Pick n Pay review: Store manager returns and refunds. Pick and Pay Hypermarket - Durban North

Store: Pick n Pay hyepermarket – Durban North KZN

On the 29th December 2023 I purchased a Goldair Air fryer as my tried and tested Phillips Air Fryer had breathed its last, having served me faithfully without a single problem for more than 7 years.

The sales lady indicated that the Goldair was a good equitable brand and I had no reason to believe otherwise. On the morning of the 30th December 2023, we made the our first attempt to use the air fryer with the humble fish fingers. It took more than 30 minutes to successfully get the fish fingers done. Now in the land of air frying…this is not good. I realized then that this machine was of a significantly lower quality than what I am used to. I therefore experienced a “change of heart” finding the quality of product being unsatisfactory. I attempted to return the product. No this is where the real distress and disappointment lies.

I was informed by the returns counter that the store manager said ‘NO” (presumably he will not accept the return). I found this rather strange as he had not even spoken to me. I asked to see him. He strode over in quite a belligerent manner of a person who had all the power and who had already decided on the matter. He proceeded to lecture me on the CPA and insisted that I had used the product. Which I off course did…having said so already and that is how I established that the machine was of inferior quality…not that it was not working or broken. This learned store manager (known to the general public), Mr Neren Neermul (or a facsimile thereof…given how he impatiently spelt out his name) maintained an obvious air of arrogance and condescension and spoke to me as if I was a naughty five year old trying to cheat him. I'm a 57 year man with fair and respectful credentials, and I resented being regarded and spoken to like a covert thief. After all, I am the typical customer that has for over the past 30 years made Pick n Pay what it is today. This year alone I had purchased a vacuum cleaner, a big screen TV (Skyworth), make at least 1 x monthly grocery purchases and more recently often do our online grocery shopping. I have never had the displeasure of dealing with the likes of Mr Neren Neerum…in Pick n Pay before and come to think of…in any other major retail store before.

Only after I spoke to head office (cape town) who put him on the phone with me, did he offer a modicum albeit a defensive apology, and a way forward iro of sending the product to the supplier. Clearly he had downright lied to head office that he had said this to me. My family and I have resolved that if the return policy of Pick n Pay is as the learned Mr Neren Neerum explained it (with his his explicit notion that we customers are too simple to understand the high order complexities of the CPA, or that all customers are conniving conmen trying to do in his corporate bosses), then we would no more need to buy appliances/ machines/ electronic products and the likes from Pick n Pay. If in the unlikely event I am forced to, I would ensure that at the least the store manager is not Mr Neren Neerum. There are many other pick n pay stores and further other retail stores.

I willingly and knowingly divulged my name in the interests of transaprency and accountability.

Lingum Pillay