Ludicrous response from Mr Hirsch after customers jump queue.

After almost two decades of purchasing all my home appliances at Hirsch’s, I would recommend that instead in the future you buy online from other retailers that actually care about their long-standing clients.

Long story short, Hirsch’s had a clearance sale a few weeks back. The sale was from the Saturday morning, so I went to the Hirsch’s Strubensvalley store the day before to see if there were any items I would be interested in. I found a TV I wanted to buy, and the sales lady even said to me that if I want the TV I’m interested in, I should be at Hirsch’s early to catch the worm.

And so it was - I was there very first in the queue, outside the front gate, with it still locked with chains. As you can imagine I was delighted and excited that I made it there first and I could buy the TV for my Mom as a gift and was getting it at half the price! I even took a photo to send to my wife of the chained up main gate where I was parking first.

Two other cars started to queue behind me, but strangely after about 10 minutes, these cars (that I realised afterwards had come together) reversed and sped off in a different direction. Confused, but not too worried, I thought I’d walk around the empty street for a bit.

To my horror, I found that the Hirsch staff had opened the back staff gate (for staff to arrive and open the store) and just never bothered to put a sign by the main entrance to advise customers, especially since it was a clearance sale!!! Or to chase customers using the staff gate back to the main gate!

So suddenly I was third in the queue as the cars behind me were now in front. And of course, they went straight for my TV. I say “my” TV because I was there first, and Hirsch ‘s staff as well as parking security knew this and yet they allowed the others to buy the TV.

Mr Allan Hirsch got involved after I wrote to him complaining about the horrible experience and how I felt cheated because of his *********** staff. He was sympathetic at first, and said that there was the same TV in another store and that he had called me to offer it to me… Yet he never left any message, he never messaged me in any way other than a missed call from an unknown number, and then he claims he was forced to sell the TV to somebody else 2 hours later. So his apparent attempt to contact me was not really any sort of sincere attempt at all!

There was then an offer for a broken TV that he’d repair, but that never happened because it couldn’t be repaired. And then an offer an inferior model of TV at a discount I could get at any retailer.

His most recent response is that it’s my fault I didn’t answer his call (the one from an unknow number, where he didn’t leave a voice mail, or message), and that I can’t blame him because the customers that went to the staff entrance had “used their initiative”!

His staff gave them a way to cheat the “system”. His staff should have told them (and even put a sign up) that the queue starts outside, at the main entrance. Should have told them, that the queue has already formed. That they shouldn’t be jumping the queue. That’s what should have happened, not serve them. And then he praises them for their “initiative” finding a loophole. Is that what our politicians did when they stole billions, they “used their initiative” to cheat the system?!! And now he raises that as a credible acceptable outcome, cheating the system and then being rewarded for it by being served first is using one’s “initiative”!

He is clearly not the Mr Hirsch I thought he was. Or that he tries to come across as the caring advocate for the consumer in his adverts. He should have scolded his staff for the problems they caused, and done right by honouring my position in the queue!

Rather buy online from retailers that care. It took me almost 2 decades, and this encounter with Mr Hirsch, to realize that Hirsch’s had stopped caring for the client and only cared about money.