Rare IC Support W

Selecting “positive experience” feels a little wrong because it was actually one of the more stressful experiences of my life, but alls well that ends well, I suppose.

Yesterday I was on my way home when I decided to take a good looking $44 pay 2 shop from a discount grocery store that I don’t frequent. I managed to find all the items ok, it was only like 18 items total. The problem occurred at checkout. The cashier was extremely brusque and moving quickly, and started checking out the person behind me before I was even halfway through bagging, so I was rushing to get out of the way.

It couldn’t have been more than 15 seconds that my phone was sitting next to the payment terminal while I was bagging *inches away*, but when I went to grab my phone to upload receipts, it was gone, and so was the customer that had been behind me.

Yup, she took my phone. I was flabbergasted. Like I was *right there*, who is bold enough to steal a phone from underneath someone’s elbow?! But that’s what happened.

I really had no idea what to do, and was pretty panicked which wasn’t helping me think clearly. In the end I reported it to the store manager, and then attempted to return the groceries. Shitty discount grocer being what it is would not accept a return, even though I used and was holding my physical IC debit card. At this point my main anxiety was about getting deactivated for not completing the batch after paying. I had little choice but to load the purchase into my trunk and go home.

I couldn’t call support from my partner’s phone, since they only accept calls from numbers on active batches, so I installed the shopper app on my iPad (which I had to charge first, because I never use it), pulled up the batch, and went to chat support. The first support person sucked, they closed the chat with no resolution at all, so I tried again.

I hope Deepak’s pillow is always cool on both sides; he was the best. He promised he would not close the chat and was there to help. He understood the problem as I explained it to him and cancelled the batch. He also *paid me* the full $31 batch pay, which I was not expecting in the slightest, told me it was fine to keep the groceries, and assured me I would not be deactivated.

True to his word, when I finally recovered my phone, I saw I had in fact been paid, and while my cancellation rate took a tiny hit, I didn’t receive a soft ban, either.

As for my phone, the woman who grabbed it did so thoughtlessly believing it was hers. Like I said, the cashier was rushing the fuck out of everyone. I wasn’t the only one flustered by it. About an hour after I got home it pinged on Find My, I went to the location, called my phone, and the woman who took it came out of her work (nurse at a med center) and gave it back to me. We were both relieved, she was actually very kind and I’m certain did not take it on purpose. I was very lucky.

But also I am deeply impressed at the very human way support *actually supported me* yesterday. It’s not all bad all the time.