WENDY KNOWLER | How committed to customer relations are retailers?

I’m aware that in this column I generally don’t focus on the millions of interactions between companies and their customers that happen without a hitch. Or even those which happen with exceptional devotion to treating their customers with care and respect.

But it’s when things go wrong that companies — and individuals — show us how truly committed they are to the relationship. We can tell by how, or if, they choose to apologise, what they do to fix things — and keep us in the loop during this process — and what action, if any, they take to prevent it happening to other customers.

That doesn’t seem too difficult, but there’s many a slip between mission statement and reality. And, generally, the bigger the organisation the bigger the slips. I’m always reminded of my favourite Dilbert cartoon frame: “Our highest priority is satisfying our customers ... except when it’s hard ... or unprofitable ... or we’re busy.”

Lots of things appear to stand in the way of the companies' stated priorities, from where I sit. And so to this week’s case study.

“Shop anything you can imagine.” That’s Takealot’s tagline and it’s certainly apt. I’m a frequent shopper and love not just the convenience but the huge choice of goods on offer. And I’ve had great service. A few items have arrived broken but both defective and change-of-heart returns have been handled faultlessly.

Then again, I haven’t tested their response with a less run-of-the-mill return. That can’t be said for the Scholles of Somerset West. Husband Azel bought a Hewlett Packard laptop on the platform in November 2019, paying R14,400. Last month, without warning, while working on it, a message appeared on the screen stating the laptop had been stolen from the department of agriculture.

When he checked with the person whose name and number appeared in the notice that was indeed the case.

About that Takealot tagline — few would imagine they’d be shopping for stolen goods. An IT specialist told Scholle the laptop could only be unlocked if permission was given by a specific person at that government department. I think I would have got quite agitated at that point.

“What liability does Takealot carry in this regard?” Stephanie Scholle asked me. The computer was sold on Takealot’s platform via a third party, an e-commerce provider based in Johannesburg, and clearly the e-tailer has a duty to vet its suppliers before exposing its customers to them.

As Scholle said in an email to Takealot: “Apart from the huge inconvenience and disruption, it is deeply disturbing to have been sold stolen property and it raises many questions about Takealot’s vetting process of its suppliers.”

Takealot initially responded by saying her complaint would be escalated to its “seller compliance team” and later she was told to return the laptop for a refund. The seller's account had been suspended pending an investigation.

Then things took a bad turn. Takealot reversed its decision, saying there would be no refund. In an email the couple was told: “Please be advised the return was declined due to tampering, as the unit shows signs of being opened.”

A furious Stephanie shot back: “This is a bit disingenuous. The memory of the computer was upgraded — HP allows this — and before my husband returned the unit he removed the upgraded memory and replaced it with the original one as that was his work computer.”

Did the technician do a thorough investigation or did he simply look at the computer and reject it on those grounds? And then she stated the obvious, which eluded Takealot’s assessors.

“The main problem with the laptop is that it is a stolen unit that was sold to us as new via the Takealot platform nearly three years ago. The laptop is upgradeable — that is not tampering.”

I had yet to hear from Takelot a week later when the laptop was collected from the Scholles by the e-tailer. Two days later I received my response.

“Takealot has been in touch with Stephanie Scholle and has offered her a full refund. We have agreed with her that the refund would be for the laptop, she will remove the upgrade components. We are in the process of facilitating the collection of the laptop and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience caused to her. Despite our seller onboarding process, the contractual undertakings we have in place, and our compliance protocols, the marketplace seller was found guilty of selling stolen goods.

“They were suspended from trading on our platform in August 2022 after a full investigation. Takealot remains committed to offering our customers the best and safest online shopping experience.”

And yet when the Scholles alerted the company in October — two months after the suspension — that they had just discovered the laptop bought from that supplier via Takealot three years earlier was stolen, they were refused recourse because of a perfectly legitimate upgrade.

Despite that they were not only sold used goods but stolen goods, and despite that the laptop, three years on, had been remotely disabled by the organisation it had been stolen from, rendering it useless.

Eish, the mind boggles. This couple really shouldn’t have needed my help to get justice.

• GET IN TOUCH: You can contact Wendy Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via e-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter: @wendyknowler.

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