Once Upon A Child - Syracuse, NY

Amber T

Absolutely terrible customer service! I have been to this location about 5 or 6 times and always have left disappointed! The women who work here are extremely rude! I’ve been a regular customer and have gone in to sell them items and each and every time have been completely disappointed and honestly have felt disrespected! I have been to multiple locations in multiple states and have never had a problem until I came to this location. I cannot remember one time I had a positive experience in there. I have went in to shop with my five-year-old and he has even pointed out how the people there don’t use manners and are rude! This is not only based off of my personal experience but also things that I have witnessed with other customers there. I have seen the women that work there be so rude to only certain people they go into that location and try to sell items! After my experiences at this store I will no longer be shopping at any of the locations!

Ahmet ONCU

Great place for buying and selling children clothes.

Rebecca Alexander Carey

I truly used to love this place. If I could give fewer than 1 star, I would. I echo what others have shared about rude unfriendly staff members; still, I brought my family here (child, husband), family from out of town, told everyone about what a wonderful store it was and looked past everything else. I figured, alright, it's tough finding good staff right now, everyone is overworked. I have worked in retail and service positions throughout my life, both full time and part time, so I do understand the difficulty navigating customer situations. That being said, I will never be back to this location after what I last experienced there. My family and I went to the store to get some items and take advantage of the labor day sale. After about an hour looking at toys, playing, selecting, and waiting on a long checkout line, the staff member ringing us up was very sweet (but it may have been her first day, she asked other staff questions during the sale). As we don't always get out to that part of town and due to having a child under 1, I brought two items we wanted to return because they were too small on our child - these were from July, I figured we might get store credit or maybe able to return - I thought I might've had the receipt in the bag, but I had forgotten it. We had purchased shoes and a small jacket for our son's baptism but ended up using something else. I asked the cashier to see whether we could still return the two items without a receipt (I think the shoes were $3.50 and the jacket was $4.00), and what appeared to be the store manager (a woman with dark hair, never smiled) said she would take a look. She scanned the tag from the shoes and came back to the register to tell me, "it's from July, and this tag was never marked as sold". I wasn't sure why she was telling me that, so I asked what did she mean, she then proceeded to tell me that I could -not return the item -she had to collect the item and not let it leave the store, because it was "never marked as sold" I asked what she was suggesting, did she think I had stolen the $3.50 shoes? She indicated no, and then another older woman with blonde hair said the person who rang me up probably forgot to scan it. I told them I remember the receipt had 3 shoes on it (I was only returning one pair). I asked how, then, was it my fault that their staff forgot to scan the product? They suggested that it indeed WAS my fault because I should have checked the receipt. I was astounded. I went back and forth several times with what appeared to be the manager, woman with dark hair, who continued to insist that I would not be able to bring the shoes out of the store. I told her I was a loyal customer for almost a year since my son had been born. No attempts were made on their end to apologize to me, no attempts were made on their end to rectify the situation, no attempts were made to escalate to another supervisor or the owner, or to move our conversation to another register or the side of the service counter to make the conversation a bit more private. I gave up, told them they could have the shoes but that they were losing a customer. Again, they made NO apologies. No attempts to maintain my business. When I handed the shoes back, the staff member said "good", and told me that I should bring in the receipt if I wanted the shoes back. Why would I bring the receipt in at this point? a- I didn't want the shoes and I was trying to RETURN them b- If I brought in the receipt, they didn't even assure me that they would set the shoes aside to make sure I would be compensated for them when I did bring the receipt in The way that I see it is that this store stole from me and my family because they took something from us that we had purchased from their store, and completely embarrassed my family without any apology made. When I called the corporate office to report this incident, they told me they reached out to the store owner and I should expect a call. I don't expect a call. DO NOT shop here. I support female business owners, but they do NOT do things right here.

Esther Nguyen

My first time venturing into a OUAC store. The store at first seemed pretty organized, signs are clearly visible. But the aisles were sort of wide, not wide enough for multiple people to pass through with a cart. I normally don’t like to buy used clothes because the prices seem to be almost comparable to sales in a clothing store. And this visit proved me right. Prices for shirts for toddlers were in the $2.50 to $5 range from what I was able to gather. Many of the clothes (like 90%) in the store are gender specific. I will be having more kids in the future and like to reuse where I can. I try not to purchase too many gender specific clothes in the hopes of reusing in the future for either gender. Everything there was all gender specific. Nothing gender neutral. I found maybe three items in the size for my toddler and for my second. I didn’t even want to look in the shoes aisle because it was a complete disaster and there were so many people with their kids searching for what I assume are shoes for school. Toys section in the back are pretty much all plastic. I would liken them to daycare toys. If I ran a daycare this is where I would look for toys. I was just kind of off-put by how much gender specific clothes and items there were and the immense amount of clothes stuffed to the brim on the racks that I gave up. The prices were very comparable to, for example, a T-shirt for a toddler at Target. Target normally runs sales which puts the tops at around the $3-$5 mark. So the prices aren’t worth it for me. I understand that OUAC needs to make a profit from the clothes they buy from the public, and they also want a place where people who’d like to sell their used items can make a little money, but I don’t understand the hype. Needless to say I don’t think I’ll be back. I guess it’s nice for certain situations, like if you are all about thrifting and not buying new clothes for the environment and what not.