Listen to all the good people who left 1-star ratings. You have been warned

I ordered online from Makro (against my better judgement) and unsurprisingly the item was damaged when it arrived. I dutifully logged the return request on 20 Jul. The item was fetched - not on the day I scheduled it though, but that's a story for another day - and then...nothing. No confirmation, no next steps...just radio silence.

I phoned a week later to find out when the replacement item will arrive. The agent feigned disbelief when I mentioned they ghosted me and put me on hold for a good 8 minutes to conduct what was no doubt a thorough investigation. The verdict came and the seller, yes dear reader, the SELLER of the item lodged a dispute saying that the courier damaged the item. An investigation was being conducted and well, I needed to wait for the investigation to run its course first before I could be the owner of said replacement product. Imagine, there I was all this time going about my mundane life whilst unbeknown to me, this drama was going down. The helpful agent did assure me that they would without a shadow of the doubt phone me that very same day to discuss the matter further. I canceled all my meetings for the remainder of the day and waited by my phone with bated breath. Alas the call never came.

I was ecstatic when I received an SMS stating that a delivery was on its way. I almost phoned in sick just to make sure I'm available when they come - would hate to let the delivery guy down. The delivery arrived and truth be told, I could hardly contain myself. It wasn't packaged as well as the previous time but by my reasoning they must have opened the item to double-check that it was is in perfect condition. I'm sure they felt obliged not to let me down again. I was super impressed. Opened the item and whoop, there it was...the same damaged product...perhaps a tad more damaged than when I shipped it off previously. Now my dear reader, I had no choice but to contact them again. This second agent was way more on the ball because his investigation took a mere minute - perhaps he was expecting my call and had the information at hand? After confirming my name, he asked who Mike was? I'm not "Mike" and don't know a Mike (ok ok , almost everyone knows a Mike, it's quite a common name). Point being, I did not confide in any Mike regarding my Makro return. I have to end off soon because this is simply just too traumatic. And before I do, thanks for reading this far. In any event, there is no supervisor nor manager that you can speak to. It appears the agents at the end of the phone line are a cabal of self-managed individuals, akin to a ********* cell. The one I got definitely went through their empathy training because he sounded even more upset than me about this whole sordid affair. Being the optimist that I am, I'm sure this misunderstanding will be cleared up this very afternoon right after they phone me back as promised. The refund will be processed in a jiffy (only 21 days he said) and I'll be in the privileged position of buying the same product from their competition. Stay awesome