Visited the coles taigum qld au store (circa 1pm, 2/10/2019) to order cigarettes.
I placed my order clearly as I do regularly. the clerk repeated my order correctly, so I had no reason to believe that I was paying for the wrong product.
As most cigarette packaging looks quite similar nowadays, I can understand that the clerk may have mistaken one packet for another. but for the clerk to confirm my order verbally, and hand me a product that was not what I believed I was paying for, surely must leave the responsibility for the product being wrong with the clerk, and not be the responsibility of the customer to second check that the clerk is doing their job by giving the customer what they asked for. if I were to order eggs, and the clerk handed me lettuce, I would see that the clerk misunderstood, and promptly return said lettuce. but this situation is more like ordering free range eggs, and paying for and receiving caged eggs. very similar, but not what I thought I was paying for. and cigarettes are not cheap. mistakes regarding this product, are expensive. coles seems to have successfully circumvented customer service values by outlining a 'policy' regarding cigarettes that shoppers have apparently have agreed to. I was told that it didn't matter that they gave me the wrong product and that it was my responsibility to second check the clerk's work. no refund was issued for the clerk handing me the a different product than what was confirmed and paid for.
I then called the coles customer "care" number... unfortunately they did not care at all.in fact, they repeated the word 'unfortunately' quite a lot.
They then went on to justify the clerk's action by claiming that they are not 'trained' to recognise the difference between one packet of cigarettes and another... I almost thought they were implying that clerks were illiterate and couldn't read the packaging.
So after a rather rude and stern customer 'care' representative hung up on me, I am now putting forward this complaint in the hope that coles taigum may either change their low levels of service and learn how to recognise differences in products, or be more articulate in confirming and serving correct products to customers, especially with expensive ones.