In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,

I used to have a similar problem in Maplin trying to buy cable.
Once the staff had nicked more than about a 1/4 drum of cable,
it got into a deadly embrace with the computer not seeing any
more sales so it didn't reorder, but the store having no more
cable to sell, and the staff apparently unable to do anything
about it.


A couple of years ago, helping a friend change the brake pads on his
ford focus we discovered the discs were minimum thinkness. Sat pm, nipped
into Halfords on the off chance. Yep, they had one...

"But you need to replace them in pairs"
"Yes. But we only have one and we can't order more until it's sold"
"That's useless. Why do you only have one in stock?"
"We don't sell many - so we only get individual ones sent to us"

....

We did the job the next weekend instead

Darren