Woolworths customer says its Olive AI assistant cancelled a $70 refund request when asked for the request's status; the company says a fault was fixed
Yahoo News Australia reported on 20 July 2026 that a customer in New South Wales who orders Woolworths grocery deliveries about twice a week requested a refund manually for about $70 of products missing from a recent order, and the next day asked the company's AI assistant Olive for the status of the request. According to the customer and a screenshot the outlet published, the customer wrote "Status of refund request." and the assistant replied "Alright, I've cancelled your refund request." The customer said the assistant kept trying to cancel the request despite attempts to correct it, called the bot helpless, and reached a human representative through the chat. The customer received the refund. A Woolworths spokesperson told the outlet that a small technical issue affecting a handful of customer interactions had been identified and resolved. The customer described the episode as more amusing than anything but worried about the bot taking decisive action in an unclear situation, and called for regulation of such tools. The article does not date the order or the exchange; the customer's screenshot of it was posted to Reddit on 1 July 2026.
- AI system
- Woolworths Olive
- Occurred
- Event date unknown
- Reported
- 20 July 2026
- Event location
- Unknown
- What the AI did
- Communicated with the person · Acted on the person’s behalf
- Reported harm
- Other Material Harm
- Whose AI use
- An institution’s AI use
- Setting
- Finance · Everyday life
- Evidence
- AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
- 4 claims: 4 reported. 3 open questions
- People reported harmed
- 1 person
AI system as recorded: Olive, the AI assistant in Woolworths' online grocery service, handling refund requests through chat
What Happened
The request. The customer told Yahoo News Australia that about $70 of products were missing from a recent delivery and that a refund had to be requested manually, whereas earlier refunds of $5 to $10 the assistant had performed straight away.
The exchange. The next day the customer messaged Olive to check that the refund was being processed. In a screenshot the outlet published, the customer wrote "Status of refund request." and the assistant replied "Alright, I've cancelled your refund request." The customer said the assistant kept trying to cancel the request although the question was clear and direct, and that the bot was helpless when the customer tried to correct it.
The resolution. The customer was connected to a human representative through the chat and received the refund. A Woolworths spokesperson said a small technical issue affecting a handful of customer interactions had been identified and resolved.
The customer's view. The customer found the episode more amusing than anything, but was concerned about the bot taking decisive action in an unclear situation and asked what would happen if it withdrew money. The customer called for more regulation and for humans to review the actions of such tools.
Limits. One outlet, based on the customer's interview and screenshot and a company statement. The article does not date the order or the exchange, and it does not say whether the cancellation took effect in the company's systems before the human representative intervened.
Reported harm
The customer says the assistant cancelled a $70 refund request when asked for its status and could not be corrected, so the customer had to reach a human to restore it; Woolworths says a technical issue was fixed (customer's account and screenshot via Yahoo News Australia).
Outcome
ResolvedThe customer reached a human representative through the chat and received the refund; the representative said the feedback would be relayed to management. A Woolworths spokesperson said a small technical issue affecting a handful of customer interactions had been identified and resolved, and the outlet understood a refund had been processed.
What remains unknown
- When the order and the exchange happened; the article of 20 July 2026 calls the order recent, and the customer's screenshot of the exchange was posted to Reddit on 1 July 2026.
- Whether the cancellation took effect in Woolworths' systems before the human representative intervened.
- Whether the technical issue the spokesperson described is the one behind this exchange.
What the evidence supports
AI involvement: reported. The published screenshot shows the assistant's own reply to the customer's question about the status of a refund request: "Alright, I've cancelled your refund request." The customer says the assistant kept trying to cancel the request, and the account connects that output to a refund the customer had to restore through a human representative. Woolworths describes Olive as an AI assistant and says a technical issue affecting a handful of interactions was fixed; it does not describe this exchange.
4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean
Reported The customer told Yahoo News Australia that about $70 of products were missing from a recent Woolworths delivery and that a refund had to be requested manually, and that the next day the customer asked the AI assistant Olive for the status of the request.
Causal attribution. Attributed to the customer's interview.
- au.news.yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'$70 worth of products were missing from a recent order'; 'had to request a refund manually'; 'because I wanted to make sure [the refund] was getting processed.'
Reported In a screenshot the outlet published, the customer wrote "Status of refund request." and the assistant replied "Alright, I've cancelled your refund request."; the customer said the assistant kept trying to cancel the request and could not be corrected.
Causal attribution. The screenshot is the customer's, published by the outlet; the assistant's reply is the AI output at issue.
- au.news.yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'Status of refund request.'; 'But the Woolworths assistant replied: "Alright, I've cancelled your refund request."'; 'it kept trying to cancel my refund request'; 'the bot was helpless'
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'Cutting edge conversational AI at Woolworths' (post title, 1 July 2026); screenshot: 'Status of refund request.'; 'Alright, I’ve cancelled your refund request.'; 'No, do not cancel my refund request.'
Reported The customer reached a human representative through the chat and received the refund.
Causal attribution. Customer's account, with the outlet's understanding that the refund was processed.
- au.news.yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'eventually connected to a human representative through the chat function.'; 'Yahoo News understands that a refund has been processed'
Reported A Woolworths spokesperson told the outlet that a small technical issue affecting a handful of customer interactions had been identified and resolved.
Causal attribution. The company's statement; it does not describe this exchange specifically.
- au.news.yahoo.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
'A Woolworths spokesperson told Yahoo News that a problem with the AI chatbot was identified and fixed.'; '"A small technical issue impacting a handful of customer interactions was recently identified and resolved."'
Sources
2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.
- Yahoo News Australia, Woolworths' messages to shopper highlight worrying trend, 20 July 2026(opens in new tab)
s1 · au.news.yahoo.com · News report · English · Inspected · 20 July 2026 · Shares an underlying account with another listed source · Primary
- Reddit r/woolworths post, Cutting edge conversational AI at Woolworths, 1 July 2026(opens in new tab)
s2 · reddit.com · First person account · English · Inspected · Shares an underlying account with another listed source
How the sources were read, and where the events happened
Read in English on 2026-10-13 from the publisher page (HTTP 200). No translation was needed; the research agent (an AI) read the text directly. The article rests on the customer's interview, a screenshot of the exchange and a Woolworths spokesperson's statement. The customer is identified there by first name only; the name is not used here. The article's image credit names a Reddit account, which is not recorded. Applies to s1.
Read in English on 2026-10-13 by the second researcher (an AI) through a Reddit archive record of the post (created 1 July 2026, 04:58 UTC) and the attached screenshot image; no translation was needed. The post is the customer's own screenshot of the exchange, which Yahoo News Australia credits and publishes, so it shares the article's origin and does not independently corroborate it. The account handle is not recorded. Applies to s2.
Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Australia. Court countries: Unknown.
The article calls the customer a New South Wales resident, which places the affected person in Australia; the chat was online and no event country is inferred from residence.
Reviewed for publication 2026-10-13: Published as a concrete account of a retailer's AI assistant that cancelled a customer's refund request when asked for its status, forcing the customer to reach a human to restore it, with a screenshot of the reply and a company statement acknowledging a fault. The customer's account is attributed; the company statement is general.
People described
A Woolworths grocery-delivery customer in New South Wales whose manual refund request the assistant cancelled
People reported harmed in this case
1 person
1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed
One person: the customer whose refund request, by the customer's account and screenshot, the assistant cancelled. Exact 1. The company's reference to a handful of affected interactions is not a count of harmed people and is not added.
Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.
Cite this case
Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.
APA
NOPE. (2026). Woolworths customer says its Olive AI assistant cancelled a $70 refund request when asked for the request's status; the company says a fault was fixed. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-woolworths-olive-chatbot-cancelled-customer-refund-request-when-asked-for-status
BibTeX
@misc{2026_woolworths_olive_chatbot_cancelled_customer_refund_request_when_asked_for_status,
title = {Woolworths customer says its Olive AI assistant cancelled a \$70 refund request when asked for the request's status; the company says a fault was fixed},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-woolworths-olive-chatbot-cancelled-customer-refund-request-when-asked-for-status}
} Related cases
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