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

Standards flushed down the pan at this store

On Tuesday 12th May I stopped off on my way to work in your Colney Hatch Lane store. It was around quarter to seven in the morning and I just wanted to grab some lunch for the day. As I have a 50 mile journey I thought I would quickly use the customer toilets.... I'm sorry to say I didn't!!

I went into the toilets and I have to say I was very shocked and disappointed with what I was confronted with. The three cubicles and hand washing area were all absolutely filthy to the point they couldn't be used. There was rubbish and toilet roll all over the place but worst of all there was excrement and blood all over the walls and toilet seats. I know the toilets cant be checked every minute of every day but to make matters worse, as I was going in through the female toilet door I passed a member of staff coming out..... (and she wasn't a cleaner!!)

As there were only two checkouts I waited at one and was going to mention it to a member of staff but then a third till was opened... By the time I had listened to the two cashiers shouting and arguing with each other across the four tills between distance them I was running late so I had to leave. They were arguing about the new till opener being too lazy to go to the warehouse to get their own carrier bags and leaving the first till with none. They were shouting to each other to shut up and stop moaning etc etc much to the embarrassment of all the customers.

Up to this point I have never had any reason to even think about complaining about any aspect of Tesco but I was truly shocked by this store..... it also made me think..... if the stores senior management are happy for the customer areas to be like this what must the staff only and food storage areas be like?

Cassandra Paton, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.