Online BAD Customer Service

I have never received such bad customer service from a company in my life.

I tried to order a rug (which was on promotion) online from @home with my TFG card. When trying to pay, it said I must try a different payment method. I phone online customer service to assist me. A lady answered after holding for 10 min and said I can order without logging in, as the card might not be loaded to my profile. I asked her to stay on the phone as I was in no mood to hold again for 10 min for someone to answer. We logged out and tried to pay, again getting the same warning message. This time she said there must be something wrong with my card and she needs to escalate it and can take 48hour. By this time I was on the phone for 35minutes, but desperately wanting the rug said to the lady I cannot wait that long as it will get sold out.

She put me through to customer service. The lady from customer service told me after checking my card thoroughly, she cannot see why I cannot pay as everything seems to be in order. I asked if there isn't a way they could issue me a gift card to pay and said she cannot assist me and need to put me through to online customer service.

At the 3rd lady, I was informed that I cannot purchase online as my account has not been open for a month (I was 8 days away). Now by this time the rug was SOLD OUT! And all I got is sorry. I asked is there no way they can get me the same rug in a store at the promotion and the lady said sorry it's not possible. I asked that a manager phone me back until today no one phoned me. I was on the phone for 45 minutes. After a while, I thought maybe let me phone them again and ask a different person to assist me. This guy was really friendly and said he cannot understand why the first 3 ladies couldn't have just helped me to put the sale through (to keep the stock) as I do have 48hours to make payment. He said he will e-mail @home stores management to ask if I can purchase the rug there, again no phone call ever.

After 2 hours I went onto the site and saw there is stock of the rug. I immediately phoned online customer service to ask if they can just assist me to reserve the stock in order for me to have time to drive to the store and by a gift card. The response was no sorry mam we cannot do that.

Drove to the store, purchased a gift card, rushed back home to place the order. When trying to submit my payment I cot an error message again saying I need to phone customer service. Customer service did not know what the problem was and put me back to online customer service where I was informed you need an E-GIFT CARD!!!!!!! What the HELL!!!!! Why does a store need two gift cards??? That is sooooo stupid. Rushed back to the store to exchange the gift card for an E-GIFT CARD (rediculous). Got my E-GIFT CARD, drove home, and FINALLY could have placed my order.

One would think that this is the part when it's a happily ever after BUT NO! It gets worse.

After a week after placing my order, I have not received any communication from @home and thought let me phone them. The lady said she will contact me back as it has been a week. After a while I got an e-mail saying they are sorry but they could not allocate my stock in the warehouse or instore (which was a lie) and they need to refund me. No phone call, no can we perhaps assist you to go and purchase it on to, NO an e-mail.

Phoned online customer service again and the response was, sorry mam there is nothing we can do as the warehouse is out o stock. I asked to speak to a manager, held the line for 10 minutes only to hear the manager is not available. I asked that the manager phone me back, till today NO PHONE CALL BACK.

Desperate I phone my closed store (@home Livingspace - East Rand Retail) and spoke and told my whole story to the manager (Joann). Joann asked if I could please come in the next day as they are busy with stock take. Went to the store the next day, asked to speak to her, she was immediately on the floor. She fetches the rug for me, rang up my sale (WITH DISCOUNT for the promotion) and I left the store in 5 minutes. WOW!!!!!! I think @home needs to give Joann a medal as she saved @homes really bad service and assisted me with such helpfulness and kindness.

I am really a fair customer and do understand situations, but I think something that bothered me the most about this experience is the lack of staff being trained and no one (except Joann) went out of their way to assist me. To hear "no sorry" or "there is nothing we can do" (when there is something you can do to resolve the problem) is really disappointing, And the cherry on the cake is that NO ONE PHONED ME BACK.