WIBU to dump my shopping and walk out of Asda?

[wannabetennisplayer]

Today I went to Asda for a shop - running later than planned due to a bus not turning up (which admittedly I can't blame Asda for!) - but still with enough time to do a shop. Long queues at the checkout. I am directed to a self-service till which turns out to be even more temperamental than usual (even if you remove all the scanned items, apparently thin air is an "unexpected item in bagging area") so I have to call for help a few times - and, as usual, there are only one or two poor sods on self-service till duty running around like blue-arsed
flies - and on one of the occasions my till was playing up there were no staff anywhere in the self-service till area (which I would estimate has about 20 - 24 tills) for several minutes. Not blaming them as it is obviously the supermarket who understaffs the tills.

Once I've scanned my items, I try to pay with my card but it doesn't seem to be working. One of the members of staff comes over and tries it a couple of times and then says 'oh, yeah, I think the card reader wasn't working on this one'. Now, if at this point, he had said 'this is the start of a long process to make a card payment', I would have asked him to cancel a couple of items off the bill and just bought what I had the cash for but, he just said 'come with me to make the payment'.

He takes me to the customer service point (again with a long queue) and gives a print out from the self-service till to the woman at the counter. I ask if I'll be expected to queue up again and/or everything will need to be scanned again and he says 'no, just wait next to the counter and she'll take the payment after she's finished dealing with the current customer - and it doesn't need to be scanned again as she's got this slip.' He leaves and then the customer service woman tells me to get to the back of the queue. I explain the situation and that I have already queued up etc but she says that I have to go to the back of the queue. As it's the customer service point, everyone is complaining about faulty electrical items, wanting to exchange items etc so none of them are going to be quick transactions.

As time is ticking on, my options are either to continue to wait in this queue and not make a gym class that I intended to attend later that day or to give up on the shopping - so in the end I emptied the shopping on the customer service counter, told the member of staff that I didn't have time and walked out. Slightly more dramatic than I intended but the bags were mine so I had to empty the contents onto the counter if I was going to leave!

What would you have done?

YANBU.

I won't use self service tills. It's just a scam to increase profits and decrease number of employees.

Also hate it when they send staff down queues to point out that you can use the self-service till.

I've worked in retail and waitressed.

Still no excuse for crap service/equipment.

I've walked but I usually find a manager to tell them why I'm walking. From supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, clothes shops (mainly due to staff too busy gossiping to do their jobs!!)

I've also knocked service charges from bills and had interesting conversations about that (I know my consumer law pretty well).

I've returned items and had staff telling me there's nothing wrong or I expected too much (the one I mainly remember is boots that fell apart after a weeks wear, apparently they weren't designed to be worn in the rain nor every day )

I find social media/manager in person gets best results email often gets me nowhere.

BUT I also as a pp said go out of my way to praise good service too. Now that DOES shock the hell out of managers/customer service. I'm constantly praising a server in my local Costa to her manager and one of our local bus drivers has had so many of us say how great he is he got an award.

Ahh Asda, where the staff will pop out from behind their till, place the "No more customers" sign at the back of the lady in front of you's shopping and in front of your shopping & little barrier thingy. When you say "errr, excuse me?" they look you dead in the eye, smile like a nut-job, lean in to your face and say in a silence of the lambs type hiss "I'm going home".

Whilst the supervisor looked on from the next till!

I made my feelings known to the manager & wrote a scathing letter to head office with my trusty fountain pen. They sent me a £20 voucher for free wine shopping.

Mind you, it was my own fault for going back there in the first place-I really should have learnt my lesson after customer service started putting my two trolley's worth of shopping back at Christmas. I asked them to keep an eye on it whilst I took my 8 months pregnant self, two toddlers and two eight year olds to the toilet at the other end of the universe store. Apparently while I was gone there was a change of staff and the message wasn't passed on. Trolleys whisked away to the back and unceremoniously unpacked..

I wouldn't have minded so much but I was less than 15 minutes (which all things considered was very swift indeed) and the customer service lady was really very rude about my apparent lack of husband with so many children when she thought she was out of my bat-like hearing.

Suffice to say she got both barrels and the Manager scuttled around re-shopping what had been put back and then packing it all for us while we, much to the biters delight, had free tea and milkshakes before I had to pay.

I shop at Aldi now, where I race the lady on the till by packing my shopping into the bags faster than she can beep them.

I race the guys at the till in lidl

Never won yet

I check queues before starting shop. I walk if anything annoys.

My local Asda is lovely. I refuse to use a self service check out even if there is no queue.

But I now do click and collect.

Drive in, put my order number into the computer and they bring out my shopping and put it in my boot. Best bit? It is completely free, no charge for that service and no waiting in for 2 hours for a delivery. Bliss.

I have never had a problem with Asda. Hate Tesco where I am because their customer service is horrible. When u return something that's faulty they just about accuse you of doing whatever is wrong with it. Asda just give you a refund, replacement and sometimes a token gift card.

I use self service checkouts, usually in the mornings when I'm half a sleep and not in the mood for a conversation.

Baconyum - Totally agree about praise. I shocked the Cabin Service Director whilst getting off a flight from Frankfurt to LA - I demanded to see the person in charge then thanked her for the excellent service we'd had.

I agree about Tesco regarding returning stuff, they never do it with good grace in my store either. They always seem to make you feel like you're trying to swindle them. Asda are the opposite.

I walked out of a restaurant once. The waitress took forever to take my order and eventually brought it. Then someone she obviously fancied came in and his order was taken and brought immediately, then she fawned over him while he ate. Honestly her knickers were practically round her ankles. Anyone else she ignored (and there were a couple of us trying to get her attention). Fortunately, I had the right money in my purse (I added it up from the menu), so I left that on the table, got up and left.

THEN I had her attention.

She came tearing out after me, shouting at me. So I calmly explained that the money was on the table and she could have had it AND a tip if she had actually just come and taken the money.

I find walking out of bad resturants when you can't get anyones attention to pay them is quite a good system.

Baconymum

Yes, absolutely agree - if I have good service I always say thank you and if I get very good service, I tell the manager if I can.

I got some crab claws from a local fishmonger once - they were an edible prop for a play (we couldn't afford the lobster claws the script demanded). The actress said they were delicious and they were so big they looked like lobster. So the following Saturday, back to the fishmonger I went to thank them. The fishmonger stiffened when I went in and I had to explain twice that they were brilliant before he got that I wasn't complaining, but was REALLY happy with them.

SecondMrsM, I had a very similar experience. As I walked to the door the twinkly waitress rushed over and asked about the bill... "on the table" I replied... "what about a tip?"... "OK. Try serving ALL your customers rather than just the ones you want to shag"

She was still screaming like a harridan as I walked round the corner, out of sight if not earshot!

I've walked from a restaurant. We got there at 6ish. Didn't get our starters until about 7.15.
At 9.45 our mains weren't ready, finally got them and they looked like they had sat under a lamp for half an hour. (Apart from the steak. It was freezing cold and well done. Not the rare we had asked for)
We got up and walked out. Didnt pay for the starters or wine.
I don't care if it's supposedly theft. I'm not being treated like that.

We had had terrible service in a posh cafe. After finally walking up and asking for the bill, we walked out after waiting 30 minutes and still no bill. I thought they would come running, but they still ignored us.

I've just had a lot of fun in Asda, I don't bloody know why I go in. Only two tills had actual people manning them, the rest were self scan. I stood behind a woman for EIGHTEEN minutes while she let her child scan the whole shop through. Then when it's my turn I have to wait for a member if staff to come over and manually enter the price of the milk. The milk issue has been going on for about 4 weeks now. I came out very wound up!

Maybe her child was better at it than her!

Grrr yes to the same product consistently not scanning! My tesco had this problem recently with sesame peanuts. 5 weeks it went on for just bloody fix it already!!

A pp mentioned this as an asda issue but I've noticed it in all the major supermarkets - the automated stock control not working/being completely unadaptable! Where I live is very rural, I'm in the town but the town and the ONLY large supermarket serves very remote areas including small islands but when the winter bad weather hits is completely unprepared due to automated stock control. So quickly runs out of basics like bread and milk and also never gets enough salt/spades/anti-freeze etc in. I happen to know even the manager has complained about this to head office and its still unresolved!

Complain to the CEO and asda complaints.
I had something similar at Morrisons

Um no, the child was not better than an adult at scanning a shop. Hence why it took 18 minutes for the little sweetheart to find the biscuits which were of course under the lettuce and then find the barcode on the biscuits and then scan the biscuits and then put the biscuits straight into the trolley instead of the bagging area and then take them out of the trolley and put them in the bagging area...I don't think I need to go on!

Blimey, when I was a kid I used to "play shop," but all that involved was rolling various tins of soup along a calculator in my bedroom, before demanding 5 pence off my DM and leaving her to put it all back in the cupboards while I pissed off on my bike to play with my invisible ponies

I used the scan and shop once and my toddler was 'helping' until he licked the bottom of the handset and it stopped working. The staff were very apologetic I didn't say he'd locked it, just that it stopped working and re scanned it all for me.

I won't use self-service machines or portable scanners, ever. A 20% discount might get me interested. But do their work for them, have your time wasted when it won't work, and then get called a thief? They can fuck off.

I think we should all boycott such contrivances.

boris Agree, me neither. It's a massive con. You pay the same even though you're doing the store's work, and as they become more common you'll end up waiting longer anyway.