Pick n Pay ASAP - Horror Story

I placed a grocery order to the value of R1520.70 on Sunday the 31st of July, which were to be my groceries for the week ahead. I called their call center twice on the day to confirm whether the groceries were going to be delivered on the day, as I noticed it was getting later and later, with no progress on the app. Both agents I spoke to assured me not to worry, the order has definitely accepted the order, and it will be delivered on the day. Despite both these promises, the order wasn't delivered on the 31st of July, and was thereafter scheduled for the next day.

The following morning, I saw that the order was being prepared, and that the driver was on his way with my order. That being said, the order was marked as "delivered", however when I went outside, there was no driver present. After this happened, I called in to their call center immediately, and the agent promised that she would escalate this to the store/driver, and provide me with an update. After no response after 3 hours, I called back and was informed that the order will no longer be delivered. The agent promised me that I would be refunded, however I did not receive any confirmation of the refund.

On the 2nd of August, I called in and spoke to agent Sheena Human, who informed me that the refund had in fact not been processed, and apologized for the incorrect information that was previously provided. At 9:42AM, she provided me with an Email stating that the refund has been completed along with a screenshot, and asked me to wait 1 - 10 business days for the funds to reflect in my account.

When the refund was not reflecting back in my account by Thursday the 11th of August, I reached out and spoke to call center agent Jenny Joubert, who requested my bank statement to confirm that the funds had indeed left my account without being refunded, which I provided to her. She Emailed me back and stated that she had escalated the issue to her manager, who informed her that I should wait until Friday the 12th of August for the refund to appear, and respond to her Email if it was not yet reflecting.

As the refund did not appear back into my account, I responded to the Email informing them that it had not been received. As I did not receive a response for the whole of Friday, I again reached out to customer service and spoke to agent Philandre Maarman and her supervisor Noor. Noor assured me that he would look into the issue, and that Philandre would get back to me. On Sunday the 14th of August, I received an Email from Philandre informing me that the refund had indeed been completed on the 2nd of August, and that I needed to wait for it to reflect back in my account.

After then waiting until Wednesday the 17th of July without receiving my refund, I called again and ended up speaking to Sheena Human again, who again requested that I provide her with a bank statement to confirm that the refund had not yet been received, which I provided her with.

She then contacted me back via Email to inform me that the refunds department stated that the refund had failed, and requested my banking details so that the funds could be EFT'd to me. This is where the process currently stands.

As it has been over half a month since I first escalated this issue, I am in need of the funds that were taken from my account without any goods being delivered, which caused me to spend double what I would have usually done on my weekly grocery spend. At this point, I have no confidence in their ability to provide me with the refund that is owed to me, as nowhere in the process has anyone followed through on anything that was promised to me.

On Pick n Pay's page speaking about how they are passionate about following the Consumer Protection Act (https://www.pnp.co.za/pnpstorefront/cpa), it states the following under "What are the consumer’s rights?":

Your right to fair and honest dealing

Your right to fair, just and reasonable terms and conditions

Your right to fair value, good quality and safety and

Your right to accountability by suppliers

None of these above points were followed, and I intend to go visit a Pick n Pay store in person tomorrow to escalate this to the relevant manager, as no one from their call centers are taking ownership or accountability of the issue.

Absolute nightmare from what was supposed to be a convenient service from Pick n Pay leading to many hours of lost personal time trying to sort this out.