Customers' Ordeals Noted In The City

Unfair business practices need to be checked. Without bias.

The loyal customers bear the brunt of discourtesy.  Even when feeling the pinch of the economy daily.

As  customers grapple for the best business practices while waiting for courtesy to be served them by community-based businesses, some frontline personnel at times owners themselves, get away with their dubious practices by the day.

Well, let's make it sublime.  It may not necessarily be dubious.  Can be called bias actually. Or a raring to preserve their business by keenly watching in on their profits and underserving their clients instead.

A carinderia situated at a local LTO office manages to scrimp on a customers every penny by pressuring a customer to place more and more orders from her carinderia.  

The customer was just trying to exchange a Php 1000 bill needed to have her transaction done. 

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The frontline carinderia lady  verbally shames the customer by claiming they have a minimum for buying customers who want to have their money changed, because they have been working on the ground since wee hours in the morning.  Hence a simple buy of one mineral drink for a change to Php 1000.00 would not be acceptable.  The lady then proceeds with a litany of "ano pa po? Asking item every item and pushing the same customer to add more items.  Like a "verbal tirade" in front of another staff, that was all too willing to witness the seemingly benign shaming of the customer.

The customer was pressured to order more just to cut to the chase of the irate seller.  

Another day has passed, the carinderia staff again uses the same strategy to tell a customer to buy more.  

A customer also trying to have a split change for her Php500, because the LTO window tells not having enough change to accommodate the Php 100.00 payment for the transaction.

In another business outlet, this time from a pawnshop, a customer is told an item cannot be accepted.

To which the customer politely accepts, until she was told that the said item was actually authentic, by another reputable outlet.

The transaction need not materialize because as a customer, a person would already know after double checking on the authenticity, that it was a   a simple bias or unacceptability of the transaction that got negative acceptance. As the customer fell out of good ears and good grace of the staff probably, hence the good riddance treatment.

Another common business malpractice that can be observed in the vicinity is the reluctance of community-based businesses to issue receipts when prodded or asked for by customers.  

Seeing that their handwritten notes would not make sense in giving, especially to a customer who has been going around with much familiarity around town.

These practices need to be checked as the city is already swollen with bias and an attitude  that beams  discourtesy. 

At a time when plenty of customers do not want to shelve money and sustain the economy, the loyal customers are the ones who shoulder the burden of businesses that do not cater to the loyal or the paying, but only to the privileged, a circle of must know, and must serve when bias rules against neutrality of business service.

Disclaimer:  Photo accompanying this article is meant to illustrate an idea positioned by this writer, and not actually meant to portray the local currency in a negative light.  Photo is used for content curation as well.