Great-gran is told you're Sure not welcome here
AN 84-YEAR-OLD great-grandmother has been banned from Sure’s High Street shop for what the company described as ‘abusive and threatening behaviour’.
Customer Jill Gillman said she was ordered out of the store after complaining about a faulty handset.
She had bought a Nokia mobile phone for £70 at the end of January, but took it back to the shop several times over the next couple of months due to problems with the battery and making and receiving calls.
‘I never had a problem with any staff before, but they kept telling me it was me and not the phone,’ she said.
‘I kept going back because of the problems and finally I asked for a replacement. The young lady I spoke to at first was very polite and went to get another member of staff.’
She then said a man, who she believed to be a manager, had approached her in an ‘aggressive’ fashion.
‘He held the phone up high and came striding over and demanded to see the packaging, which I didn’t have,’ she said.
‘He didn’t refer to me by name. He was very rude – that’s not the Guernsey way.’
‘I didn’t swear or raise my voice. He had what sounded like an American accent, and I said he obviously wasn’t from the island, because Guernsey people are polite.’
Mrs Gillman said at that point the Sure employee accused her of being racist and ordered her to leave the shop, threatening to call the police.
‘I was so embarrassed,’ she said. ‘It was Friday lunchtime and the whole street was staring.’
She received the letter barring her from Waterloo House, Sure’s High Street shop, a few days later. It warned that it would consider ‘police intervention’ if she attempted to enter the shop again to behave in an ‘abusive or threatening manner’.
Mrs Gillman said she spoke to the Guernsey Press because she was worried about the impact this sort of service might have on other elderly customers.
‘I don’t play on my age, but I don’t want other people to go through what I did,’ she said.
Mrs Gillman remains a Sure customer. She said she did not want to change phone provider due to the inconvenience it would cause her.
She said she has now bought a £50 phone from the internet and was having no trouble using it at all.
A Sure spokesman said the company would not comment on individual incidents relating to customers.
