Morrisons petrol station sucks!!

trinidadone

On 25th September 2007 after looking up the cheapest petrol station in the area, I drove to my local Morrisons petrol station. I qued for petrol for some 15 minutes. I filled an entire tank costing £41.68. I qued at the till and presented my 12 month interest free credit card. I was told "sorry sir our machine is not working, can you use the cash machine in the shop and return with the cash." I explained it was a credit card, and withdrawing money would place a cost of my account, as well as daily interest.

After talking to her line manager who was on the other end of the phone sorting out the card machine, I was presented with a reciept which stated that i should return to the branch within 24 hours to make payment oe my details would be supplied to the police. I had to give my reg number, address and name.


five hours later i drove back to the petrol station, and again presented my card and explained to the now different cashier, what had happoned. I was now asked to sign for my card. I told the cashier i had used my time and petrol to return back, could i be compensated. I was told there was now no manager on duty, but advised to take it up with the store.

I went to customer service, explained what had happoned and requested to speak to the store manager. A supervisor arrived, said the store manager was busy. I explained again and asked if the store could compensate me. He refused, and said card payments were only one offer of payment. I explained i did not have £40.00 in cash. I also said the petrol station should of provided a poster about the problem. the supervisor said the company would not do that, because it was a temp problem.

I explained, if posters were placed at each pump, customers could then be informed of the problem, rather than being presented with this problem at the till. If i had been given this information before hand, i could of decided weather i wanted to fill up with petrol or not.

we went back and fourth a few times, i even used the example of "cash only" tills. Still he did not budge, and started walking away.

I still feel cheated somehow. I did say i wanted the contact details to write in, and was presented the address of the store. In my opinon, i have already presented this problem to the store, should i contact head office, or leave it?????

taxiphil

I once had the same problem with Tesco.

You are entirely in the right over this, in my opinion. They were displaying credit card symbols in the garage, so you rightly took this to mean they would accept your credit card. They had ample opportunity to inform you, before you filled up, that they would only accept payment in cash. But they failed to inform you of this.

There is no obligation upon you to have a secondary means of payment as back-up if their system fails.

Their demands that you must return to the garage within 24 hours are just scaremongering nonsense. Since the situation is entirely their fault, you should be allowed to make payment in a way that doesn't cause you any further losses (e.g. sending them a cheque in the post, remembering to deduct the cost of the postage stamp from the total amount you pay them).

Expecting you to drive back at a later stage, at your expense, is unreasonable and they should have paid your travel costs.

They are talking absolute rubbish by mentioning police involvement. The police would only be interested if you drove off without having any intention of paying. As you clearly did have an intention to pay, and were only prevented from doing so because of a fault with their system, it's a civil matter, and nothing to do with the police whatsoever.

fatnbald

I agree with the sentiments of the original poster about his inconvenience for the Supermarkets problem. What would happen if he was not a local and was just passing through on a long journey, how would the issue have been resolved then when there is no chance of just calling back in?

Most credit card merchants have the old mechanical roll over machines and carbon payment slips as a back up still, I wonder why Morrisons were not able to do a manual transaction in this instance?

trinidadone

hey, thanks for the responses, now do you think i should complain in writing, or cut my losses?

trinidadone

Lee_Dunford wrote: »

hey, thanks for the responses, now do you think i should complain in writing, or cut my losses?

I have now written to Morisons, lets see what the company comes up with

trinidadone

I received not communication from Morrisons, so decided to resend the letter again.

Mr_Bear_2

I disagree

if there system didnt work a request for cash was perfectly resaonable

the 24 hrs thing is what they use when people turn up to tills and find they have forgotten their wallet (it happned to me once!)

I just went and got the cash - annoying I know but nothing else to do

It doesnt sound as if their customer service was up to much and they should have displayed the prob on pumps etc,

however if you had a meal and the resteraunt said sorry sir no cards

you just couldnt say not my prob could you? You would have to pay cash - same here really!!!

trinidadone

I dis agree with some of your points Mr Bear. The crucial point you are missing is, there was no information displayed by the company regarding the problem. If there was clear signage stating "there is a technical problem with us processing cards" than I would of had the option to use there service or not. Because this information was not presented to be before filling up, I had to fit in with what ever system is in place. An example of this is at there many tills which clearly say "cash only". Can you imagine if every customer purchased there weekly shopping, spent time waiting at the till to be told "cash only". If systems change, regarding of fault, customers should be told prior.

trinidadone

I still have not received a response from Morrisons, dispite complaining on 8th November, nd again on 5th december, should I let this go, or do something else? the complaint was sent to head office.

what a rubbish complaint system they have

aytch

Lee_Dunford wrote: »

I still have not received a response from Morrisons, dispite complaining on 8th November, nd again on 5th december, should I let this go, or do something else? the complaint was sent to head office.

what a rubbish complaint system they have

Could you contact the citizens advice bureau for advice on how to proceed? Can you google the name of the MD and write directly to him?

Just some thoughts

good luck

SilverScooby

Might be worth sending a polite email of complaint to their chief executive [EMAIL="marc.bolland@morrisonsplc.co.uk"]mailto:marc.bolland@morrisonsplc.co.uk[/EMAIL] as this may well gett past the bureacracy to someone who will care about good customer service

A useful list of ceo emails is at http://www.connectotel.com/marcus/ceoemail.html