WIBU to be annoyed in this cafe?

[Hoppinggreen]

Went for lunch today at a local cafe. I was paying as a treat for my friend. Bill was about £30.
When I went to pay the person on the till made a mistake and over charged me by £10. It was actually a lot more complicated as she mixed up my bill with someone else then tried to add on someone’s takeaway but that was basically it.
After a lot of discussion between 2 staff members they said the only thing they could do was refund and charge me again. No problem I said.
So they did the refund and I said it hadn’t appeared back on my banking app to be told that I had to wait up to 10 days to get it. I was then expected to pay again.
I (calmly) said that I wasn’t happy about that as I would have paid £70 for a £30 lunch until the refund arrived. I was told there was no other alternative. I said again that I didn’t think this was reasonable. The staff member who made the mistake kept apologising and I said that it was a simple mistake and everyone made them so she really didn’t need to be upset about it. The other staff member said that I just needed to pay again and if I hadn’t received it in 10 days to call in.
There was a queue at this point so I said fine but I wasn’t happy about it. The staff member then told me that I had “upset” her colleague and was very short with me. I said again that I didn’t blame her for a simple mistake, it was the lack of resolution I was annoyed at. I did not raise my voice at any point and was very calm and measured. We left and I could hear the staff member telling her colleague she could come out now (she had vanished into the back as apparently she was too upset to deal with me) since I had gone. I left feeling as if I had done something wrong, honestly happy to be told I did
Was I unreasonable being annoyed at this? It won’t cause me any issue financially but I’m a bit miffed at being £40 out of pocket due to their mistake for up to 10 days. It might come earlier I know

She is till out of pocket for ten days, though, not having been forewarned that that would happen before she made the second payment. As has been pointed out, at best that's inconvenient and for some people it would be disastrous.

Up to 10days. And it’s standard, so she shouldn’t need to be forewarned.

@SafeAsAHero

Please don’t waste police time with that. If a customer has attempted to pay then they haven’t done anything wrong. Just because there’s been a fuck up on the business end doesn’t mean you ring the police to do customer service for you.

I will only ring the police if there is clear evidence of theft (ie literally lifting items and walking out, or going to a self check out and making no attempt to pay with any cash or card methods, or asking for assistance). Even then it is hard to proceed legally in terms of taking anyone to court, so as long as they come back and pay the evidenced value, it’s “fine”. We can obviously tell them they are barred and issue them a letter, but that isn’t the police’s job. They are there to ensure stolen goods get paid for and close the case.

Obviously I’m talking about fairly low £ here, if it was hundreds of pounds etc then we would proceed with legal action.

You can’t ring the police because you falsely accused someone. That’s really poor.

No, what is utterly baffling is the supine acceptance of the "Computer says no" response from some people round here. People seem to think businesses are at the mercy of their IT systems. They really don't have to be. If you choose to set up a system that means you can't rectify your own mistake without inconveniencing the customer, the simple fact is that you have failed in basic customer service. If you can't get that right, you thoroughly deserve the business failure that is coming your way.

Yanbu. Ofc money transfers take as long as the bank wants them to but they should be the ones waiting, not you, and they should have given you a tenner out of the till.

Hardly the point, is it? What if they do it again to the next customer who isn't treating a friend and who is affected financially?

And that was because she wasn't told it would take so long to process the refund.

Theft requires proof of an intention to permanently deprive someone of something. Blatantly there was no evidence of any such intention, let alone proof.

"Why are people acting like the OP isn’t getting her money back? It’s irritating to be without it for a few days but chances are she is getting it back, if she hasn’t already."

@ChilliBandit I don't think anyone is acting like she isn't getting her money back.....they're on her side because she isn't getting it back now. How do you know it's just irritaing. It could have caused serious cash flow concerns. Not everone can afford to 'lend' £40

Now, that's just being silly. Do you really imagine that they thought to themselves "It doesn't matter if we choose the most inconvenient possible method of dealing with our cock-up because OP looks like someone who can afford to be out of pocket for a couple of weeks - even though of course if she didn't look like that we'd try to be more sensible and accommodating?"

This, with bells on

Just by the bye I'd love to see @SafeAsAHero 's TripAdvisor reviews if she really does call the rozzers every time she overcharges someone.

IT systems today do have limits due to accounting regulations, money laundering, cash theft protection, and bank interface functions. Your repeatedly saying “computer says no” only shows how antiquated your understanding is of todays business IT.

And I’ve never had a business fail under my watch, not one. Yes, the cashier made an error by processing payment against the wrong transaction and OP by not even looking at the bill/total before paying, but mistakes happen as they’re only human. Most customers understand that a payment linked to a transaction has to be backed out with a refund and that refunds can take up to 10days. OP still then owed payment on her actual transaction. They’re welcome to go anywhere else, but it will do them no good as the vast majority of reputable businesses will be operating to the same standards.

This isn’t something that will cause business failure 🤣

They didn’t choose it though. OP and they both agreed to the bog standard method for correcting an erroneous payments.

It's entirely relevant. Suppose they had been completely open with OP and told her before she made the second payment that it would take 10 days to process, whereupon OP had said "In that case I'm not doing it that way, I can't afford it, you'll have to think of something else"? I suspect they would have managed to come up with an alternative solution. So, given the basic business need not to piss off the customer, the question arises why they don't have the training and systems in place to offer that in the first place.

She could of given you a cash refund.

For any customer-facing business, taking that attitude to customers is a sure route to bankruptcy.

the time to be assertive was when they were claiming they couldn't just refund you the difference. of course they could, they were just refusing to.

you made a mistake too - you didn't bother checking the amount before paying the first charge. if you'd just noticed then and said "can you double check that please it should just be 2 drinks 2 sandwiches and 2 cakes" and none of this would have happened.

and yabu to not know that card refunds take days.

ywbu

The underlying arrogant attitude to customer service inherent here certainly does lead to business failure on a regular basis. People are pointing out all through this thread that they run businesses in such a way that they can either offer cash back or a card refund, so it is baffling that you seem to assume that it is utterly impossible. Of course ultimately there is nothing to stop a goodwill gesture consisting simply of cancelling the bill entirely.

OP's agreement is utterly irrelevant, as it was based on a failure to give highly relevant information, and she was pressured into it anyway.

I work in a business where refunds are up to 30 days, and it's an external ticketing system, there's absolutely F all we can do about it. And 99% of mistakes are made by our customers not us

I also don't have a system that will allow me to do a partial refund, it is all (via the method originly used to pay), or nothing. You can complain at me all you like that it's unfair and my fault, but I'd be powerless to override the system without losing my job over it.

I wouldn't be crying out the back though

Jesus Christ. Where do you work? Old Mama Kalishnikov's in downtown Moscow circa 1982?

Information even a 12yo old would be aware of. I’m done with the faux innocence….but but the refund isn’t on my banking app bullshit. Everyone knows that payment systems take your money faster than they refund it.

Oh, now she was ‘pressured’ into accepting a full refund! Shock horror!

What do you do if someone pays in cash?

No, it’s really not because it’s not the business’ choice. This is what the banks dictate to ALL businesses.

Not allowed