Makro pensioner discount misleading and *********.

I took my father to Makro Milnerton yesterday (25 February) to purchase a new Hisense TV on pensioner day, as Makro promises a discount of "up to 10% off*" (note the asterisk, but no elaboration about how to determine the actual discount amount you will get beforehand.We also were not aware of the "Up To" at the time.)

The plan was to purchase a Hisense 32 inch TV which they have for R1,999 and was NOT on promotion. After submitting all of the relevant TV license info, we took the TV to the checkout expecting to pay around R1800 after the discount was app****. Instead the price was R1938.80 a laughable 3% discount. When we queried it we were told that the discount was not 10%, but "up to". We spent a few minutes thinking about it, but decided to purchase it anyway since the TV seemed to meet all of the requrements.

When we first looked at the TV, we noticed was that the TV had no visible buttons, so it seemed to only be possible to control it with a remote. More importantly, there appeared to be no hard switch to fully cut power to the TV prior to loadshedding. When we asked, a sales person then showed us a single switch under the TV which he indicated was the hard switch we were looking for.

When we got home to test the TV we found that the button underneath was merely a standby/input selection button, and did not fully cut power to the TV. So not only did my father end up paying more than I believe he should have for the TV, but it was also misrepresented to us.

This was not acceptable, so my father contacted Makro, who was eventually put in touch with Louis Karpas (Marketing Manager). He had a long story about the margin being to low, and really offered no explanation, and also seemed to have zero understanding of what having a hard power switch means in terms of protecting your devices from the effects of loadshedding without having to physically switch them off at the plug. A simple power strip with switches would be a solution, but again it adds to the overall cost, and my father had already paid almost R140 more than I felt he should have.

Needless to say, we exercised our right to return the TV for a full refund. We went to Game, and purchased the same TV for R1780, with a price match and a 10% pensioner's discount, and it was service with a smile. So you'll forgive me for not believing Louis Karpa's story about the margin being narrow, since Game is ironically part of the same group.

So thank you to Makro and Louis for wasting both my and my father's time and money. In the future I will think twice about considering Makro for electronics. My father was able to get the same TV and a switching power strip for less than the price that he was charged for the TV alone at Makro.