Pathetic service at Eastrand Mall Woolworths food

We experienced such horrible service at Woolworths Eastrand Mall on Saturday, 6 May 2023 while we were paying for our groceries. 1st we then went to look for a belt for my husband and most belts didn’t have price tags on them and I tried to find one with a tag to save time because I knew that most cashiers argue if you tell them that the item should be free so I really doubt checked. If you look at the cctv footage you will see. We had our baby who was hungry and sleepy so we went to the grocery side and took and opened the cut mango and she had that before falling asleep. We added a few more items that we needed and proceeded to the queue. My daughter was sleeping already in the long queue and we wanted to get out of there.

When the cashier started serving us and my husband was taking things out of the trolley he showed me the mango that was still left. I took 1 piece and he had the other and when he was taking the last one he realised that the mango was rotten. We showed the cashier that the mango was rotten and asked her if we should still pay for it and she said after you’ve eaten it then you don’t want to pay! So we let it go besides we were planning to pay for it. She then got to the belt and said it didn’t have a price tag and I said impossible because I made sure and when I checked it wasn’t there. So we asked why she’s going to look for the price because Woolies’ policy says if it doesn’t have a price then it’s free then she said we seem like we don’t want to pay for anything and she suspects that we will run away with her groceries money. I was a bit offended because I’ve spent a LOT of money buying from Woolworths and why would I fail to pay for a mere thousand and odd rands or even less. Anyway, she left to look for the price. We stood there for what felt so long and she wasn’t coming back. We asked the other staff members and no one was willing to assist. We saw Thulani who seemed like the supervisor and he just ignored us. I pressed the buzzer thing they press for authorise and some lady came and said we should wait because she is checking on the system. We waited but she didn’t return. We eventually lost our patience and asked to pay for the mango so we could go and then the lady came. Unapologetically she pressed the buzzer and called Thulani. He came on his high horse and just gave us the look and authorised the payment. I’m not sure how much the belt was and it doesn’t matter but they were willing to loose the whole trolley worth of groceries over 1 cheap belt. Talk about Thulani’s business acumen. He could have retained a customer by dealing with the matter professionally but he just saw people that were just there to ask for something. I shop at Woolworths because of the service across the country and what I went through on Saturday made me question everything and I am looking for alternatives. I do hope that training is provided to Thulani and his team. W