A Tale About Topping Up Is About To Go Down

I have just arrived at work at the phone store, and there is an elderly couple waiting to be seen. I walk over.

Me: “Do you need any help?”

Elderly Woman: *Exclaiming* “Your company is a sham! You’re trying to con innocent pensioners out of their money!”

Me: *Confused* “What is the problem?”

Elderly Woman: “We were in store a couple of days ago to get a £10 top-up put on our phone. We gave you a top-up card, and the money didn’t go onto the phone!”

I check the receipt confirmation and the number of the top-up card they have is mismatching to the one on the receipt.

Me: “Do you have another top-up card with you that might have been used accidentally?”

Elderly Woman: *Firmly* “No!”

They continue to complain the whole time I am on the phone to our customer care team as they try to work out what phone the money has gone on to. They end up telling me there is nothing they can do, and it is up to the store to fix it.

My manager at the time has been listening in and is annoyed at their outburst. He comes over.

Manager: “I will give you a new top-up.”

This is just to get them to leave the store. The woman goes to open her purse to pull out her loyalty card to get the points, and he points toward one of the cards inside. Lo and behold, there is another top-up card sitting in there, its number matching the one on the earlier receipt.

They had given my colleague the wrong top-up card. I had spent over an hour trying to fix a problem that could’ve been resolved if the customer had just checked her purse in the first place.

The woman said she was embarrassed and that she’d never usually get angry and have an outburst like that. She quickly apologised, telling us what great staff the company had — even though she complained about my colleague the whole time, calling her incompetent — and they quickly left with their tails between their legs.