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

Awful customer service. I wouldn’t be going back there. Sounds like they messed up your order in a number of ways!
I had similar in Monsoon once. Literally stayed calm and polite, stayed what needed to happen and refused to back down. Ended up with a queue full of people behind me, all backing me and telling the shop assistant and manager how ridiculously they were being. They were able to sort it in the end, just didn’t want to. Idiots.

*stated

The problem is once they had processed the refund they couldn’t then give you cash as you would have been refunded twice. They made a mistake not explaining that it could take a while when you agreed to the refund and repayment. Once they had processed the refund they probably couldn’t have done much more. The staff member sounds a bit pathetic but she probably didn’t know what to do and how to deal with it and thought she would get in to trouble if you didn’t pay. The time to argue against the refund approach was before it was processed not after.

Did everyone clap at the end?

There's literally no other way, you were 100% being unreasonable! Poor woman.

I agree. They should have refunded her £10 back onto her card and given her the terminal receipt along with an apology.

These comments are quite weird, has no one ever been shopping or had a refund? You never pay electronically and get cash back from the till. Well it would be very rare. The workers probably should have dealt with it better, but no need to get worked up about it. Maybe they also panicked as so the double charging was the first solution that came to mind. I used to work in retail when I was a teen and some people are horrible which is probably why I'm sympathetic to the staff in this situation (that and I'm sure it was beyond their control or they would've just handed you the cash!) 🤷‍♀️

There was no scene

They must have a shit system if they can't give you the cash and then fix the error in the back office of the system

This is the problem with everything being automated nowadays. It’s quick and easy when things work right, but when someone makes a mistake or the system is down nobody has any bloody idea what to do.

Would they fuck, and if they were they wouldn't come.

Precisely

They should have just refunded the difference to your card.

then any difficult in tallying is for them to sort.

Too many places now expect customers to deal with the hassles of their mistakes.

It’s not a shit system from a company point of view. You don’t want staff to be able to override things and be able to take from the till and then amend records. Annoying for customers when the odd mistake is made but better in the long run to protect against theft.

It’s a mistake and you knew the amount before you paid surely as it either says it on the card reader or the assistant would have said the amount so you could have quibbled it prior to the payment being taken . Unless you are desperately in need of the £40 I wouldn’t be making this kind of fuss about having to wait for a refund .

@ChilliBandit someone senior should be able to do that. And if no one with that authority is there then that's also pretty shit

@namechangeforthisbleep - sounds like a small independent. I doubt the owner can be there all the time.

Tbf, knowing how annoying these systems can be, once she'd gone so far into the transaction, trying to unravel it would probably be someone only a senior supervisor or manager could do and even then probably not successfully.

It is, of course, their fault for messing up the transactions however, you paid without double checking it was correct. Once the sale has gone through its 10x harder to fix.

Those bills would be settled so refunding against that would knack the stocktake and costings (again, not your issue) so they couldn't do a partial refund. If they could do one, they would have.

At the end of the day, it's your responsibility to make sure you understand what you're paying for.

I dislike the computer says no stuff. Cakes to the value of difference seems fair. I was once in a garage and someone paid for my petrol. Sadly they failed to pay for their own fuel which was nearly a tenner more. Staff member couldn’t put through a transaction for my amount as it wouldn’t match up. I refused to pay higher amount. Took forever for a manager to override system.

I said again I didnt think it was reasonable

There was a queue at this point so I said fine

We all have different interpretations of a scene I suppose.

@ChilliBandit perhaps. I'm a small independent too and I've employed someone who has the authority to do this in my absence. Really silly if they don't have a senior member of staff at all times

It would be gross misconduct. Staff “vouching” for each other doesn’t wash.

I manage a restaurant. I’ve had this exact situation and yes, the police were called and they did come.

This is why no cash is a real issue.

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.