My wife said that I had bought the wrong ones. She said she wanted, bigger Lavender white Jasmine, not yellow coloured flowers. So I went back to the store where a member of staff processed a refund for the returned items.
Later, my wife said that the quality of the four Ivy plants was poor as they had started to turn yellow. So, I put these into the boot of my car and drove back to the garden centre. I was able to park right outside the entrance and was met by a young lady who gave me a trolley. With that, I removed all four plants from my car and put them into the trolley provided and took them to the checkout area for a refund.
I was met by Jo who asked me for my receipt. This was dated from the day before and was also marked by the refund for the Jasmine and Lavender plants from earlier. This lady was just rude and had difficulty with the refund (I have no idea why). She called over a supervisor who suggested that I had already received a refund for these plants earlier in the day. I was asked to produce my refund receipt from earlier and this showed that she was wrong. My receipt was also marked with the refunded item so there was no reason for confusion.
With a long queue of customers behind me, Jo was unable to reconcile the refund so she radioed for another supervisor. A lady called herself Gaynor came over and asked me about when I bought these plants. Then she disappeared leaving me standing by the till within hearing range of the even longer queue of unhappy customers behind.
Things went from bad to much worse when Gaynor returned. She asked me 鈥渨hy was I retuning four Ivy plants when I had only put two into my trolley鈥? Understandably, I became annoyed at what was being implied. My response was to ask her on what basis she could make such an accusation. She then said that the girl outside who gave me the trolley 鈥渟wore that you had only put two plants in your trolley鈥?
I asked her to look at the security recording as this would show clearly when I arrived, what I took out from my vehicle and what I put in my trolley. She refused to do this claiming she was too busy and did not have time.
Eventually, after about 20 minutes, she instructed Jo to give me the refund that I was entitled to and with that I left the store and walked towards my car.
As I did so, the girl who had given me the trolley suddenly appeared so I asked her why she told Gaynor that I had only put two Ivy plants into my trolley? She said that that was what she thought I did. When I told her that Gaynor had claimed that she had sworn that I had only put two plants into my trolley she denied this.
I asked her who the owner of the business was to which she replied 鈥渕y father鈥? I also asked her what his name was but she refused to say nor would she confirm who she was. Then Gaynor came out to where I was and started acting in a strange way. She just did not get how appalling she and her staff had been towards me as a customer.
On reflection, before she even thought to confront me about the number of plants I had placed in my trolley, she should have reviewed the security footage as this would have clearly shown that she and the lady with blond hair (who I now understand was Emily Cornelissen) were badly mistaken.
It is completely unacceptable to wrongly accuse anyone of dishonesty without first, establishing the facts to back up such a claim.
To Adrian Cornelissen, owner of Burleydam Garden Centre, you should be ashamed that you have staff members who are so poorly trained as to treat customers in the way that I have been treated.
Shame on you!