Bad client experience

Lewis store in Welkom 15/12/2023 - Friday Went to Lewis Store in Welkom to buy a bed. she was guided to the monitor in the shop where she can choose which bed she wants. The bed chosen was a single bunk bed and the worth of the bed was R4000. She was told by the sales person that the bed structure included the mattress hence she then decided to go with it. Payment was processed successfully and we were then waiting for delivery. During the day, she was called by the branch manager (Tumi)who informed her that she was given incorrect information. She was informed that R4000 was just for the bed structure and did not include the mattress. This meant that if we want the mattress then we have to pay for them separately. Unfortunately we did not have the money to top up with the mattress. She then informed him that she will come to the shop tomorrow to cancel the sale and get a refund.

16/12/2023 - Saturday We went to the shop and arrived about 10am. We informed Tumelo (Branch Manager) that we want to cancel the sale and get a refund. He then gave us an option of: 1. buying the mattress at reduced price (staff discount). We then informed him that we want to continue with the cancellation as we don't have that kind of money still. 2. he then informed us of 2 ways in which we can have our money back, which is, - He processes the refund by sending an E-mail for the cancellation and with that we will get our money by Tuesday or - We wait for a client to come in to buy with an amount equivalent or more than what we bought with of which only then we will be given a refund.

We told him that the second option does not have a guarantee in terms of the time frame and we want to proceed with the first option as we know (from him assuring us) that the refund will be in our account by Tuesday. After that he even told us that should there be a client that buys with that kind of cash between Saturday(16/12/2023) and Sunday(17/12/2023) he will inform us and we can still get cash on hand.

19/12/2023 - Tuesday My wife called the branch, around 13:00, to find out why the money was not reflecting yet. She was then told that the money might still reflect in her account by the end of the day (She spoke with the salesman who assisted her from the beginning of the sale). By knock off time(17:00)the money still had not reflected and no feedback was given since we initiated the cancellation on Saturday. We then decided to go to he branch to inquire about the matter.

The branch manager informed us that on Saturday he did send the cancellation documents for processing. The document was suppose to be sign by DCM, I'm not sure what the abbreviation stands for but it seems like it is a title of some sort). The DCM had still not signed the documents that were sent to him/her on saturder Since we were now in the branch he called the person where the E-mail was forwarded to and the person confirmed that the document had not been signed yet but the DCM will be coming to the branch tomorrow(20/12/2023).

What this means is that, 4 days later(2 working days) the cancellation process was not yet initiated. The branch Manager informed us on Saturday that this process can take up to 48hrs. This also means that we can only get our refund by Thursday(2days later than we had been promised).

- Our plans were compromised and we were inconvenienced because of mis-information from your staff. - The manager did not show urgency to resolve the issue. He sent cancellation documents never made follow up with the colleague nor with the client. - When we asked what is going to happen if no one buys with cash at best electric, he simply told us that he does not know.

What is most disheartening and saddening is the fact that from a sales person mistake we were cornered into accepting that we will get our money 4 days later.

This is a bad client experience from a concerned client.