Tag Archives: Easy Pay

Facebook Sweet Service and Pick ‘n Pay BP Express Sour Service Awards!

July 31, 2015

The Sweet Service Award goes to Facebook, for removing two defamatory comments about restaurants I had visited, on the Facebook restaurant review page ‘Cape Town Restaurants, the Good, the Bad, and the Nastyyyy…‘, within an hour of my request, agreeing that they were harassment. Continue reading →

Pick ‘n Pay Sweet and Ou Meul Bakkery Sour Service Awards!

August 30, 2013

The Sweet Service Award goes to Pick ‘n Pay for its super Gift Card service, which offers a 2,5% discount for purchases of Gift Cards to the value of R20000, a service most Pick ‘n Pay clients do not know about. It does not replace the Smart Shopper card, which will be swiped for grocery purchases too. Intended as a corporate product for companies to use in rewarding their staff, it can also be bought by anyone else spending large sums of money at the retailer, as we do to pay our municipal accounts and guest house groceries, monies we would have to spend anyway but had paid by cheque via Easy Pay in the past. The process is simple: one requests an invoice from Pick ‘n Pay’s head office, pays the R20000 into their bank account, and then four cards are loaded with R5000 each, and the R500 discount Continue reading →

Shoprite/Checkers Sweet Service and Pick ‘n Pay BP Express Sour Service Awards

May 11, 2012

The Sweet Service Award goes to Shoprite/Checkers, for refunding all its customers for Velvet Sky airline tickets, bought via Computicket Travel, or at a Shoprite or a Checkers store. The airline has been grounded, and has not made arrangements to refund its customers’ tickets. ‘Despite having no legal obligation to refund Velvet Sky’s fares, we feel strongly that you shouldn’t lose your hard-earned money due to this unfortunate event’, said a letter from CEO Whitey Basson, in a newspaper advertisement.

The Sour Service Award goes to the Pick ‘n Pay BP Express in Green Point. Recently the monthly municipal accounts were paid via EasyPay at this branch and sms bundles were bought for the staff. When the sms vouchers and proof of payment were printed by the cashier one could barely read the detail, as the shop printer cartridge was close to empty. The Manager Darren didn’t want to call the franchisee Paul Schaefer (he is never there in the evenings nor over weekends), so he tried to dismantle the printer linked to the till and swop it with another. He called when it was done, an hour later, so that we could fetch the newly printed and far more legible slips. We had not noticed that the sms bundle vouchers did not have a pin code due to the reprint, and this necessitated a third visit to the branch on a Saturday morning, again finding Mr Schaefer absent. I was asked to return two days later, which was unacceptable, due to the time already wasted over three visits. Mr Schaefer called, explaining that he would have to look through the screen shots of the till screens of the two previous visits, to get the sms bundle voucher pin numbers, and this could only be done on his return. We called Jacques Lombard at the Pick ‘n Pay Head Office, and he immediately instructed Mr Schaefer to issue replacement sms bundle vouchers, which was done, but was accompanied by abusive calls and sms messages from Mr Schaefer, absolving himself and his staff from any responsibility for the problem created. We will not return to this Pick ‘n Pay branch, due to the continued EasyPay incompetence experienced in the past year.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog. Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.

Pick ‘n Pay Franschhoek Sweet Service and Asara Wine Estate Sour Service Awards

February 10, 2012

The Sweet Service Award goes to Pick ‘n Pay Franschhoek, and its Manager Jonathan Brown specifically. The store normally has filthy floors and poor service, with errors made when one pays the monthly Easy Pay accounts at this branch. However, when Jonathan is on duty, he will proactively come to the customer, to check if there is something that he can get, and there is never an error with the account payments. The store is clean when he is on duty. He understands customer care, and goes out of his way to make sure that it happens, an excellent but rare ambassador for Pick ‘n Pay.

The Sour Service Award goes to Asara Wine Estate and its reservation executive Tamarin Byne, who received a Sour Service Award when she worked at the One&Only Cape Town. The nomination comes from Dr Volker Arends in Hamburg: “I read that the Sour Service Award went to Tamarin Byne in 2009 when she was working at One&Only Cape Town. I would like to propose to grant the award once again to her. Now, she is working at Asara Wine Resort in Stellenbosch, a five star hotel. The service level, however, apparently has not improved. We have booked a classic deluxe room for three nights from 1st to 4th January 2012. We received a binding confirmation (with cancellation fees applying from our side) from the agent working for Asara (booking.com). Mrs Byne contacted us and informed us that “due to a system error” we could not receive a room on 2nd January, 2012. We could either chose to use three different rooms in two different hotels during our three days stay or Asara could cancel the confirmed booking (at least making a reservation in a different hotel). When we politely mentioned that we had a confirmed booking and would not agree to either of such options but would like to receive a room at Asara for the time period as agreed and confirmed, our wish was just brashly ignored. Several emails were exchanged but the customer demand was just ignored. Although we had several times explained that we would like to be accommodated in a room of at least the standard booked and even offered to change the room within the Asara Hotel, such demand was just ignored. We then received an email stating that we are welcomed on 1st January 2012 and we would then be moved to a different hotel “as discussed” and on 3rd January we could move back to Asara. As “compensation” for the inconvenience caused by such “unforeseen system error” Mrs Byne generously offered a complimentary wine tasting at Asara. No upgrade on the room, no lunch, no dinner, not even drinks for dinner. No, a complimentary wine tasting to make up for using three different rooms during three days solely caused by the Hotel… After such behaviour we have had enough. We wrote Mrs Byne to cancel the booking and that we would make different travel arrangements. We asked her to confirm the cancellation (caused by the Hotel which was not able to accommodate us in the agreed time period). It took about 24 hours and only after we called the agent (booking.com) we received an answer stating the confirmation and generously expressly waiving the cancellation fee of the Hotel!! I think that speaks for itself. We have now booked a different hotel and are really looking forward to our visit to South Africa”.