An angry customer charged at a bakery counter after being denied a refund for Easter eggs she forgot to pick up from a bakery. The owner of the Little Blonde Bakes shop, Jayne Harrison, was on the counter when the woman phoned to ask for her money back on Thursday.
Jayne, 60, said the customer was being "rude" and so she asked her to come in and speak face-to-face. The woman did so, but became angry and, when Jayne asked her to leave, she charged into the counter, knocking over a display and causing hundreds of pounds' worth of damage, with cakes having to be thrown out.
Jayne told the M.E.N: "It was awful. I just can't understand people that expect their money back because they don't remember to turn up.
"It's not my responsibility to remind people to turn up, we can't ring everybody to remind them. We would have to employ someone else to do that job and then everything would go up in price.
"I think if you order Easter eggs for your children, you don't forget that. It was just horrendous, it was horrible, and we have so many lovely customers - I've never come across something like this before."
Jayne said the customer had ordered six cheesecake-filled Easter eggs to collect on the Saturday of Easter weekend. However she didn't pick them up.
Jayne said the customer claimed she had tried to call the shop in Bury, Greater Manchester, later on Saturday, but it had closed after a busy day. The store then reopened on Tuesday.
Jayne said the customer did not contact the shop until Thursday, being 'rude' on the phone. Jayne said she told her she couldn't get a refund because the good had gone off and gone to waste.
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She said: "She said we had sold them on, but we hadn't. They were cheesecake-filled, they would be no good to anybody now, they've gone off. She asked to speak to the manager and I said 'I own the place, so you will come back my way'."
Having already warned she would end the call with the customer becoming more irate, Jayne put the phone down, only to get another call 10 minutes later. Jayne said: "She was saying 'I want my money back, I can't afford to lose £47, I had to to go to Slattery's to buy some more."
Jayne said the customer continued to be rude on the phone, so she told her she invited her to the shop to speak face-to-face. But Jayne said the discussions in store weren't productive either, as the customer was adamant the Easter eggs would still be fresh, even though they had cream cheese inside.
"I said she'd be poorly if she ate it," said Jayne. "She was just going on and on. She was saying we need to give her a voucher, we need to do this, we need to do that. I said 'please, I would just like you to leave my shop'."
The customer headed for the door, but instead of walking through it, she turned around and barged into the shop counter. Cakes and cookie dough flew onto the floor behind the till, while Jayne was left with a sore back after the counter was pushed in her direction.
Jayne, who launched the business with daughter Francesca at home in 2016 before opening their shop four years ago, added: "If she had come in with a nice attitude and just been genuine, I would have given her something. But with her horrible attitude, not letting me get a word in edgeways, it was just evil - so disrespectful."
The incident has been reported to Greater Manchester Police.
