DISGUSTED BY THE EXPERIENCE IN CENTURION STORE AND JULIA NKOANA

I’ve just experienced the most DISGUSTING CUSTOMER SERVICE in my entire life.

I was at Babies R us in Centurion Mall (Pretoria) in November to create a baby registry and I was helped by a sales associate who did not say to me that their registry system has a glitch and also never adviced me to let the people who were going to use the registry to keep their receipts for me to be able to exchange if there was any duplicates! I mean, if I’m creating a baby registry, it simply means I am avoiding duplicates and things I won’t need but anyway...

Some time in December, a friend of mine called me with concern to say she bought a gift and it seemed as though it never got ticked off the registry as “fulfilled”, so I went and followed up on it and she was correct, people had been buying using the registry ID, however, the registry was not being updated at all. I called Babies R us in Kolonnade Mall and was assisted by a lady who said she was the assistant manager and she confirmed that the system had a glitch but should go back to its normal way of updating. She further said that, this was caused by the Black Friday busyness! So I gave her 3 days to see if this issue would be sorted out and still the registry was still not updated. Unfortunately people had already started buying and therefore, I couldn’t cancel or do much about the changes, so I called Babies R us in Centurion for a second opinion and assistance on this and I was told that there was nothing they could do on their end, as the system is head office controlled.

Today I went back to Babies R us in Centurion Mall to exchange the many duplicates I got as gifts, and before we could even further explain the registry story, we were dismissed by “no exchange without a receipt”. I then requested to speak to someone who could help me out with a solution to this problem and they called the store manager - Julia Nkoana, who didn’t want to listen to my side of the story because she had already been briefed by her colleague on this issue and asked me what my problem was because they could not do anything about this from store level. She further gave me a bad attitude and hung up the phone whilst I was still trying to talk to her. Her assistant manager Bongani was right infront of us and he heard my conversation with her so he took the phone back and said he would have liked to helped us, however, he has no say at all.

My question is, why put people in charge when they can’t take charge? Also, are your trainings that bad to an extent whereby Julia Nkoana knows no boundaries to treating customers in her store?

I need this matter sorted with urgency because I went to your store with full trust that I would get the best service and quality products, however, I am DISAPPOINTED AND DISGUSTED by how my experience was today in one of your stores.

I forgot to mention the inconsistency in all your branches about certain employees telling people who bought these gifts that they could gladly exchange without receipts! I am utterly shocked by this whole experience! There’s nothing worse than using MY TIME, MY PETROL, during the end of my pregnancy, only to be treated the way I got treated by your staff members.

Consumer protection Act - Consumer Protection Act