False advertising

Today was the first time I accompanied my mother to receive her old age grant. I was shocked at the length of queues at Shoprite Park in Parow, Cape Town. It is not the queues that I have a problem with, although standing in a queue for almost an hour was terrible. How more terrible for the aged and frail. I have a problem with Shoprite advertising a R99 hamper, but not having the stock to honour the adverti*****t. I had to drive my mom to three Shoprite stores in the vicinity and none of them had Iwisa Maize Meal. Without Iwisa Maiza Meal the sale cannot be processed through the system. The adverti*****t did state that some stores might not have stock available. But today is only the second day of the sale. Did these stores run out of stock so quickly or did they not have stock to start out with? The manager at Shoprite Cravenby tried calling other branches after she assured me that there was absolutely nothing she could do except call me as soon as stock arrived. This response would have been acceptable from a cashier, but a manager of an entire branch? My mother ended up buying all the articles n the combo one by one. What would have been R99 ended up exceeding R200. The hamper was for a family across the street from my mom. With her meager pension she still wanted to help a family in dire straits. My mom just said its fine and continued with her shopping as if she is used to situations like this. I do not shop at Shoprite very often. I do not intend to shop at Shoprite at all in the near future. I am fortunate that I have the option to go to another grocer and pay a little bit more. But what about the millions of people that can shop nowhere else? Shoprite provides affordable goods and is easily accessible as every town has a Shoprite or two or three. The poorest of the poor also sometimes need a little extra professionalism and care and maybe someone that will go the extra mile for their clients.