Shockingly bad service, attitude, products and systems

I went to Pick n Pay Constantia Village to buy a new SIM card, some airtime and data - as well as shop for groceries.

The assistants on the relevant desk seemed unequipped with the knowledge to serve me, despite being surround by SIM cards. They had to call someone else from another part of the store. When this person arrived, I double checked with them that they were giving me a Micro/Nano card combo, as this is the only one that fits my phone. She assured me that this was what was in the packet.

When I got home, it turned out that she had given me the wrong card, which wasn't what I had asked for. We had to go back to the Constantia store (15 mins drive from us) to get it changed. We were kept waiting ages at the relevant desk and again, the staff seemed to be rather out of their depth in terms of how to proceed. But eventually we got what we wanted - although no apology from the staff for our wasted time and the inconvenience. As part of the process, I gave the staff my original till receipt just to verify the purchase, which also had printed on it my data and airtime transaction. Unbelievably, the staff member(s) concerned managed to lose this receipt right in front of me, which I needed back for tax purposes. They said it was not possible to print another one, but that I could go to any branch with my Loyaltycard and get it reprinted. We duly did this at the Hout Bay store, only to be told that we would have to go back to Constantia and give them a special code number in order to get the receipt reprinted. You couldn't really make this up, could you ?!? The sheer level of incompetence, inefficiency, lack of customer service ?!?

Then, that evening, we tried cooking our supper using the Pick n Pay Penne pasta we had bought. We cooked two shifts - one for our children, the next for us. We like to think we are good cooks. We've been cooking pasta for over 30 years - it's not rocket science. But....I have never, ever seen pasta which disintegrates and shreds into a spindly mess after a few minutes cooking. Never seen anything like it, total *******. How does Pick n Pay get away with selling this utter tripe ? It was unusable and inedible. We tried returning it at the Constantia store.....they weren't interested.

Really, I struggle to understand why people shop at Pick n Pay. It must surely be lack of choice. Lack of experience ? Lack of understanding that there is better food and proper customer service out there . Who knows, all I can say is that our cumulative experience of this supermarket to date is disgraceful.

Pick n Pay has taken our money - we want a satisfactory response please.