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

Agree with PPs who suggested that you should have just said you didn’t have any more money to do another transaction. What exactly were they going to do then? Either give you a tenner from the till or goods to the value of £10. Their fuck up shouldn’t mean that you’re inconvenienced.

Apparently yes. Only yesterday I was informed that I’m spoilt and entitled because I complain if I don’t get what I’ve paid for and insist the issue is resolved.

Although realistically, I would have spotted the £70 charge before I paid.
It wasn't a £70 charge, if you read the OP.

I did read properly but I don’t understand why you reference any nastiness at all.
Being calmly assertive isn’t nasty and claiming that middle aged women are the worst is straying into using the derogatory term “Karen” territory
Some people are arseholes as customers but I don’t see where age or sex come into it. I only mention mine to show that I am not physically threatening in the slightest so how would a staff member cope with a large man being unhappy with the service?

Well to be fair it is for now 😁

Amen.
I worked in shops, takeaways, pubs and a Butlins when I was young and somewhat wet behind the ears. I had 'challenging' customers aplenty. I fucked up sometimes. I managed somehow not to have to go and hide in the back even when men were leering at me/people were shouting drunkenly in my face, much less when someone said 'it's just a mistake' after I fucked up their transaction.

Yes My point was, if you HAD been charged £70 for a £30 lunch you might well have noticed the error at the time, but you're less likely to register £40 as a big difference.

Sounds like she should just have refunded you £10 to your card. Yes you'd have been waiting for it but it's not £40.

Refunds aren’t immediate, that’s not how they work. And they couldn’t just give you £10 out of the till because then their system wouldn’t add up.

If you paid for someone else’s order (x), then to make everything right they need to cancel that payment, take payment for your order (y), and then the right person pay for their order too (x).

if they had overcharged you £10 for something on your order they probably could have refunded the difference, but because they mixed up 2 orders they couldn’t do that. Someone else still needed to pay the original bill you accidentally paid and their system might not let them put it through twice, and your order wouldn’t show up as paid.

If you read the thread, you'll see people who work in retail/cafes explaining in detail how in fact they CAN just give money out of the till without the sky falling in or anyone in the cafe getting into trouble about the till not adding up.

In “big businesses” such as Tesco, they WILL insist on refunds being done via the same method of payment, purely because of the sheer number of tolls and transactions that have to balance. BUT they also would have simply refunded the £10 in the first place. And in special circumstances, are still capable of giving a cash refund, when it’s necessary.
Small businesses, just using one or two cash tills, do not face the same logistical difficulties, and are quite capable of taking £10 cash out of the till, and putting a note in there.

On a number of occasions, I've bought a trolley-load of food from a supermarket and also popped in an item of clothing that turns out not to fit/suit and has had to be taken back. Every single time, if I spent, say, £60 in total and the returned shirt was £10, they've simply refunded the £10 straight to the original payment card (or in cash, if I paid cash). Nobody has ever suggested me paying another £50 for the shopping that I have kept and them (eventually) refunding £60 - that would just be very silly indeed.

But that’s not OP’s problem is it though?! Why should OP be £40 out of pocket for a week because staff made an error.

we don’t have to know anyone’s life history. I m ‘front of house’ so to speak in a public role and have been made to cry by several ‘customers’ (note I’m not in retail or customer service at all, but in a role that requires dealing with the general public) I just meant that it could have been triggering in a way we don’t understand. The OP was fine with that, and I agree with the OPs reply.

Whatever is going on in your life you don't take it to work. If you can't do that then you shouldn't be working in a customer service role. Customers should not have to put up with bad service - there is no excuse.

@magicthree respectively disagree!! I took my ‘problems’ to work with me this morning, both mum guilt and professional anxiety and was crying in my boss’ office this morning, before slapping on my big girl pants and doing a great job!

Did it result in crap customer service though?
Its ok to lean on colleagues to some extent but then you put your face on and be professional in front of clients or customers

@Hoppinggreen it depends on age and resilience. Back in the day, people had to be, but these days there doesn’t seem to be much resilience at all sadly :(

The reason I said I wouldn't give cash is because delayed refunds are a risk you take when you use a card. But we'd just have refunded the difference.

Although you're definitely not getting in trouble for it you aren't actually technically allowed to refund from the till. It's not an accounting or balancing issue is in your T&C's as a merchant and it's a money laundering requirement imposed on them

They could have refunded you the difference in cash and, I dont know why the only way to fix it was to refund and recharge, leaving you out of pocket albeit temporarily and with a vague idea of when the refund would be credited, plus the assumption you had enough to cover it when it was their mistake. The waitresses reaction was quite honestly pathetic, especially as you made it clear you were unhappy with the solution, not her. They had no right making you out to be the bad guy just because she was upset when you voiced that you we're unhappy with the solution.

they definitely aren't allowed to do this and could be blacklisted from being allowed to take credit cards if they do. you know how you can get supermarket cashback on a debit card but not on a credit card? same thing. credit card to cash transactions can happen but need to be separately administered and are charged at a higher interest rate.

cafe could have offered a credit voucher though, or put through a refund of just the difference in anounts if the person on the till had had the training to know how.

No YANBU.

If they wanted to avoid a scene or any cross words they could’ve come up with another solution.

I didn’t use a credit card though

Fair enough but you don’t know what else had happened that day / week - it may have just been a bad time and it mad her more emotional.

Fair enough be annoyed at the mistake but a) you should’ve checked the amount you were paying b) you didn’t need to agree that they should refund and you repay and c) all card refunds are usually around 5-7 working days - you can’t get annoyed at her emotional response, you don’t know what else was going on in her life. I think you just need to put this a as a bit of a lesson learnt about a b and c.

The ageism on mumsnet is so funny to me. Say anything about the older generation and it’s all guns blazing, but this generation is fair game apparently, isn’t it “super girl”.