The twelve days of Tesco (are not happy)

This blog has been swamped with complaints from many disgruntled customers over the 2009 festive period. While Tesco boast of increased profits through internet sales of toys, one family has been left waiting in twelve hours per day for twelve days and still hasn’t received Christmas presents for their cute little toddler, Andrew, aged 3, and his older brother Peter aged 8. The “12 days of Christmas” are famous as a time for receiving gifts. The “12 days of Tesco” is a sorry tale of 12 days of empty promises and bungling couriers. Tesco’s first attempt was to send Andrew a Snow White costume!

On the first day of Tesco, Friday 4^th December, Dorothy ordered a toy aeroplane, 4 police toys plus a Power Ranger suit for Andrew. She was told that she would need to be at home on the Monday from 7am until 7pm. 12 hours is a long time to wait, but Dorothy considered it worthwhile for the tremendous value that was on offer. Dorothy admits her house in south-west London isn’t easy to find, but gave clear directions for the delivery with the instruction for the driver to phone if needing help in finding the property. She repeated these instructions time and again in endless phone calls over the next 10 days, but no driver ever phoned to ask for help.

Hoping for delivery

On the second day of Tesco, the 12 hours ticked by slowly, but at 6.15pm Tesco were still confidently promising delivery within 45 minutes. Nothing arrived.

On the third day of Tesco, Tesco said that they had tried to deliver but needed more information (which had already been given) to find the house. Dorothy was promised a £10 discount. Ten days later, this had still not been credited to her account.Tesco couldn’t tell what had happened to the toys as their computer scanning system had failed as it couldn’t cope with the high volume of orders. At this stage Dorothy was put in touch with Eddie who was extremely helpful if trying to progress the order and gave Dorothy his direct number. Dorothy rang Eddie many times but realised eventually that she was running up a massive phone bill as, to contact Eddie, she had to ring a national-rate number at peak hours.

For the fourth day of Tesco, Dorothy was promised a 2 hour delivery slot and then later told that the couriers couldn’t offer a 2 hour slot to her address. She would have to wait in for 12 hours again. Still, it would be worth it to get those bargain toys.The hours passed and a delivery arrived. Dorothy’s blind neighbour was looking after the house at this stage. Of course, she couldn’t check the order. So when Dorothy returned, she found that there were no toys. There was no Power Ranger suit. Instead, Tesco had sent little Andrew a Snow White costume! Whilst not believing in gender-stereotyping, Dorothy didn’t think that this was what Andrew would want from Santa and thinks that his older brother Peter may make fun of him.

Goods lost

On the fifth day of Tesco, Tesco admitted that they had now lost the goods. They tried to get Dorothy to cancel the order. However, as the bargain prices were no longer available, Dorothy insisted on continuing with the order.

On the sixth day of Tesco, Tesco found the goods and promised to deliver. Nothing happened. The weekend came and went. Still no toys.

On the seventh day of Tesco, Tesco claimed to have tried to deliver on the Saturday evening, This time, they hadn’t asked the family to be at home, but they were in the house. No driver came to the door or phoned to ask for directions.

Sunday came and went – the eighth day of Tesco.

On the ninth day of Tesco, Dorothy tried a different approach. Instead of phoning, she e-mailed Tesco. This led to a flurry of phone calls with Tesco definitely promising immediate delivery. Dorothy was contacted by a Warehouse Supervisor called Angela. She had the Power Ranger suit and would put on a van. What about the toys? Angela seemed unaware of these, but eventually found them. She reassured Dorothy that everything was together in two packages. She’d personally put them on the van and given the driver instructions to phone to check where Dorothy lived.

Empty van

The hours passed and eventually the doorbell rang at tea-time. Everyone rushed to the door in excitement. Tesco had delivered. Of course they hadn’t. A delivery driver had indeed turned up at the door – without any toys. She had come to collect the Snow White costume!

Dorothy asked if the warehouse supervisor, Angela, had spoken to her, but the driver insisted that there was no one called Angela at the warehouse. Dorothy refused to hand the Snow White costume over before phoning Tesco to see what was happening. The delivery driver refused to wait.

Dorothy yet again phoned Tesco and was told that a second van was on its way. At 7.15pm, Tesco phoned saying that delivery was continuing until 9pm and the goods would definitely arrive by then. Of course, they didn’t.

Ultimatum

On the tenth day of Tesco, Dorothy’s husband David contacted Tesco’s Chief Executive, Sir Terry Leahy, demanding delivery at 7am the following morning. That day, a delivery driver came with a package. Once again, Tesco hadn’t asked the family to be at home at this time, but the family were at home.

The Power Ranger suit had finally arrived, but the driver still didn’t have the bulk of the order, £60 worth of toys. The driver also refused to take away the Snow White costume.

In the evening, Tesco phoned to say that they couldn’t meet the 7am deadline. In the Christmas spirit of generosity, Dorothy’s husband, David, agreed to give Tesco a further 24 hours to deliver.

On the eleventh day of Tesco, David again contacted Sir Terry demanding the delivery of the toys, an apology and compensation for the wasted hours, massive phone bills, stress and sleepless nights. There was an acknowledgement, but no toys, apology or compensation.

On the morning of the twelfth day of Tesco, David and Dorothy were hopeful that Sir Terry would respond to their ultimatum. It was now only one week to Christmas and Tesco had already wasted the previous fortnight of their time, not to mention the intense stress that they have suffered. Sir Terry’s company did precisely nothing. Andrew and Peter are really excited about Santa coming, but may be surprised that Tesco’s Santa thought that Andrew should have a Snow White costume and that, with one week to Christmas, neither have any toys from Tesco and very little hope of Tesco bothering to do anything about it other than possibly giving more than empty promises.

Dave Innes

TESCO COMPLAINT HAS BEEN INUNDATED WITH COMPLAINTS ABOUT TESCO'S SERVICE OVER CHRISTMAS. KEEP THEM COMING.

Tesco direct: Double stress points with your sofa

On 26/09/09 I ordered a sofa from Tesco direct for £398 on a buy one get one free basis. Tesco confirmed my order and I was told of a delivery date for the 30/09/09.

The delivery turned up on time, and this is where the nightmare begins. The sofas ordered were advertised as self assembly, as one was for a narrowboat this was ideal, as I was getting one free, I decided to donate it to a nursing home where my wife works. So, on the day of delivery, I dismantled the furniture from the narrowboat that we live on, and disposed of it. When the delivery arrived there were 2 sofas, one in brown NOT self assembly, so would not fit into our boat, the other was a three seater in cream!

I complained via phone to Tesco direct and they are giving me a refund. Not being a happy bunny, I went to my local Tesco store, which had re opened following refurbishment 2 weeks ago. They did not wish to know and said that they were not part of tesco direct, to which I pointed out that they were the same company, and it was in the Lichfield store that the catologue had been handed to me - still no joy, but I was told to drive to a direct store 15 miles away!

To say i am disgusted with their service is an understatement. I have informed them that I will never buy another item from them or their related company in my lifetime, I also informed them that I have every sympathy with the fellow that drove his Rolls Royce through one of their stores in sheer frustration.

I send this email, sitting on a deck chair in my boat. My wife is in tears, and I am fuming with anger.

What can be done to stop this company from treating customers in such a shoddy fashion? - I wish I owned a Rolls Royce because I know exactly what I would like to do right now!

Martin Lewis

Do you need a carrier bag? Er.. yes.

Dear Mr Leahy,

I write to you today as I'm rather concerned that after writing letters to your complaints address in Enfield I never seem to receive a reply? After a short search on the web I find this is not only common practice for Tesco, its actually rife!

I'm left with no option but to contact you directly, and also have started a blog on the web about it, with copies of all letters and e-mails due to be posted there!

The letters of complaint went as follows:

First letter, was asking, quite politely why the Tesco store in Broughton refuses to stock carrier bags? Severál times we've visited the store the do our shopping however there never seems to be any carrier bags. You're often confronted with a deadpan question of "do you want any bags" - well considering I've just spent £250 in your store of course I want carrier bags. If this had happened once, it wouldn't have riled me, however it happens time and time again! My response now is just to leave the shopping there and walk out of the store. I have asked staff time and time again why there aren't any carrier bags available, the response I've had on more than one occasion is: "The Welsh Assembly have made it illegal to give out new carrier bags" or "The Welsh assembly only let us give out so many bags per year" or "its more environmentally friendly" - The Welsh Assembly haven't yet put any restrictions on the provision of carrier bags, I practice as a solicitor in Wales and the last I knew the plan was still in consultation stage... Furthermore, you cannot argue on the basis of it being more environmentally friendly, if this were your real concern you'd be issuing sustainable, recylable paper bags, the same type they've been issuing in America for many years now!

The fact that your staff are willing to lie to a loyal customer is one thing, the fact that they feel you've got no right to ask for a carrier bag is one thing. After buying a basket full of shopping after work one evening, which totalled £46.51, and asking if I could have a carrier bag, the member of staff said "I haven't got any" after asking if she could ask for some more, or get some more she said "There's nothing I can do about it, I haven't got any" - so my response was to walk out of the store without the shopping and without having paid for it, hearing her grumble something under hear breath, which I shall not repeat!

Further to this, as stated before, your staff in the customer care address on your website simply do not reply to letters your customers have taken time to write and spent money to post, and same as I've said there are acres of coverage on the net, which makes this out to be quite common place!

Unless I receive a response, in a timely manner, I will stop shopping in Tesco stores. I've looked through my credit card statement from last year, and in total I spent: £12,272 in your stores. In a climate where your competitors are seeing their customer base increase whilst yours doesn't seem to be doing anything (hence giving away double club card points etc) it is of no surprise, perhaps their finding a better quality of service at places like: Sainsbury's; Waitrose; Morrison's and Asda.

I look forward to hearing from you, and this letter can be found on the internet.

Yours Sincerely,
Gareth Baines

Bumper Bargain? Bumper damage?

A few weeks ago a trolley collector at Tesco damaged my car with a line of trolleys, saw the damage (albeit minor) and continued on his way. I was in my car at the time; when I got out and called to him, he immediately replied that he'd "never touched it" (how did he know what I wanted then?) and then was very aggressive, shouting at me that it was my fault and coming to the conclusion that I had rolled into his line of trolleys (rolled sideways? after he had first denied any collision).

Luckily another witness had seen him check the side of my car for damage so I had back up. However when he went to get the manager who I assumed would be apologetic, he was just as rude, and refused to acknowledge that any damage had been caused.

Once we brought a trolley over to my car and demonstrated that the scratch had in fact been caused by the trolleys, he still did not apologise on behalf of the other employee, or Tesco, nor did his attitude towards me change. Throughout the conversation he was incredibly rude, and acted as if I had done something. I could go on! I then complained to Tesco about the attitude of these two men, not the damage to the vehicle itself (my car is old, and had the first man apologised, or acknowledged fault I would happily have accepted the 'bumper restore' I was finally offered after half an hour of questioning).

Their only response is that the manager did not record the incident, or has lost the incident form, so it is not in their database, so they cannot 'take my complaint further'. It is no surprise that the manager has 'lost' the vehicle incident form, given his attitude on the day, but I don't see why they need that form to uphold a complaint about the behaviour of 2 of the staff. What they have told me to do, with again no apology for losing the incident form, is go back and make another complaint in store. After the aggressive and hostile attitude of the two men in question, do they really think I am going to go back, and complain to their faces???

eleanor watson

Food waste piling up at stores?

I am writing to you to express my utter disgust at a food wastage policy that I discovered when shopping in a Tesco Express store in Ocean Village, Southampton.

I entered the store in the evening time and proceeded to go to the bakery section. Whilst there was a sizeable quantity of pastries etc left on the shelf, one of the members of staff was loading them into an already full dustbin size bag of pastries and I was informed that they were being thrown away. Whilst I was told that I could still buy the ones on the shelf at the full price (just before they'd been put in the bag), I was told that neither I nor the members of staff could take them for free and thus preventing the shocking food wastage that was occurring.

This slightly baffled me as I was told that even though the food was to be thrown away, the staff had been told explicitly by the store manager that any attempt to take the food home that was to be thrown away would be considered as theft and would result in the loss of their job. Adding to this puzzling and ridiculous practice was the fact that I was told that such food wastage was common in that store, to the extent that sometimes, due to space issues or delivery sizes, the food would be transferred directly from the delivery van to the rubbish bin without even seeing the shelf. Perfectly edible food. That has been transported in expensive, fuel-thirsty lorries halfway across the country.

In these times where fuel-economy and food shortages are key issues that need to be taken seriously by large corporations as they finally take up some vestige of global responsibility this (admittedly minor on the grand scale of things) practice, to me, revealed a worrying disregard for such matters and a deeply perturbing hypocrisy.

In Southampton alone, there are plenty of organisations and groups that would be more than happy to distribute (in an environment of quality control and food standards observance) the left over (or unused) food to the many disadvantaged people that populate the city.

Therefore I request that you heed this complaint and address this issue by re-examining such scandalous wastage policies and exploring the alternatives to throwing the food away.

Yours Sincerely,

Tom Price - Customer, Tesco Express Ocean Village Southampton
tomalprice@googlemail.com

Bagging a load of nonsense

As I am fully aware of the impending doom that humanity faces by using carrier bags to transport purchased goods from your stores, I am getting rather tired of fighting for a carrier bag every lunch time when I purchase at least 10 items or more for my department’s lunch. Most companies, as mine does, requires a ‘clean desk’ policy, which unfortunately includes stockpiling carrier bags like a tramp. So I am, unfortunately, required to obtain a plastic death bag from you on a regular basis (although, we do only use 1 bag for 3 peoples lunch!)

As much as I enjoy a daily lecture about global warming from someone as qualified as a checkout girl, I don’t particularly enjoy being told that that you ‘don’t have any bags’ when I can clearly see them in view. And I also don’t appreciate being looked at like I’m using said carrier bag for drowning puppies in when I DO insist on one. I personally do not own a pair of clown pants with giant pockets capable of holding 10+ items in them and simply carrying them in my arms isn’t an option as I was only blessed with two of them.

Might I suggest a series of training exercises for your staff in the skilled art of ‘the customer is always right’ or possibly screen your staff for fundamental environmentalists before hiring them? Or possibly offer me an alternative, environmentally sound paper bag? As now, after a year of constant battles I will go elsewhere for my lunch where checkout staff understand their jobs and simply serve me.


Yours sincerely ,


Jon Keddie