What's the strangest "substitute" item you've been offered on your home delivery?

Ben84

Mostly I've found the staff and service for my home delivery really good, but I did have a strange encounter in the supermarket the other day that might explain some of the weird subs.

I asked the man in the dairy section if they had any butter as the shelf was totally empty. I was guessing it hadn't be refilled yet and they were not really out of butter of every single type. He looked at me very strangely and said they had lots of butter while showing it to me. I explained that margarine wasn't butter, I wanted the block butter that's wrapped in paper. He suddenly seemed to understand and handed me a packet. I thanked him for the lard and returned it to the shelf when he wasn't looking.

Sometimes people are clueless about seemingly simple things. I really wouldn't have believed there was anyone out there who couldn't tell the difference between lard, butter and margarine. And least of all that it was someone who works in a supermarket!

madmalteaser

sillylittlejill wrote: »

I suddenly really want to do an online order just to see what I get!! Although OH's dad is a tesco delivery dude and he said no-one would ever bring the shopping up to our flat as we are on top floor and no lift.

great thread though!!

xxxx

I live in a top floor flat, no lift and no one has ever refused to bring my delivery right upstairs. Actually, I always make my order without bags so I know they'll definitely bring it to my front door. The last guy who came actually helped me unpack!

1ipstick

I do loads of online shopping and have never really had a problem with substitutions, although once I did get some frozen chicken steaks instead of frozen chicken pizzas...
My mate was desperate for a crab or lobster to sketch for his art classes - he saw that Sainsburys online had a whole crab so ordered that (no-where else in town to try!) - when it came, guess what - it was substituted with a tin of crabmeat

robbies_gal

great thread love some of them subs

once my friend ordered macoroni cheese and got macaroni jelly or something-i just dont understand even if the computer came up with the sub- wouldnt an intelligent person say that doesnt make sense and go and find something similar?

LouBlue

Wanted orange juice but got orange Jif bathroom cleaner.

competitionscafe

Not a strange substitute but Waitrose have a policy that if the substitute is more expensive than the original item that you ordered, they charge you the price of the original item. So today I ordered 2X 1 litre cartons of milk - they didn't have any 1 litres so gave me one 2 litre carton instead but only charged me the 1 litre price. Half price milk.

Kay_Peel

From Sainsbury's.

Instead of a packet of Costa Rican ground coffee for the cafetiere I got a small jar of Nescafe Instant granules. And instead of Cat Litter, I got a huge bag of Cat biscuits.

niteowl_2

Around one Christmas time, we ordered a new flavour of "stilton Sausages" BOGOF. Tesco delivered one packet and the sub for the other was a "bottle of Port and a piece of stilton cheese" promotional box. :beer:

We phone up tesco when we realised the mistake. Since their driver was in a hurry, he forgot to mention it. We had a laugh and the operator said I could keep the item for free as it was a)their mistake b) they're not allowed to resell it so it would only have to be binned. They also didn't charge for the other packet of sausage.

Mind you most of the subs we get are often much more expensive than our original, so this made a nice change.

There was another time we ordered 6 bananas and got six kilos, needless to say they went back with the driver.

Niteowl

[Deleted User]

I ordered a large pack of Prawn Crackers in my Tesco online order yesterday and they substituted a large size pack of fresh broccoli .

The delivery driver was in hysterics when going through the order sheet with me. I said I'd accept it anyway as I'd forgotten to order any greens but she said she'd refund the money and I could still keep it anyway:j

She drove off still chuckling about the bizarreness of it!

mumoftwins

One Christmas I ordered a turkey crown from Sainsbury's online - they delivered 4 packs of those little turkey roasts in tin foil :eek: and this was supposed to be for our Christmas lunch :mad::mad:.

Went straight to the store and found loads of turkey crowns! Just had to queue for ages to buy it.