Beyond Bad Customer Service

I am not sure if the staff at Westgate Mall Sportscene are *********** robots or uninterested underpaid workers or simply a demonstration of the service levels in that branch or the company as a whole. What I do know for sure is, I won’t be buying anything there in this lifetime nor would I recommend anyone to. My misery began when I made the mistake of buying a Hisense U601s on the 22nd/October/2017 via my TFG (Markhams) Account, for my mother.

Sometime in either in the 1st or 2nd week Saturday of March 2018, I took the phone back as the speaker was no longer working. A staff by the name of Amanda took the phone in, telling me that Nhlanhla who deals with phones, was not on duty that day,But Nhlanhla will book the phone on following Monday.

Days passed with no feedback, also the store number on the receipt is not working.

31st March 2018: I went back to the store. I then met Nhlahla who although was uninterested in his service and over half an hour later (the store was not even busy) he provided me with unconvincing assurances of following up with MTN as Sportscene have given then my phone to fix.

He never phoned me back.

21st/April/2018 –I went back to Sportscene, and met an even more inept staff who apparently is the store manager, Thokazani. After wasting almost an hour, Thokazani and his assistants still could not produce the paper trail of my phone being booked in at MTN as well as the progress of the process. He also provided me with unconvincing assurances of following up with MTN and calling me during the day on Monday. I assumed now that I was dealing with a store manager, that my query will definitely be resolved-my mistake.

On Monday, 23rd April 2018: Thokozani’s assistant called me to notify me that they been calling MTN but could not get through, she said they will however keep trying and notify me soon after.

Tuesday, 24th April 2018 : called the store on 081 they called me with previous day, Thokozani told they still can’t get through to MTN.I had to educate Thokozani on how he can’t just rely on 1 means to get in touch with MTN,

Wednesday, 25th April 2018: the assistant called me again asking for the date which I purchased the phone on, fortunately I had the receipt with me and I gave her the date. Later in the day I called the store and spoke to Thokazani to which he promised to speak to his Regional manager who will be in the store on and that he will then get his regional manager come with a solution. Thursday, 26 April 2018: I called in the Store (wish I could have recorded the call) ,the depressing call and unhelpful uninterested Thokazani’ s demeanour, left me no more closer to what exactly is going on than I was before initially talking to him.

To Date: I still don’t know what is going on? I am now beyond annoyed and surprised that a company of TFG’s size can’t even resolve such a simple task? At this point, will much rather have a new phone or have the value of it credited back in my account.