Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

WIBU to be annoyed in this cafe?

582 replies

Hoppinggreen · 06/02/2023 18:42

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

OP posts:
Rosscameasdoody · 07/02/2023 16:45

AllOfThemWitches · 07/02/2023 09:09

Most of us know that refunds aren't immediate. OP apparently didn't. I don't understand how anyone who has bought anything in the past decade or so doesn't know that refunds are not generally processed straight away. She said 'no problem' to the refund and is now slightly inconvenienced.

Anyone who is truly down to their last £30 isn't spending it on eating out.

Hear that everyone ? Poor people shouldn’t be eating out !!

Xol · 07/02/2023 16:46

IWonderWhyIBother · 07/02/2023 16:37

@Xol you appear to place the blame firmly with the business but isn’t the onus on us as customers to check the amount on the card machine before we agree to pay when we present our card to the merchant?

The first and pre-eminent onus is on the business to get it right. How can it not be? They have no right to take money they are not owed under any circumstances.

As for relying on the customer to do the checking the business should have done, suppose the customer is dyslexic or dysnumeric? What about people who struggle with English or are not used to UK currency? Are all those people just fair game?

ChilliBandit · 07/02/2023 16:47

Rosscameasdoody · 07/02/2023 16:45

Hear that everyone ? Poor people shouldn’t be eating out !!

Show quote history

You’ve messed up shouldn’t with isn’t there. That poster said isn’t eating out. They mean different things.

Rosscameasdoody · 07/02/2023 16:49

Laiste · 07/02/2023 10:50

OP had said it's not a chain ... it may well be some tiny rural village? And what of it to be honest? A failed business is a failed business large or small - and the basics of business relying on good customer relations SHOULD stay the same - 5 customers or 5 million.

Imagine assuming your customer base is so huge and secure that you can forget worrying about the basics of customer satisfaction ...

Show quote history

If that one customer then leaves a review on Trustpilot then yes, Has anyone looked on Trustpilot lately ? One negative review tends to give others the courage to come forward about their own bad experiences.

Xol · 07/02/2023 16:50

ChilliBandit · 07/02/2023 16:40

@Xol - You disagree with me, I get it.

This thread is really showing me what a hard time people working in hospitality and retail have and how little people understand financial controls.

Yet so many people on this thread who fully understand all of that and have extensive up to date hands-on experience are saying that you are mistaken.

And you are unaccountably refusing to acknowledge that you can have the most spiffy IT and accounting system in the world, if you put all your customers off and go bust none of it is any use to you whatsoever.

ChilliBandit · 07/02/2023 16:51

@Xol - and yet your extensive replies have not changed my opinion. Oh well.

Xol · 07/02/2023 16:56

Not my extensive replies, @ChilliBandit, those of several people on the thread. But do carry on blocking out reality, if it makes you feel better.

thecatsarecrazy · 07/02/2023 17:01

This happened to me once, went out for the day and stopped at spoons for tea, did the order on my phone at the table and after a while thought they were taking a while, husband asked at the till and I can't remember what the issue was but no food anyway, they refunded but I had to wait and then go somewhere else for food, so technically paid out twice. It only took a couple of days to go in though

Original poster
Hoppinggreen · 07/02/2023 17:03

ChilliBandit · 07/02/2023 16:13

@Hoppinggreen - did you get your refund yet?

Nope
As for £40 for lunch being reasonable this is for 2 sandwiches and a cold drink each, in Yorkshire

OP posts:
IWonderWhyIBother · 07/02/2023 17:25

Xol · 07/02/2023 16:46

The first and pre-eminent onus is on the business to get it right. How can it not be? They have no right to take money they are not owed under any circumstances.

As for relying on the customer to do the checking the business should have done, suppose the customer is dyslexic or dysnumeric? What about people who struggle with English or are not used to UK currency? Are all those people just fair game?

Show quote history

What if they’re blind, deaf and only have one leg? More whataboutery. As far as we are aware the OP isn’t dyslexic or dysnumeric. Not being dyslexic or dysnumeric myself I would think that people who are develop methods to deal with financial situations like asking the cashier to confirm the amount before paying. Of course the business should have got it right to begin with but there is human error, no one got up that morning thinking, I know what will be a laugh at work. The cashier will most likely never make that mistake again. There is also personal responsibility which no one appears to have any more. It always has to be someone else’s fault. Yes the member of staff made an error but the fault also lies with the OP for not checking the bill and then presenting their card to pay. If someone just swipes their card without checking the amount they’re not blameless..

Also just to throw this out to all the cash haters, if the bill had been settled in cash this would have been sorted in a jiffy.

Original poster
Hoppinggreen · 07/02/2023 17:28

I actually did say I should have checked the amount and explained why I didn’t.
I wasn’t actually cross about the mistake at all and reassured the server, it was the subsequent stuff and crappy attitude that annoyed me

OP posts:
ivykaty44 · 07/02/2023 17:33

if it’d happened to me today then they’d not have been paid a second time as I’d run out of money and card declined - what would they have done then 🤷‍♀️

yes mistakes happen in service but that’s when the staff need to be nice, not tell the customers of 😂

IWonderWhyIBother · 07/02/2023 17:34

Hoppinggreen · 07/02/2023 17:03

Nope
As for £40 for lunch being reasonable this is for 2 sandwiches and a cold drink each, in Yorkshire

Show quote history

Ah well I’m dayn sarf 😉 although my daughter lives in Yorkshire, beautiful part of the country.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 07/02/2023 17:42

As for £40 for lunch being reasonable this is for 2 sandwiches and a cold drink each, in Yorkshire

Ouch Confused

I'm well aware Yorkshire has some lovely places in it, and you did say this was a prosperous village, but all the same that seems a bit ambitious

MarkWithaC · 07/02/2023 17:54

The staff all sound shite; why on earth did no one know what to do? The one who felt the need to glare at you was obviously out of their depth and went on the attack and the one who hid in the back is a wet lettuce and probably not well suited to working in hospitality/with the public.
I'd go back in at a quiet time and have a calm word with the manager. Be honest about how the treatment has made you feel about going there again. If they're any good, they'll care and apologise, at the very least. If they're not, fuck em; spend your money elsewhere in future.

threatmatrix · 07/02/2023 17:54

In my cafe I would have just given you the difference in cash.

Auldandknackered · 07/02/2023 18:01

In my experience, when someone gives it I was ever so polite and lovely and I’ve no idea why anyone could think I wasn’t, they generally were anything but.

Blacksheepcat · 07/02/2023 18:10

I’m with the OP… does no one have any common sense anymore? They could have refunded the difference or given her £10 cash back. The “computer says no” line is soooooo annoying. She may have not had a spare £70 in her account. What would they do then?

NeedToChangeName · 07/02/2023 18:12

Onnabugeisha · 06/02/2023 20:30

They couldn’t give you £10 from the till as that would create business accounting issues and a fail for any financial audit. That’s also not how point of sale systems work and it’s all linked to their small business accounting systems. You can’t ring up and have you pay another customers bill and then fix it with cash difference. Because then your bill doesn’t get paid, and they can’t ask the other customer to pay your bill plus £10 cash. They HAD to back put the payment on the wrong bill and then you pay your actual bill.

Adding cash into the mix screws up their books for the business for HMRC and business taxes.

The delay in the refund hitting your account is due to the BANKS advertised potential delay on their end…it’s nothing to do with the business not refunding you and only “promising” as you’ve been saying.

It’s good you were calm, but you were acting like a Luddite with no concept of how refunds actually get processed or how business point of sale and accounting systems work & interact.

@Onnabugeisha I hear you and see the logic of that, but is that OP's problem? And what if OP had come out with £50 cash and no way to access additional funds? I'm sure they could have come up with a solution somehow

OP I'd chalk it up to experience. Like you I wouldn't be too impressed, but I'm sure it'll work out OK

Sue2704 · 07/02/2023 18:20

I am a cafe manager. Have managed small independant as well as supermarket cafes. There is always a way of correcting mistakes, so long as the till balances at the end of the day. All they had to do was explain clearly on their end of day report what had happened. It is completely unreasonable to expect a customer to pay for their mistake. The problem here was lack of management presence and/or lack of training. In your situation I would write a nice letter to head office,or email saying what happened, not blaming staff and expect a voucher of some sort in apology. Staff were a bit wet in my opinion, but no doubt they were very young and inexperienced and not taught how to resolve such an issue.

Original poster
Hoppinggreen · 07/02/2023 18:23

Auldandknackered · 07/02/2023 18:01

In my experience, when someone gives it I was ever so polite and lovely and I’ve no idea why anyone could think I wasn’t, they generally were anything but.

In my experience people who assume others treat staff badly do so themselves

OP posts:
Sennelier1 · 07/02/2023 18:24

@Hoppinggreen I don't understand why they didn't give you £10 from the till 🤔

lindyloo57 · 07/02/2023 18:28

Is this correct
Went for a birthday meal Sunday my DD , at the castle carvery, we my husband and I are vegetarians so ordered the nut roast, was told sorry its sold out, but could have a cheese tart instead, with all the trimmings roast potatoes and veg, if you don't know you fill your own plate with them. Got to head of que to be told sorry there's only one tart the other will served in a bit , they made a mistake and only cooked one, so we sit down with our plates of veg and roasties waiting for the other one, I try a bit of mine and realise its spicy which we wasn't told and we don't like spicy food, so I take it back and explain, so they give us a £10 refund and we just end up with veg and roast potatoes which we paid £28 including one lemonade so £18, I should have made more fuss but as is was a birthday meal with 12 people I felt I couldn't. Don't think we will be going back there. Just to add yes we could have ordered something else but every one else was eating and they would of all finished by the time we got our meals.

Sunsetintheeast · 07/02/2023 18:29

Sue2704 · 07/02/2023 18:20

I am a cafe manager. Have managed small independant as well as supermarket cafes. There is always a way of correcting mistakes, so long as the till balances at the end of the day. All they had to do was explain clearly on their end of day report what had happened. It is completely unreasonable to expect a customer to pay for their mistake. The problem here was lack of management presence and/or lack of training. In your situation I would write a nice letter to head office,or email saying what happened, not blaming staff and expect a voucher of some sort in apology. Staff were a bit wet in my opinion, but no doubt they were very young and inexperienced and not taught how to resolve such an issue.

Oh look, someone who knows what they are talking about!

How about that for all the computer fans!

TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl · 07/02/2023 18:30

YANBU at all.

Theres another thread at the moment about bad customer service. And I think these days young people are such massive wet wipes that they cannot cope with a nanosecond of adversity and refuse to learn from anything.