‘My online shopping experience became a home delivery nightmare’

Ever wondered why postal workers go postal, why ‘that’ newsreader became mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore or why Mrs Bobbitt relieved Mr Bobbitt of his bobby? I swear the common source was that they all tried to organise groceries for home delivery; truly.

Recently I was quite unwell, but my collection of birthday/Christmas/Mother’s Day gift vouchers had me fair humming with excitement as I decided to blow the lot on groceries … Home delivered luxury and hang the $10 fee. To the uninitiated this means one could order large sizes and ‘the man’ would bring it all into my kitchen. Imagine that!

For an hour or two I was in my happy place, ordering ‘large’ this, ‘mega size’ that, until I was done. However, turns out you cannot use gift vouchers online for home delivery … No, surely I’ve misread, because that just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It seems everyone I spoke to, emailed and texted agreed with me but, there you have it, no gift vouchers. Apparently they’re ‘looking into it’ because they’ve had many, many complaints. Well, that’s okay then; I’m sure it’ll be rectified momentarily. Scoff.

Call the cavalry (more commonly known as ‘my village’)! Would somebody please use these gift vouchers in-store, but put the cash in my account? Yep, no problem.

Like a boss, I had stored my order and only needed to retrieve it. If I was done by 7am, I’d get same day delivery with a time of 2-8pm. How lucky, but this time ‘puter asked where my nearest store was. Fair enough, my assumption was that my delivery man would pick up my goodies for said location and would deliver to my door.

I’m the walking proof that to ‘assume’ makes an ass of you and me. At 2:20pm I received a lovely text announcing my order was ready to collect from ‘Click & Collect’. You say what now?

Obviously a mistake, I replied immediately that my order was for delivery not Click & Collect. I have actually never used Click & Collect for anything, ever. ‘Unknown source’ response followed closely by ‘order number unknown’. Pouring over every detail of my order I eventually found another 0409 number to text, they also had never heard of me.

More detective work (no, they don’t make it obvious) had me ringing a 1300 number. I tried valiantly to explain to this lady that I was rather quite ill and would never have requested Click & Collect; I actually needed home delivery. I asked her to walk me through how this could have gone so wrong. I ordered, I requested home delivery, ticked my address, chose a time frame, paid …

This is where the victim blaming began. “Oh, you clicked on your local supermarket,” she said.

“Well, yes, because the system requested the name of my local supermarket,” I replied.

I swear I detected a slight snigger. “That’s a Click & Collect store, love! If you clicked that store you clicked for Click & Collect.”

Let’s just say I took a deep breath and asked what could be done to fix this.** First, I could cancel order, but funds would take three to five days to refund; second, I could request private delivery for following day (for a charge of $9.50), or finally I could pick up the order from Click & Collect.

Option one would have left me with no food or money for three to five days. Option two was a ‘no go’ because there was a lot of fridge stuff on my order and it couldn’t be held overnight. Did I mention I’m rather desperately ill, it’s extremely cold outside, and I really didn’t get this order wrong in the first damn place?!

“Well love, what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing honey, carry on as usual and do absolutely nothing.” Love, honey, darling, sweetheart, listen up and listen good. You are in the best place for your skill set; “Don’t care with a hint of I’ve had enough of ‘old ladies’ so I will speak in a condescending tone”.

Yep, I got out of bed still in my nightie (kaftan) threw on a cardi, drove, walked, coughed, wheezed my way up to that bloody Click & Collect counter, ID/order number ready, asked the lady for my order, she turned her back on me, did something, and carried on serving others. I excused myself through coughing fits to ask if there was a problem but she said, “No, no problem. Your order is on its way.” Maybe it would have been polite to tell me that.

I’ve often wondered exactly where the ‘end of my tether’ was but no more, I found it, it’s where customer service goes to die, humanity no longer exists and computers do not allow for any ‘wriggle room’ whatsoever. Did I mention I did not click the ‘Click & Collect’.

Assume the rocking, foetal position please.

**That’s an absolute, bare-faced lie. I actually became emotional, lost my cool and mentally ordered the Wizard’s Flying Monkeys to crap all over her car.

Do you shop online? Have you had any hassle with the process or have you had a problem with your order when it arrived?

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