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Last Saturday, I went to the Tesco store in Handforth and bought a number of items totalling £79.15, scanned my clubcard for the 79 points and completely forgot to use a ‘double points’ voucher which would’ve given me another 79 points, worth another 79p. Why did I forget? Because in the preceeding days I’d learned that a relative, suffering from cancer, had died. My head was all over the place. I thought an organisation making billions in profits each year would understand. I thought wrong.
I tried asking them if they would add the points and, as asked, gave them all the details about the transaction plus my clubcard number, my name and address and more, so there was no doubt that these were my transactions. I offered to scan in & email the voucher itself, so they could tell it hadn’t been used, but they declined. They simply said: “the terms and conditions of the coupons are that they must be presented at the time of the transactions”, adding a ‘sad face’ smiley to the tweet, at which point I pointed out exactly why I had a reason to be sad!
I’ve had one or two occurrences before when I’ve forgotten to use my Clubcard at the time of a transaction and I’ve scanned in my receipt, emailed it in and they’ve credited my account accordingly, so why not now? Whoever I’m dealing with at Tesco via Twitter – and they NEVER give you their name – is being the Jobsworth of the Century by inviting a complaint which will cost them far more to process than the mere 79 pence worth of points I am asking for. I even asked for the name of the person who made the decision to decline my request, so I could make a complaint about them, and they wouldn’t tell me! The nameless person just bleated about Terms and Conditions again and told me they can log my complaint via Twitter, adding a ‘smiley face'(!)
In addition, they simply added that I can still use the voucher before expiry date as it’s not for specific items, but (a) it expires before I plan to make any further purchases from Tesco – if at all, at this rate!, and (b) I had originally intended to use it at this particular point because I knew I would be spending a great deal of money in one of their stores, so I’m not about to buy the same items again! What a disgrace!
I have been a loyal customer of Tesco for many years – I can’t remember how many but I’m sure their tracking system can pinpoint it down to the second – but what message does this send when they can’t be bothered to lift a finger to help a customer when they simply forget to do something and provide a good reason for it happening?
Update: I eventually got this sorted out but only after writing this post and complaining!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.