I realise that I haven’t blogged for a few days and have probably left you in suspense over Tescogate. I have forgotten where we left off. I told you I was sent out of date cheese. I was promised by Tesco, that a store manager would ring me to explain what has been going wrong. Despite not letting my mobile phone leave my sight all day, no telephone call was received. Great customer service! I contacted Tesco, who offered apologies in abundance (again). I was offered another telephone call, but at this point, I had reached the end of my patience and asked for a letter to be sent. Two days later, I found a letter on our doormat. It was from a Tesco ‘dotcom manager’. There was yet more apologies, although to their credit, a promise of what will be done in the future, to avoid repeat errors. Apparently, they have employed a ‘Customer Service and Loyalty Assistant’, who will personally check all our shopping. That is great if it works, and I am more than happy to give them the benefit of the doubt. Enclosed in the letter was a “gesture of goodwill”, in the form of a gift card. There was nothing to tell me how much had been placed onto the gift card, but when I tried to use it on the latest online shop, I was told the card was invalid. I will take the card with me next time I go to an actual Tesco shop, but at the moment, this gesture of goodwill is just an empty gift card. Wow. Thanks.
As anyone who is afraid of spiders will know, this is the time of year when they all come into our homes to mate with each other and kill us all. With this in mind, I am always on my guard while at home. One evening last week, we ate tomatoes for our evening meal. Not just tomatoes – that would be stupid – there was other stuff like cheese, bread… that’s not the point. Anyway, while tidying up after eating, I was taking the leftovers to the bin, when I looked down on my hand to see a large, black spider. I screamed like a big girl and threw all the rubbish on the floor. Claire came running out of the kitchen, before bursting into a fit of laughter, to an extent where she ended up with tears rolling down her face. My wife isn’t a cruel person, which makes the fact she was laughing at my distressing spider encounter strange. Claire was laughing at me, because it wasn’t a spider on my hand at all. It was, in fact, a tomato stork. In my defence, it was very dark green, large and had lots of spider-leg type bits sticking out of it. Plus most of the lights were turned off. It did look like a spider at the time! while Claire took time to compose herself; I picked up all the rubbish I had thrown onto the floor, in my fright; before putting it in the bin.
Tesco have messed up again. Let’s give them credit though, they went an entire three weeks without messing up. Today’s instance was a classic – delivering out of date food. We ordered two packets of mozzarella cheese, as have been planning a Mediterranean style meal this evening. When unpacking our shop, my wife discovered that not one, but two packets of the cheese were out of date by an entire four days. It’s a good thing we checked, as I wouldn’t want to risk eating a rich, soft cheese that far past it ‘use by’ date.
We did the usual routine – Claire rang Tesco, while I tweeted. They apologised profusely, which is pretty standard. As I’ve previously said, I refuse to blame the customer service team. I asked for compensation or a letter of apology. I was offered the letter. Perhaps had we eaten the cheese and developed a nasty strain of food poisoning, we may have been able to claim some form of financial payment, from one of those ‘no win, no fee’ lawyers. I will reluctantly accept the letter, under the condition it is from the manager of the store where our order comes from and not the poor people who keep apologising to me for someone else’s negligence.
I am getting a bit fed up. Not with blogging – although my recent lack of blogs would suggest otherwise. No, my recent discontent is with Tesco – mainly their online delivery service.
We buy our groceries online every week, as going to the supermarket on a regular basis is not an option. One of the reasons for this is Claire’s shifts don’t always allow us to go shopping when we would like. The other reason is that the main supermarkets near to where we live are in Bristol. It is always a risk going shopping in a superstore, as our fellow customers are a liability. I try to forget the number of times I have nearly been mowed down by a trolley, being pushed by someone who is more interested in a special offer on Laughing Cow Cheese, than controlling their basket-on-wheels.
We’ve all heard the horror stories of doing an online shop too, and laughed at the jokes about a lemon being substituted for citrus washing up liquid. I get it. Mistakes happen. Products go out of stock. What annoys me is when there is an issue almost every week with our online shop.
It isn’t even the substitutions – Tesco can’t help that. It is when they think they have delivered a product and charged us for it, but when coming to unpacking our groceries, we find the said item missing. Then there are the ‘use by dates’. Tesco kindly warn us on their invoice if a product has a short shelf life. A nice feature. Except it would be, if it was accurate. There have been a number of times where we have been warned that a sandwich (for example) is out of date on Thursday, although on closer inspection, discovering that it has to be eaten by Monday.
Every time there is an issue, we ring, email or Tweet Tesco. Every time we do this, we get the usual response. “We’re sorry”. Followed by. “We will advise the store manager”. Before issuing a refund on the missing or unsatisfactory item. The apology would be fair enough in most circumstances – as I have already said, mistakes happen – but it keeps occuring, so much so that “sorry” doesn’t really matter anymore. In fact, the people making the apology are the poor customer service staff, who, to their credit are always excellent, polite and helpful.
I don’t want an apology. I don’t want to be contacted about the issue, and I don’t want my product refunded. I want this to stop happening. Therefore, to highlight how much this does occur, I will be blogging about it, each time Tesco cock up. Hopefully, this will be the first and last blog on the topic.
By the way – the latest missing item which triggered this rant was fresh country ham. It was supposed to be delivered yesterday. We paid for piggy, but no piggy was to be found. I now have nothing to put in my cheese topped rolls.
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
