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Hi everyone, I have just joined this forum, looking for some advice.
In September I went to fill up my car at a local supermarket petrol station, I pulled up to the pump but no fuel would be dispensed - there was an announcement over the tannoy asking me to come into the kiosk - I was called up to the tills and the staff member stated that I had driven off without paying on a previous occasion and therefore they were refusing to authorise the pump. This was of course fairly embarassing and the staff member made no effort to be quiet or discreet, at least a dozen people in the queue would have heard what he said.
They gave me an email address to contact to find out what happened, it took a couple of weeks to get a response and they told me I had driven off without paying in March and gave some spiel about how they had just changed over to a new system and thats why I was able to buy fuel in their other branches, I took another vehicle to the same fuel station afterwards and had no issue buying fuel - it was clearly linked to the car and not me, so they hadn't obtained info on other vehicles i own from the DVLA.
I provided a bank statement and receipt to prove that I had infact paid for the fuel in March and they then removed the registration from their system, inbetween the accusaiton & the email conversation I made an effort to contact multiple stores I had visited to try and find out who had recorded my registation as a "drive off".
I then spoke to the corporate team and made a complaint, the gist of the conversation was "we'll probably look into it, sorry you feel this way, we'll give you a £20 voucher and might send you a letter telling you how sorry we are that you feel this way". I refuted and put in a SAR for the CCTV footage of the interaction with the staff member and whether the police had been informed of what happened. They finally admitted that they had made an error and I argued that had I paid cash & not obtained a receipt, I could have found myself in some serious legal trouble. I have the CCTV footage and all the emails as well as recorded phone calls with customer service & the corporate team.
I then asked for some more appropriate compensation (I didn't state a figure) and an apology from either the staff member or the store manager, they tripled their offer to a £60 voucher but no apology.
My question is - is this a reasonable response from the supermarket? I feel that I'm being fobbed off and I view it as a false accusation of theft, not a staff mix up. This has caused me a lot of stress & anxiety as well as being a huge time sink getting to this point, they stated that they won't offer me anything further (I haven't accepted or declined their offer yet).
What's the best course of action? Should I just take the voucher? Am I blowing it all out of proportion or do i have a legal case? Can I sue / would it be worth it?
Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I will take onboard any advice I am offered.
In September I went to fill up my car at a local supermarket petrol station, I pulled up to the pump but no fuel would be dispensed - there was an announcement over the tannoy asking me to come into the kiosk - I was called up to the tills and the staff member stated that I had driven off without paying on a previous occasion and therefore they were refusing to authorise the pump. This was of course fairly embarassing and the staff member made no effort to be quiet or discreet, at least a dozen people in the queue would have heard what he said.
They gave me an email address to contact to find out what happened, it took a couple of weeks to get a response and they told me I had driven off without paying in March and gave some spiel about how they had just changed over to a new system and thats why I was able to buy fuel in their other branches, I took another vehicle to the same fuel station afterwards and had no issue buying fuel - it was clearly linked to the car and not me, so they hadn't obtained info on other vehicles i own from the DVLA.
I provided a bank statement and receipt to prove that I had infact paid for the fuel in March and they then removed the registration from their system, inbetween the accusaiton & the email conversation I made an effort to contact multiple stores I had visited to try and find out who had recorded my registation as a "drive off".
I then spoke to the corporate team and made a complaint, the gist of the conversation was "we'll probably look into it, sorry you feel this way, we'll give you a £20 voucher and might send you a letter telling you how sorry we are that you feel this way". I refuted and put in a SAR for the CCTV footage of the interaction with the staff member and whether the police had been informed of what happened. They finally admitted that they had made an error and I argued that had I paid cash & not obtained a receipt, I could have found myself in some serious legal trouble. I have the CCTV footage and all the emails as well as recorded phone calls with customer service & the corporate team.
I then asked for some more appropriate compensation (I didn't state a figure) and an apology from either the staff member or the store manager, they tripled their offer to a £60 voucher but no apology.
My question is - is this a reasonable response from the supermarket? I feel that I'm being fobbed off and I view it as a false accusation of theft, not a staff mix up. This has caused me a lot of stress & anxiety as well as being a huge time sink getting to this point, they stated that they won't offer me anything further (I haven't accepted or declined their offer yet).
What's the best course of action? Should I just take the voucher? Am I blowing it all out of proportion or do i have a legal case? Can I sue / would it be worth it?
Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I will take onboard any advice I am offered.
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