My phone was ****** at Woolworths Foods Cantebury Crossing in Randburg. Management told me they will send me footage of the ***** in action the following day. Weeks later, they have sent me everything BUT that part.

On Women's Day Friday the 09th of August I went to Woolworths Foods Cantebury Crossing as a final stop to finalize my move to my new apartment. I left that store without groceries, and without a phone.

As I was wrapping up my shopping, the store manager approached me saying to be careful because while I'm shopping, someone might be shopping in my bag. Shortly after I went to the tills to pay and leave, only to learn that my phone has been ****** from my bag while I was shopping.

Seeing that the theft happened less than 30 minutes ago, I requested that we immediately head to the camera room for footage in order to identify the ***** in action. I spent hours in the store in hopes to access the footage, but was ultimately told they can't reverse or access the footage, and that I should have it by the following day. This never happened.

The following week after pressing the staff members for footage, I was told they can (conveniently) only access footage of me walking in the store. I advised that I was in the camera room and know for a fact that they have cameras facing all the isles I went to, and thus can retrieve that footage as well. I further asked them - as I did the day my phone got ****** - that if they know their store is a crime hotspot, why don't they have efficient systems and software in place that would aid not only customers but also them in identifying the crime happening? I'm not a PEP or Boxer shopper, but I can guarantee you that even they can rewind 30 minutes of footage for the very purpose of catching ******* in the act.

Nonetheless, a week later after not receiving any new updates on the footage, I called again through a work line, and asked if anyone is actually committed enough to resolving this matter by checking if the camera footage is now available, and was only then updated that they can see footage of me walking in the store and at the tills AFTER my phone had been ******.

To further prove that the staff members were not interested in resolving this matter, I had to be the one to suggest that they please record the footage they have because cctv footage doesn't last in the database for long, so what they have could disappear.

Not long after that lengthy phone call of expressing my disappointment in their lack of effort, I received literal snippets of futile footage of me in some of the isles, and nothing that could help identify the *****/the theft happening. Mind you I'm pressed against time because on the day my phone was ******, the store manager told me it takes four weeks for the footage to disappear, but out of thin air, that four week period has since been reduced to 2 weeks until the footage disappears from their database. Not weird at all.

It's the 27th of August today, and I still don't have any footage that leads up to the moment my phone was ******. My entire life is still on hold. I can't uber to them or to the police station near that area because I can't verify my uber login from a different device, because the verification code gets sent to the ****** PHONE. I've only recently been able to access my emails because the verification code was getting sent to the ****** PHONE. i can't access any of my social, work etc accounts because the verification code gets sent to the ****** PHONE. Freshly moved into an apartment my family hadn't yet seen, they had no means to contact me or know about my safety and whereabouts for a good WEEK because I dared to go grocery shopping at Woolworths Cantebury and get my phone got ******. To this day, I still can't perform daily operational functions at work because I do not have a phone, and given the fact that I had just moved into a new space, there isn't exactly surplus money to buy a new one even though management at work is LOSING THEIR PATIENCE. I could go on about the endless inconvenience, loneliness, and stress this entire experience has caused, but none of them beat the fact that till this day I am still receiving endless stories about why the footage of the part my phone got ****** still hasn't been retrieved.

I drafted a complaint to the Woolworths Complaints team last week, but I still haven't received a reply. I don't know what else to do at this point, but my goal is still to receive this "impossible to retieve" footage of my phone getting ****** so that the police have someone to look for, and someone to arrest so that the next Woolworths Foods Cantebury Crossing doesn't have to suffer the same pain I've suffered since my phone got ****** while in that store