Woolworths
Reviews and Complaints

I don’t eat much and don’t like large portions of food, but also don’t like to be ripped off. Two of us ordered the Classic Cafe salad. It consists of chicken, which I assume is the main ingredient and rocket, lettuce and avo, and also croutons and beans. We received per plate, not more than meat equivalent to 1 chicken drumstick each and in my salad I received two very very small rocket leaves, my husband had three. The croutons was stale dried out bread which was vile. One would expect that the quality would be the same as in the store. It falls way short. When this was queried, the waiter said it was the policy of their head office. This was confirmed by the manageress, who tried to defuse the situation by bringing some more rocket and a little bit of chicken. The salad each cost a whopping R53, 00. There are many other restaurants to choose from in the centre. I was also told that this was the 1st cafe run by Woolworths themselves. It seems as if they have no clue on how to prepare and serve meals. Come on Woolies…you need to do better!

Early in February 2012 I completed an online application for a store card. After a week of not receiving any feedback I contacted Woolworths and I received a reply stating that the delay was due to an old store card. The only problem is I never had a card with Woolworths before. This in itself is worrying as it seems that Woolworths opens store cards without any consent from the customer.

It also stated that the old account would be removed and the new one opened. Since then I have had to send numerous emails to get any feedback. However the feedback I receive is the same as it was a month ago. Tee old account has to be removed before the new one can be opened. On 14 March a lady called me and again explained the situation.

She informed me that the old account would be removed that evening and the new one would be opened and she would phone me on the 15th or 16th of March with feedback. Not surprisingly I did not receive any feedback and again had to send an email before receiving a call this morning. It seems that the problem has still not been resolved and the employee who phoned me shofted the blame. I am now fed up!

After many years of keeping quiet as a consumer I have finally decided to take action when things go wrong. I have tried to complain politely to the respective branches, but that is a whole story on its own. First I would like to say that your staffs attitude varies from branch to branch.

I travel for work with my hubby as this is all we can get, so I get to see many towns/countries, and branches of Woolworths. I have met some very polite and helpful staff and then there are the rotten apples. I think the worst attitude I’ve had from a Woolworths branch was in Eastgate in 2009. I was trying on shoes and I needed a pair of boots. I have a ‘high arch’ as does my husband and I was trying to get a staff member to help me.

When I had to explain that I needed a few sizes of the same shoe, she first rolled her eyes before assisting me. When that style could not accomodate my foot, I asked if she could recommend another wider style. She threw the boxes to the floor, had a chat to a mate, before taking 27 minutes to come back with another boot in one size, the shop wasn’t busy, it was Tuesday morning just after opening time, in March.

I asked politely if I could try two other sizes to see which were more comfortable. She then told me the boot fits and I said yes, but maybe a bigger size would feel more comfortable as my foot is wider than most. She stood there for a few seconds then wandered off, I assumed to help me. She never came back. I walked around the shop and found another assistant who told me it wasn’t her department.

I went to a cashier and asked if she could help but she told me to just look for someone on the floor. I approached the cosmetic counter and found two ladies chatting away. I waited ten minutes before they acknowledged me, then one slowly walked me through the shop to find help. She told me she would send someone to the shoe area, I must go and wait there.

An hour passed and nobody showed up. I eventually noticed the first assistant who had helped me. I approached her, trying to control my temper, and asked if she could kindly help me now with some different size boots in three styles. She said to me ‘I thought you were finished’. She then turned to seek the boots. 42 minutes later she came back with one box and said they out of stock. I asked to speak to the manager and got told ‘the manager not here today’. I asked to speak to the assistant manager. She asked why.

I said I have a complaint that she’s not helping me well enough. She then said it’s not her fault I have fat feet. My husband removed me from the shop before I killed her. I went to another shop to purchase boots. They were more than willing to help me, and gain my money, so I bought two pairs instead of one and a good pair of sports shoes.

In 2005 I purchased from the Pavillion, Westville branch, a full set of clothes from Woolworths for a new job, grateful I had one after being unemployed so long. I went to a final interview and was wearing a black pencil type skirt and a short sleeve embroidered shirt. As I got up to shake my new boss’s hand, I bent over to pick up my hand bag only to hear a funny noise.

Realising that my skirt had just given up, up the back seam I asked to be shown to the ladies room. Luckily his female assistant was with him, and she took over and he left. The seam up the back of the skirt had given way – all the way to the waiste band – it was brand new, the first time I had worn it – and no, it wasn’t too small for me. The assistant offered her help via me lending her scarf to tie around my waiste and then said, ‘you should have invested in woolworths’. I said ‘I did, and am I sorry!’.

The shirt I wore that day came undone by the third use. First the hems on the sleeve then the embroidery unravelled. I lost a button the first day I wore it. This is quite common with Woolworths clothes now.

A month later, I was wearing a pair of black high heel shoes, also purchased from Woolworths, Gateway. I climbed a staircase at my new job only to almost break my neck as the left hand heel broke clean off the shoe! It was only the second time I had worn the shoes. I took them back and got a credit, purchased a more ‘sensible heel’ shoe.

These shoes started to seperate and landed up in a divorce as the inside padding came unstuck and the souls left home. In relation, I bought a 3/4 heel black pair of shoes from Main Street, Port Elizabeth branch in 1992 – I wore these shoes at least once, every week and they lasted me 9 years! Now that’s quality! Also about your shoes, you used to give 1/2 sizes, like size 3and1/2, now I either have to chose a 3 or 4 or 5, pending the bad cut of the shoe. What happened to the 1/2′s.

Later in 2005, I tried on a dress in the shop, and made a note to the assistant in the department that the cut is wrong. She looked at me as if I was a mad. So I put the dress on came back to her, and showed her I couldn’t lift my arms as it seemed the seam that stitched the sleeve to the dress was sewn on to long or deep. She went on to tell me that was the style? I wasn’t the only one that complained.

In 2006 I purchased vests and undies for my father from a the Vryheid branch. I followed the instructions as per washing and keeping them good, but to my disappointment, the vests ‘stretched’ beyond shape within a month. I regret to say that the undies are not stocked anymore. They have a wide band of elastic at the waiste, with a cross over feature at the front, which is like a flap, enabling a man to whip it out instead of pushing the undies down.

These undies I was told, were ‘obviously not popular and now are not stocked’. How true this is?

In 2008 I purchased bras for myself from Greenstone, Johannesburg branch. My size bra has not changed since I was married and as they have a ‘no return’ policy on underwear, I took an old bra with to make sure it was the same type, brand and size – although the price had increased. I asked for assistance too. When I got home and tried them on, I found that the bras seeemed very tight and small cupped.

On measuring them against the old ones, the material was less in the cup, and the sides were narrower. Before you say, yes but that’s old it’s stretched, in my ‘hospital bag’, I pulled out a Woolworths bra, same everything, still in it’s packaging with receipt, and found that indeed, upon measuring up, the new bras have “shrunk”.

In 2011, scared to purchase bras again from Woolworths but determined that the quality must have been checked, I purchased again. The bras are still not the right size. To prove it, I bought 3 different size bras and took them home to compare them. If anyone of your staff can show me the difference in size – I will eat them!

In 2012 I purchased new undies from the Phalaborwa branch. Again, I took a sample with and again I was disappointed. Only this time I’ve kept the receipts and underwear. The panties I bought started to come apart after the first wash. Now, I have never had domestic help, no one else washes my clothes, especially my underwear and I follow the instructions. By the second wash, the seams at the elastic edge had all but given away.

I bought eight (5) packs, allowing me to change underwear enough times even in bad weather when washing can’t dry. The panties I bought in January this year, I’m sad to say lie in a heap in a box in my cupboard with their receipt. I used them three times.

Comparing these new panties with some from a purchase in 2006 is so funny I cry. The lack of quality can be seen a mile off. Thankfully I keep a ‘hospital bag’ for emergencies, and keep ‘proof’ of the decline of Woolworths merchandise.
My husband is furious as we are just starting to come right financially and he refers to Woolworths as disposable clothing.

He told me if I buy anything at Woolworths again, he will divorce me, unless you have given me a refund or gift card. I have to agree with him – what a waste of hard earned good money!

I’m happy to report that I buy good fitting bras at Pep stores and they have lasted, kept their shape and not ‘shrunk’. I buy my panties at various outlets, I’m still testing the quality of different stores.

There are many more items of clothing I have bought over the years, but I must be honest, these of the ones that stick out the most. I will also admit that the quality started to decline around 2005 across your branches, and one could easily see and compare this when they found old and new items on the same shelf.

I feel sorry for those that have climbed up in their lives from poverty to a sustainable income only to be let down by the quality of woolworths. I know a lady who comes from such a background. Her main ambition in life was to shop at Woolworths when she made it to a decent income. She is also 37 years old, and she has just got her degree, after many years working and earning her way up and now is able to afford to shop at ‘quality shops’.

She purchased some nightware and a winter coat, a week later she phoned me to tell me the lining in the coat had come undone, as had the sleeve stitching, two buttons had fallen off. She had bought it for her mother, as a thank you gift, who had worked three jobs, 16 hour days, 7 days a week, to keep her in school so she could go on to a better life. Sadly, her mother passed away and never really got to wear a good quality coat in winter.

I don’t mind paying the price as long as the quality keeps up. Everyone who knows me knows, I only buy All Gold Tomato Sauce (all gold all gold tastes so good!) and Mrs Balls Chutney. As poor as I’ve been at times, these are things I don’t compromise. And I can’t complain, their quality has never disappointed me.

Woolworths, you can keep putting your prices up, but your customers are getting wise and angry and are going to keep leaving. – But don’t worry, there is a sucker born everyday that will support your name; I’m just not one of them.

I applied for a Woolworths card the beginning of January. After a couple of days they phoned my employer to confirm my employment as well as my salary. The lady from Woolworths could not get hold of our Admin Manager (HR) and instead started confirming all my personal details as well as my salary to the first person answering the phone, a colleague. She still asked my colleague what her position was and after confirming that she is just a Custody Clerk, she still kept talking and confirming my personal details. I eventually received my Woollies card in the post as promised.

Signed the card and went to the neares Woolies we have to purchase some items. The lady at the till took my card, swiped it, and the transaction went through without any trouble. I just came from an Engen garage with a Woolies store where I tried to buy a salad. There I was informed that I’m not able to use my card as this is a NEW CARD and that I have to go to THE BIG WOOLWORTHS to purchase a salad.

I mean really, a salad and I have to drive all the way to A BIG WOOLLIES because my CARD IS STILL NEW. Why did the same thing not happen at my SMALL WOOLLIES, THE FIRST TIME I USED THE CARD? That would have made sense! So please URGENTLY advise what I need to do to USE MY CARD AT ANY WOOLLIES, BIG or SMALL, and not get embarrassed EVER AGAIN by someone at the TILL telling me that I can’t use this card because it is NEW!

As a new customer I have not had a very pleasant experience with “Woolworths”. I assure you that I will definitely never refer a client to you ever, as I have no good service to BRAG about.

You might think that you are “The BEST”, but believe me, there’s a lot better out there when it comes to service. I never had that problem with EDGARS, (instead they reward their clients and actually want you to shop there) and Mr. Price( where I got my card immediately and can use it at any Mr. Price, BIG or SMALL, SPORT OR HOME). If I knew what I know now, I would never have WASTED my time applying for a Woollies card!

I expect you to have the decency to get someone to phone me and tell me how to fix this problem with this card, and I want someone that is going to deal with the problem, and not just confirming that they received my complaint and someone will contact me shortly.

WOOLWORTHS OWES ME THAT!

There is a very small Woolworths store at Padstow that I only frequent out of convenience because more often than not the service is very bad and nearly every time I walk in the store I notice a merchandising mistake or product pricing mistake without even trying.I have to ask them to fix it because it’s intellectually frustrating to see it.Obviously it occurs through either carelessness or stupidity.It is a small store in comparison to other stores & therefore they don’t have a great range of product brands and types, so you would think it would be easier for them to manage it but no…

There is one particular cashier there (an older lady with short brown hair) who is so hopeless that I just leave my goods and walk out in disgust at mainly her stupidty.I usually try and avoid the stupid ones but yesterday I stood in her line to be served & sure enough she still had not learnt a thing about efficient high service cashiering…She refused to give me a bag when I asked until after I’d paid, so my goods were still sitting there on the counter after I’ve asked for a bag? It varies from that to her triple handwork to get the goods in the bag (very slow and inefficient).You get the idea…

Many times I’ve vowed to boycott that store & I stay away for some time but due to convienience only I go again.They’ve lost a lot of custom from me…Most people go to Riverwood to get good service and product range.At least there I can serve myself…

I live 3 hours out of Roma on a rural isolated cattle property! The alarm goes off at 4am, I have breakfast get dressed and away before 5am… i pull into woolworths at 7.50am to get the Grocery shopping out of the way as there if 50, 000, 000 more jobs to do for myself and my husband! Woolworths is the only shop in town opened at 8am which is why we shop then… well the doors finally opened at 8.10am (10 min late, after customers knocking on the front doors!) 9.30am i’m lined up with $980.00 order which is a regular order for my family from Woolworths!

Then they tell me my ham and the rest of my cold gear has to sit out until 10am before pick up is opened! Well this is absolutly unacceptable to do this to a customer that has just spent close to $1000 in your store… This customer service is poor and disgusting. The ammount of money woolies in Roma would make out of Rural bush people would be huge, extend the coldrooms, extend the pick up area, what ever the problem is… fix it if you wish to keep me as a customer! 10am to 4pm for the pick up is not acceptable customer service for a rural town such as Roma (9am to 6pm is fair!)

And then some dope working in pick up tried to give me someone else's groceries. Not Happy With My Experience At Woolworths in Roma Today! Look after your customers that look after you!

I really love shopping at Woolworths but today this cashier I had was giving me an attitude that I’ve never experienced else where! This is the Walmer Park, PE branch at the food section. Her name is Kim, she just started her shift and was being very rude I must say. She didn’t bother to greet, never mind mentioning smiling back at me. The way how she was scanning my food and throwing to the side, giving me the look like I did something wrong and banged the pen on the surface for me to sign. Very unfriendly person and I think the manager there should keep up with the service Woolworths provide.

I am a staff member at Temora Woolworths store, and dread going to work each day. There are three members of one family working in this store and all we hear is back stabbing and ### all day. One particular family member not only ### about staff members but customers also. I am sure if Woolworths conducted a survey most staff members would say the same. All we can hope for is that they be transfered to another town. WE HOPE! Please Woolworths management rescue this store, come see for yourself.

I bought cherries from Woolworths store yesterday and when we started to eat them last night we found that most of them were rotten, mushy and horrible, I will be returning them to the store today, and at this time of year the traffic on the road is very very busy, and of course there is the extra running around that I don’t need not to mention the extra cost. This is not the first time I have found that woolworths so called fresh food company is not so fresh, they should have been as the shelf had only just been filled and it was early in the morning.

So come on woolworths how about looking after your customers, one very very unhappy customer and employee.

Woolworths call centres are a waste of time and money! For 2 days I have been calling, faxing and emailing. Emails don’t get responded to and calls don’t get returned. Every time you call you get through to a different person who you then have to explain the whole sob story again to or leave a message for the 5 other people who you originally spoke who never return calls. In-between this you get cut off after holding 20 min! I find it ridiculous that the very same documents that FNB will accept to change details they will not! Woolworths spend less money on your adverts and more on your call centres and training up your staff! Your service is PATHETIC!

I went into Woolworths in Jean avenue Centurion. Bought a few things like I always do. Went to the cashier, she scanned the items. I gave her my standard bank card. She swiped it 3 times and said it was declined. I said I would draw the money but for some odd reason none of the ATM’s worked, I guessed standard bank must be off line. So I drove to the next place, to see if I could draw money. Due to me not be able to buy it there I went to another store to buy the things I needed. To my surprise it went off from my account. So now what?

I was humiliated in front of a whole store, I didn’t took my items home as my card was declined 3 times according to the cashier, so I paid for what exactly?

I recently experienced the extremely poor customer return policy of Woolworths. I have always felt that when returning an item if it is being returned in the same condition in which it was bought and you have the slip to verify purchase, that the store should provide a full monetary refund and not a voucher Why should a consumer be held to ransom to purchase something at that store while they retain your money, earn interest and have the value of the returned product returned to their stock?

What makes this situation worse is that they are not upfront about this policy, they hide behind red tape. They say that they will refund a credit card payment with a credit card refund only to insist that the credit is applied to the same credit card number that the items was bought with. Only a cash purchase is refunded with a cash refund. The problem with this system is that it forces the consumer who did not buy the item to get a voucher. By forcing a voucher on to the customer, they are in essence coercing you into “a forced contract with them” where you can only spend that money at their store, while all this time having the money in their bank and the items back in their inventory. This leaves the customer with the risk of not finding the required item they need and having to spend additional money elsewhere while the value of your voucher gets reduced (inflation and no interest).

This means that if your credit card has expired before time of return of item you will not get a credit to your account. If you received the same items in a baby shower you will be unable to get the money back for the items you return.

In my case, my husband bought me a jersey and he specifically left the price attached and gave me the slip in order that I would have the option to get a refund or exchange the item. The jersey was not to my liking and I took it back to the store with the slip and price attached. The store refused to give me a cash refund or to refund my credit card (even though my husband and I have a joint account).

I find this practice extremely consumer unfriendly. It seems to be an excuse for Woolworths to insist on pushing their vouchers on to the consumer. They should be secure with their products and service to give a customer the choice of refund. As stipulated in the Consumer Protection Act, the customer is entitled to a choice and is entitled to not be forced into further commercial engagements or agreements with the vendor store.

It seems as if they insist on giving back the same R50 note that was given to them when the item was bought. They may refund with two R20 and a R10. By the same token I do not see how they have the right to insist on refunding the credit to the same credit card number that the item was purchased with. A credit is a credit! The credit card number is incidental for them to refuse a simple refund. I do understand that in the accounting system it may not marry up 100% of the time but why should the consumer be responsible for their accounting inadequacy?

I paid my Woolworths loan and card up in full in September 2010.Woolworths wrongly allocated my payments and said I owe them money. After explaining everything to them and sending proof of payments they admitted the fault was by them. They said they will correct everything and I will not be ITC listed(December 2010). Today I found out my ITC is bad because it shows that I owe Woolworths 6 months payments. I phoned them and they said they will send me a letter stating I do not owe them anything - still waiting for the letter. I feel they should take me off ITC as soon as possible.

i have shopped twice at the moe woolworths now and not been given my reward points. the first time the girl forgot to ask and before i could get the card from my purse she had completed the sale and told me opps sorry. the second time the girl had not been paying attention and got the card details from the customer before me, he put his credit card into the eftpos machince an she continued to swipe my grocheries and then when we told her the mistake as she had not yet scanned his 3 boxes of soft drink (which she advised him to leave in his trolley) she said ill finish scanning yours. i then paid asked to swipe my reward card and the girl told me sorry but the points are on that mans card, all because she was not doing her job correctly.
this is unacceptable and the girls at the reg seem to not care that you dont get your points..

My email address [protected]@webmail.co.za CC Claasen Id No. [protected]. My ref no.[protected]. I have a problem with the woolworths/munnik basson da gama team. Last month a consultant from your office phoned me and told me that i must make a last payment of R260 to settle my woolworths acc, which i paid. Just 4 fun i went and pay an extra R50 afterwards 2 see if my credit will show and it did show the credit available. Today 10.03.2011 i went in to woolworths store and made a payment of R50 just to see if the account was stil showing the credit available and it only showed the R50 that i paid. And if the account has been settle why dont you give me a clearance letter, so tel me what happens now. Do i stil owe you people. Let me know, cause im on the verge of contacting the ombudsman if im not satisfied with your response

My husband bought woolworths chocolate mousse pudding (R44) on Saturday - just in time for Mothers day -- found large lumpy gelatin like substance in the pudding - totally unedible, totally disappointed as this used to be my favourite pudding. Also bought the Organic vanilla flavoured large tub of yoghurt at a price I may add - the quality has dropped drastically - it's now like milk - not at all creamy and thick like it used to be. Even the sticky toffee pudding's quality has gone down - the sponge seems to be rather dry - which it never used to be. I sent a complaint to their customer services - i haven't heard anything from them - not a word. It's sad to see that Woolworths doesn't engage with their customers.

I'm not one to complain, but this is one 'bridge' to far. I have always spent up to 5 minutes waiting at the hot food counter to get served and today was no different but this time there was someone behind the chicken rotisserie filling it with chicken. There is a glass font through which this person could see that there were two people waiting for her. There was no acknowledgement of our presence nor any movement on her part to assist her CUSTOMERS.

Now i'm quite sure chicken would not go off in the time it takes to help two people on their way with their hot food. Eventually another of the floor staff, emerging from the back, called her repeatedly to come out but she continued with her back room functions. It took this second person at least a full minute to get her outside. By that time I was angry and walked away.

I'm happy that Woolworths can afford to lose out on a sale of about R100.00, and I'm sure it's shareholders would commend their staff in ignoring their customers to complete mundane tasks. I also returned to the counter two minutes later and again there was no-one manning it. I received a shrug when I confronted WW on their service.

I applied for a Woolworths store card, TWICE and was declined - no reason was given. I then checked with ITC and I was credit clear, empirical score is 1, no defaults whatsoever. I then applied for an Edgars storecard and they accepted my application within 2 weeks.

Now what's Woolworth's problem? The mere fact that I'm 24 with no bad debt should serve as an indicator that I'm not a reckless consumer...so what's the point of offering a service like this, but you get declined..on what grounds?

I finally get a reply after a long time, which explains that I do not have a credit record...I was absolutely gobsmacked- Why are you offering a financial service if you're not willing to give credit to a guy who has no bad debt?!...The reason I'm applying is to cover myself incase I run over my budget and need an outlet maybe for the last week of the month or a few days before payday...I'm not going to use the **** card for my monthly grocery shopping!

Are there perhaps other companiesorganizations that would possibly grant me access to a storecard for perishable goods and willing to take on another stakeholder? because WOOLWORTHS ARE TOO 'exclusive' for me.

I was shocked to see that Woolworths carry a range of padded bras for very young girls. The row I saw them on was for girls aged 9-10, maybe they have them for younger girls too. Why not read articles about Primark, the high street retailer in UK, which, after severe pressure, discontined their padded bras for 7 year old after much public and government outcry about the premature sexualisation of young girls. One newspaper even labelled it as 'high street paedophilia', I agree. Let young gils be young girls, don't encourage them to be adults before their time. Come on Woolworths, if you are serious about 'adding quality to life' stop the sale of these gaments and be a responsible retailer as opposed to following certain overseas trends for the sake of making profit. Be ethical. No wonder young children have identity problems when retailers and marketers influence them into being something they are not and are not ready for.