Beware Shopping at Carrefour
Warning! When you shop at Carrefour Hypermarket, make sure you verify all prices before paying at the checkout counters if you don’t want to torment yourself with the hassle just to get a refund. Make sure you check 
We were hurrying to leave when I decided to run into the supermarket to pick up a couple of items from the frozen food section. I noticed an offer price board hanging above the Kings ice-cream. The promotional price for this item normally ranged from RM5.99 to RM6.99 so when I saw RM6.19, thought it was still a good buy and added it into my shopping cart.
Before I left the cashier, I glanced thru the receipt and noticed being billed RM7.45 for the ice-cream instead of RM6.19. 
I immediately pointed it out to the cashier. She said she had to go with me to the spot where the product and price was displayed to verify. However I had to wait for her to attend to a few more customers before she closed the counter. When we reached there, I took a closer look at the big price board of RM6.19 and noticed that below it in small print (only about 1/5 the size of the price) that it was for a different item. But it was very misleading. Firstly, this big price board was hung directly above the Kings ice-cream. The actual item was actually stored two compartments away. Secondly, the description of the item offered at RM6.19 was in such fine print that one could easily be mistaken (like yours truly). I apologised to the cashier that I mistook the price. But for the price of RM7.45, I wanted to cancel the item for a refund. To my surpirse, she told me “No returns for ice-cream products”. I told her It was ridiculous as I had not even left their cashier counter yet. She then asked one of the staff at that section who said “Boleh” (i.e. can).
We walked back to the check-out counter. The tub of ice-cream was left at the counter for almost 15 minutes already. Out of concern, I told her that it was best to quickly put the tub back into the freezer before it started to melt. She did not respond but kept asking me why I wanted to cancel the item. I reiterated that it was because the price was not what I thought to be. After being subjected to feel like such a sin to return an item, I thought I could just wait for her to process the refund. Wrong! I’d yet to experience the best customer treatment! She told me to take the receipt together with the tub of ice-cream to Information Counter to get a refund. Well, you know the size of hypermarkets and the distance to walk from one place to another. When I asked her for directions, she just said upstairs near the entrance. I wanted to go back into the supermarket and then up their escalator to save some distance but to my anguish, she refused and told me to walk from outside which meant practically going around the complex to reach the other end. By now I was very annoyed. Imagine the torment of carrying the tub of ice-cream in my bare hands (didn’t even give me a plastic bag) which by now was dripping with water, walking all the way upstairs and having to ask for directions to find the place. 
When I finally reached the Information counter, I was subjected to the same interrogation “Why you want to return?” One of the staff flipped open one corner of the cover to check (maybe hoping to find a tub of ice-cream water), then sluggishly 
took out a form, filled out the amount and the date at snail pace, passed on to me to complete the name, address and signature. After scrutinizing the form, he finally took out RM7.45 and gave it to me.
Maybe this is Carrefour’s tactic to discourage or even deter customers from asking for refund. Imagine if there were pricing discrepancies of small amount of few cents or even a dollar, most people would rather forego the claim rather than having to go thru the torturous procedure to get the refund! 
No one or no system is perfect. It is not uncommon to experience wrong pricing being input into their systems. My experience with some other supermarkets is, if there was a price discrepancy or cancellation of items, the cashier would not be authorised to do any adjustments for security issues. However, a supervisor would be on duty at all times to authorise adjustments on the spot. With so many hypermarkets mushrooming there should not be short of choice to shop where customers service is paramount.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2004 at 9:03 pm and is filed under General.
