Tesco Coupon policy Complaint thread

madmuppet5

Gotta say personally I blame Martin Lewis for this one. We was all going along swimmingly until his latest appearance on GMTV. Even with the Clowne store fiasco, T's were going to ride that one and take a hit. As it was stuck out in the open to glorify himself on the back other peoples' hard work albeit on his website, don't seem right to Mad.

aussiechick1975

Just a quick thought seeing as everyone seems rather agreeved at what Martin has done. What about setting up a seperate site that has nothing to do with him to exchange coupons etc so that if/when we are able to use coupons at Mr T's or another supermarket he can't then go on and say it was on his site or take any credit for it and hopefully not know about it??

I would offer to do something like that myself but am completely useless with anything like that :S

neas

And for anyone wanting to see the nail in the coffin.

http://www.gm.tv/videos/money/38881-money-man-martin-lewis.html

Some styrong emotions come to mind:

Betrayal,
Hate,
Disgust..

R4pture_2

I can confirm that Nottingham have also adopted this ban on coupons. I for one am fuming and totally gutted. as someone on benefits coupons were my lifeline. Martin has doen me a hug dis service. now its back to debt worry and going without food. i was only barely scraping by when i could use coupons.
I for one will be writing a letter to tesco head office and would be very happy if everyone joined me in writing to them. Surely if they recieve a letter off all of us saying we are leaving TESCOS due to their change in coupon policy we can get them to reinstate this. I used to run this thread as well as honey and now princess. I feel like the hard work has done nothing but shoot me in the foot. Martin Lewis has really got my goat. Question is what are we going to do about it?

R4pture_2

Can I also suggest we each email MArtin LEwis at [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL] to report him to himself for abuse. He needs to realise that he has screwed many of us over

Picasso7

Was shell-shocked last night. Away from the computer and Tesco for a few days and the world changed when I wasn't looking! I'm as gutted as everyone else (so apologies for not thanking people, was too stunned to think) especially as I've only been using the coupons for a short time, so it feels as if my new toy has been taken away from me.

BUT, is there any way we can fight back in a positive way? For example, why not write to Tesco, thanking them for the old national policy and saying how disappointed we are about the changes but that we understand their situatiion. (The MOC policy only worked because for every one we used there had to be a customer who bought the product without using a MOC.) And then maybe make some suggestions as to how the MOC policy might come back with safeguards -- the sort of thing various people on here have been suggesting? Please don't shoot me down, but the sort of things might be: MOCs without buying the product (courtesy MOCs) only for those using their clubcard, no safecoupons until they have been sorted so that you can't do multiple identical prints, only courtesy MOCs which scan quickly without having to use the handheld scanner or typing in the number, the computer programmed so that it automatically rejects duplicate coupons, preferably not just in that particular transaction but per day. (Surely, if the clubcard number is being clocked, the tills can be programmed to do this? And if the worst comes to the worst, maybe to settle for courtesy MOCs only to be used in one transaction per day?) They should also programme the tills so that they alert the duty manager if a large number of idential MOCs, say above 40p, are being used in the store so that they can be warned of raiders before it gets too bad. Other people more experienced in MOCs than me might have other ideas, but if they put those sort of things in place, we might still be able to use our courtesy MOCs without a 10% of spend limit which would seriously dent our spending. (I am not suggesting these things should apply to MOCs when you actually buy the product.)

What about it, people? I am sure OPs can improve on my suggestions, but my main point is that if we get cross and stamp our feet, Tesco is more likely to stand firm. But if we are nice and helpful and positive, making constructive suggestions as dismayed loyal customers, then they might eventually shift to something more positive? Oh, and perhaps Martin might try to negotiate with them for us, both along those sort of lines but also with a revised national Tesco courtesy MOCs policy which could be downloaded from this site so that the poor woman who writes back to us whenever we write to Sir Terry can go back to doing the job she was presumably paid to do before all of us started writing! In the meantime, all us moneysavers will do our shopping elsewhere and Tesco will notice the difference in their takings, I hope.

Please don't shoot me down. I want Tesco to go back to taking coupons and it just seems that an approach something this might work. What do other people think?

Smelly_Feet

Picasso7 wrote: »

Was shell-shocked last night. Away from the computer and Tesco for a few days and the world changed when I wasn't looking! I'm as gutted as everyone else (so apologies for not thanking people, was too stunned to think) especially as I've only been using the coupons for a short time, so it feels as if my new toy has been taken away from me.

BUT, is there any way we can fight back in a positive way? For example, why not write to Tesco, thanking them for the old national policy and saying how disappointed we are about the changes but that we understand their situatiion. (The MOC policy only worked because for every one we used there had to be a customer who bought the product without using a MOC.) And then maybe make some suggestions as to how the MOC policy might come back with safeguards -- the sort of thing various people on here have been suggesting? Please don't shoot me down, but the sort of things might be: MOCs without buying the product (courtesy MOCs) only for those using their clubcard, no safecoupons until they have been sorted so that you can't do multiple identical prints, only courtesy MOCs which scan quickly without having to use the handheld scanner or typing in the number, the computer programmed so that it automatically rejects duplicate coupons, preferably not just in that particular transaction but per day. (Surely, if the clubcard number is being clocked, the tills can be programmed to do this? And if the worst comes to the worst, maybe to settle for courtesy MOCs only to be used in one transaction per day?) They should also programme the tills so that they alert the duty manager if a large number of idential MOCs, say above 40p, are being used in the store so that they can be warned of raiders before it gets too bad. Other people more experienced in MOCs than me might have other ideas, but if they put those sort of things in place, we might still be able to use our courtesy MOCs without a 10% of spend limit which would seriously dent our spending. (I am not suggesting these things should apply to MOCs when you actually buy the product.)

What about it, people? I am sure OPs can improve on my suggestions, but my main point is that if we get cross and stamp our feet, Tesco is more likely to stand firm. But if we are nice and helpful and positive, making constructive suggestions as dismayed loyal customers, then they might eventually shift to something more positive? Oh, and perhaps Martin might try to negotiate with them for us, both along those sort of lines but also with a revised national Tesco courtesy MOCs policy which could be downloaded from this site so that the poor woman who writes back to us whenever we write to Sir Terry can go back to doing the job she was presumably paid to do before all of us started writing! In the meantime, all us moneysavers will do our shopping elsewhere and Tesco will notice the difference in their takings, I hope.

Please don't shoot me down. I want Tesco to go back to taking coupons and it just seems that an approach something this might work. What do other people think?

I wanted to 'snip' this but didn't know where to begin so left it all in. THIS IS A GREAT POST, i agree with you it would be more wise to be polite and say thank you to Mr.T for the last 14 or so years of having this coupon policy of not having to buy the item. Write also to the local store manager saying thank you and that we understand the problems, and that we hope it can be resolved in the very near future as it helped greatly to reduce the cost of our shopping. But unfortunatly it would not be cost affective to shop at their store now and will be using the local stores in future, until a new coupon policy is in place.
Please don't lets get angry with each other on here, we all want the same thing, a cheaper shop bill.
Keep up the good work guys finding coupons and freebies, as somebody will be able to use them. As a pensioner it will hit my purse very hard and just hope sense will prevail with Tesco very soon.:heartpuls

bulgariafairy

Welshwoofs wrote: »

You know, a lot of the bitterness and abusive comments about this site's owner in this thread does not make for attractive reading and imo is rather against the spirit of MSE.

I thought I'd point out a few things. Firstly, this site is massive and has no advertising. It is a fantastic resource, not just for people looking for discounts and freebies, but also for people desperately seeking advice about a whole range of things from house buying to benefits and beyond. But do people really expect to have their cake and eat it? You want this lovely free resource, undoubtedly the biggest site of its kind in the UK, and have the owner keep quiet about all the tips and tricks so that a select few alone can profit? Get real ;-)


Instead of biting the hand that's fed you by hurling abuse about the owner of the site you are using for free, how about just being thankful that for so long you were able to take advantage of a loophole that would clearly be closed at some point because the coupon policies of companies like Tescos were obviously at a cost to individual manufacturers.

If you are going to be angry, be angry at Tescos. It's Tescos who drive small manufacturers to the brink of bankruptcy (and over it in some cases) by demanding low buying prices in order for them to sell low and still maintain a good margin. It's Tescos who have killed off the high streets of many small towns where independent businesses simply couldn't compete and it's Tescos who are slowly whittling away the choice of the shopper.

....and before someone says it - no I am not jealous other people made a ton of coupon savings and I didn't. I prefer to support my local independent traders rather than a faceless and homogenised corporation...even if it means I pay more. You've all had a good run, but the gravy train has now left the station and rather than thrashing around giving the MSE owner or even individual Tesco employees a hard time by leaving your heaps of shopping unpaid for at the tills, how about putting all your time and energy into supporting your local independent shops and by extension, your own community.

You're entitled to your oppinion at the end of the day but you know what?
If half of us had the money to 'support independant businesses', we probably would. The fact is, we are here to save money as we don't have much of it. Not because we like to screw money out of tesco for no reason, or commit 'fraud' asd it has been suggested. We want to support ourselves and our families and tesco has been the most cost-effective (up until yesterday) way of doing it.
Something tells me that you suffer no such problems with your independant businesses.

Thrifty_Sister

mrs_angry wrote: »

good idea, certainly worth a try, but do you think tesco really give a hoot bout peoples money woes

i think an email to mr martin lewis is needed, so he can contact them and hear from the horses mouth why this has all happened and if it will ever revert back

Hear hear:beer:

mrs_angry

if we all compose an email, (bits added by all here who this affects) we can all paste our names on to the bottom and send it to him, i think we need to know facts

i'll start
Dear Martin Lewis