Poor service by *********** staff

My wife purchased a cellphone at the Somerset Mall branch on 17 October 2020. During the week she's been having problems with the phone, because the mobile data keeps cutting off, and the only way to make it work again is by restarting the phone. Jason Johnson was the consultant. He explained to her that if there are issues, she can return the phone within 7 days.

When we went to the store today (14 Oct. 2020), we were assisted by someone named Hilton (who refused to give his surname). We explained what the issue was with the phone and he said they can't return it because there's nothing wrong with it. I explained to him that this would count as an out of box failure, which he disagreed with, saying that an OBF is when the phone has technical issues. I asked him how is the data problem not a technical issue, and he just shrugged his shoulders, said that I must contact the head office, and walked away. We then spoke to the manager, Anton, and he said that we are past the 7 days which I said can't be because today is day 7 and he said it's day 8 - this misunderstanding is because Jason didn't explain when the 7 days would expire. We understood that the day of purchase would day 0, and then 7 days would be 24 October. The manager said the best they can do is send it away to be repaired which takes 2 - 3 weeks - Hilton said the same but said that it would take 4 - 5 weeks, clearly inconsistent with what Anton said, which again shows that staff do not know the store's policies. We cannot wait for a few weeks for the phone to be repaired because my wife uses her phone daily for work purposes.

Based on the above experience, I noticed the following: *Staff are clearly not trained properly on the sales and returns of cellphones, because Hilton clearly doesn't know what an OBF is. If he wasn't the actual consultant for cellphones, then it means that the staff are not being managed properly because there is no suitable staff member to handle such queries. Also, Jason neglected to mention when the 7 days would expire, and because of this, we are stuck with a phone that doesn't work properly. This is extremely frustrating because my wife uses her phone a lot for work, and has to use mobile data because she doesn't have access to wifi at work. *Staff are rude and unwilling to assist, and simply refer customers to head office if they don't feel like assisting, without making any effort to try to resolve an issue.

I would like to ask that Ackermans please look into this. This phone cannot be used because my wife relies on mobile data for her entire working day, and to restart the phone every time is an unproductive use of her time, and we would rather buy something that costs more but that works better. I would also like to ask that Ackermans please look into the training of their staff, firstly on how they treat customers, and secondly, that the staff responsible for dealing with cellphones understand the features of the phones, and the policies (as mentioned above Hilton clearly doesn't understand what an out of box failure is).

I look forward to receiving an urgent response as we need to resolve this as quickly as possible.