The incident happened on Monday and I am still brewing the fume now, not just with the Emo, stupid checkout girl, who started the ball rolling but with the two customer service managers who tried to "fix" the situation.
Baby had been practically force fed so I could venture out and she was handed over to OH, while I took an urgent food expedition to ASDA (Yes, I shall name and shame the store.)
Everyone was starving and it was past tea-time already but I promised not to be too long. Infacol was high on the shopping list as Indie was grotty with colic and I was also in search of super quick food to cook, to combat my shakes and lack of lactation.
For once, I was pleased with my trolley contents. Lots of discounted fresh cream cakes for OH, and pastry/bakery products for the kids. I had taken my time to ensure my tea would be beautiful. I was starving and making an effort to be healthy (I had even completed 4 minutes on Wii Fit before I left!) The beansprouts, mange-tout, water chestnuts and variety of fresh vegetables would be perfect with noodles and sweet chilli sauce and brand new wok even glistened in the trolly.
Avoiding the chocolate near to the till, I unloaded my shopping and faced the most annoying question of the past six months, " Do you need carrier bags or have you brought your own?"
I tried to pack my shopping as the 19 year old checkout operater yapped...and yapped...and yapped.
She told me to look at the customer paying at checkout 29. Ignoring her I packed my shopping anally in the correct bags so similar products lived together on the journey home.
But she was insistant.
"Look at that girl!"
"She was a year older than me and school but a year younger than my sister!"
"She is doing the security guard from the shopping precinct."
I tried not to make eye contact and certainly didn't engage or encourage this drivel. All I could think was SHUSHHHHHHH.
Shocker, she had not being concentrating and had scanned the wok twice. Not to worry though, she would void off one but would need a manager to come and authorise it. Sighing, with my eyes rolling, I packed the remainder shopping and totally switched off from her relentless blab.
So I missed her instruction about leaving my bank card for longer in the machine after entering my PIN, so she could type in a code.
PIN OK, ACCEPTED, PLEASE REMOVE YOUR CARD.
Bang, my card was ripped from the machine so I could dash home. A check out supervisor standing behind her who had provided the necessary code TUTTED at me, whilst Emo-girl reiterated her boreness of how the card needed to stay in the reader for longer, it now needed to be completed again.
I had checked the bank before I left and had sufficient fund for the trolley full in that account. On the second attempt at taking a card payment, I was informed it had declined.
Neither of the tools would have it when I said that the payment must have come out of my account the first time, now leaving it empty.
People behind me tutted and moaned, Emo-girl looked smug and supervisor told me to go and withdrew cash from the machine.
I left in tears...
OH was as angry as me when I told him. It was now 90 minutes later and no one had eaten. I now had an empty bank account and no food. RAGED I was! My bank informed me that the transaction had gone through and gave me an authorisation code.
I headed back to ASDA...with an entourage.
My husband was providing the support and the kids were for effect. I demanded to speak to a manager and two came to see how they could help.
When I explained the situation, they said how the payment would bounce back to my account in a few days. I informed them of how many working days it would take for me to actually get my funds. I work in a bank and know sufficient stuff about payments, complaining and consumer's rights, to competently argue. I also work for an American company, so I know even more about standards of customer service.
I pointed out that my account was empty, I had no tea and most importantly no Infacol! Fuming, was how I regularly described my mood to the managers, who were trying to make small talk about the baby.
I was offered the option of taking the shopping (most of it was chilled and would be ruined) and they would take my card details manually, presumably to take payment again once the funds had bounced back to my account. I declined.
Why should I waste more time replacing the warm food in my trolley? Why should I give ASDA any custom at all? Was Emo-girl going to be receiving harsh feedback about her lack of professionalism and inadequacy?
Manager #1 could appreciate that there were urgent baby products in the trolley and said she could just take payment for the £2.47 Infacol but I declined, informing here that I would rather drive the 7 or 8 miles to Tesco to buy some.
And that was that.
No real apology, no compensation, no funds or no shopping!
She didn't even have the sense to give me the £2.47 bottle of Infacol as a token of apology.
I returned to the car and cried with frustration. Indie was awake and needed to be fed. Even more humiliation as groups of chavs, that loiter in the carpark, could see me exposed, feeding the baby.
OH returned to the store again, to vent some more I think.
A waste of an evening as the time was now 9:30pm and a trip to McDonald's Drive-thru was required, instead of my healthy tea (It's a good job that I had other funds and had not been left penniless!)
ASDA is now being boycotted.
That is horrendous. What on earth would they expect you to do if that had been the last of your money for the week? Also, I may be being stupid here, but how do they know that the payment will bounce back to your account? I'm confused about that bit x
ReplyDeleteWhat a nightmare! I can't blame you for boycotting them, how they dealt with it sounds particularly inflexible. All made worse given it's sod's law that there's a problem when you're just nipping out to do a quick shop for a hungry tribe!
ReplyDeleteI've had a couple of similar incidents recently with Boots.com and Mamas & Papas. Basically because we've started buying things for the bambino the pattern of spending on our credit card has increased (er, duh!). Our credit card provider has therefore held a couple of the larger transactions resulting in chaos - basically the funds have been taken from our account but not received by the retailer.
With Boots it meant that the order didn't process properly on the website (so we didn't even have an order number to complain with) but fortunately they were very helpful as was our credit card issuer and the problem was sorted within 24 hours.
With Mamas & Papas I had ordered online to collect in store, but their system was showing that we hadn't completed the payment so they couldn't release the goods. They were also helpful and gave me a seat, a telephone and even a bottle of mineral water while I rang the card issuer and obtain the authorisation code which allowed them to process it through at their end.
All a complete pain in the backside, but understandable that our credit card issuer was trying to protect us in case our card was being used fraudulently. Both Boots and M&P were very helpful and thus it wouldn't put me off buying from them again.
I can't believe ASDA haven't even made the effort to make some kind of follow-up with you. You would think they'd at least offer to monitor the transaction and contact you henceforth. And surely a token gift card for your hassle and the fact you had to return to the store wouldn't have come amiss either? Can feel my blood pressure rising in sympathy as I type!