Horrible service and experience from House & Home Mthatha branch

Horrible service received from House & Home, the Mthatha branch.

In 2018 my sister and I bought our parents a coffee table, which we were to collect ourselves from their warehouse. The sales person, Ncebakazi told us to wait for an hour to two while she prepared our dispatch. We gave this 2 hours, and then went back to the store where it was confirmed that the purchase's ready for collection. We then went to the warehouse, where the storage guy had no clue of the collection and that this needed time to prep and therefore we must comeback the next day, something we did not accept. I mean we had wasted time doing nothing around town while waiting for the 2 hours to pass, so we told him what the sale person had said about the 1 to 2 hours waiting period and therefore demanded to get the table.

Well, we eventually got the table, which was said to be assembled as we had asked. To our surprise, when we put down the coffee table in the living room, the legs crumbled. They were not fitted, but well positioned in the sockets or slots.

Since we both don't leave in Mthatha, our parents had to live with that table as is, given they love in the village and it's a mission to go to the "city".

Nonetheless, my sister made time to go to the store in December 2019. The manager, Akhona, heard the case and arranged for an exchange, however refused to deliver the goods. After all the inconvenience and having kept an eyesore of a table without the legs, she still imposed unreasonable demands or conditions. Her stance was that we did not pay the delivery fee and therefore we needed to bring back the one table from home and then take the other they were offering to exchange. How ridiculous?! I felt the store manager strongly believed she was doing us a favour by the exchange, rather than an act of good faith or compensation for the nasty service we had received, and inconvenience.

I appreciated the gesture of getting an exchange. However, this would have been more appreciated and meaningful if they delivered and collected.

All this said, I highly appreciate House & Home senior management's intervention in this discord.