing/...
You can also write Walgreens (as in sending a physical letter) at:
Walgreen Company Consumer Relations
1411 Lake Cook Rd, Mail Stop #L428
Deerfield, IL 60015
If you wish to lodge a complaint with CVS pharmacies about being bullied over flu shot marketing aggression, contact them here:
Call the CVS customer service line at: (800) 746-7287
File an online complaint with CVS through their contact form at:
https://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/help/email-custo...
Important tips for submitting complaints: Do not submit complaints to Walgreens from your work computer. Your own employer may track your internet usage and actually punish you for opposing vaccines! (Many employers receive kickbacks from vaccine retailers for "recruiting" their employees for flu shots. We'll be reporting more on that in the coming days.)
Also, remember that if you submit your email address to Walgreens, they will have your email and they might theoretically use it to email you things like flu shot special offers, for example. So I encourage people to use anonymous emails or "throwaway" email addresses acquired through services such as Hotmail or Yahoo.
http://www.naturalnews.com/033859_flu_shots_Walgreens.html
