WARNING!!! Must Read!!! Legal Danger

purplepatch

Your christmas bonus was cut.

Count yourself lucky you even get a christmas bonus. The company my husband works for (and I previously) don't give any christmas bonus whatsoever. Nor have they done for the past ten years.

And don't blame MSE for it either. If it was anything to do with the codes, which I very much doubt, it's Sainsbury's substandard systems that caused the problem, allowing people who weren't entitled to the codes to use them.

Martin's website, as others have said, is a community that we all enjoy being a part of and whilst granted, you could probably find the information by trawling through information thrown up by search engines, it's far more convenient and pleasant to come here and get the information you need. It's not just about financial gain either, just take a look at the topics discussed on the family board if you want an example.

By all means though, stick to google if that's what you prefer. We won't mind .

withabix

Poppy9 wrote:

I am sorry that your bonus was cut but I don't really see how you can relate it to these site users. Sainsbury's have been their own worse enemy. Their prices are too high compared to Tesco and Asda. A point was also made earlier in this particular discussion that the easy access to discount vouchers has introduced customers to shops websites. To use a voucher involves spending money. Therefore they are increasing the turnover of the business.

Exactly! MONEY SAVING TIP: DON'T SHOP AT SAINSBURYS!!!!!

ReductionQueen

But surely if you are offering a none-transferrable voucher on this or even the proper board, is against the T&C (hardly fraud, try calling the police and see if they are interested......) where ever you display it. So what is the point of posting them at all? Come to that, what is tha point of having a board for them, so that nannies like Sainsbury's can find them all in one place and have a go.

caravan502

Bull
If the big boys did not sell junk food /booze we in the nhs .....
would have more time and money for new hip /cancer words ect and not all booz problems all the big chains bump on the nhs / a&e depts.

"So Shops like the big four cost every one on this GROUP Money".

lostincyberspace wrote:

my hidden agenda is that been a sainsbury worker, my bonus at christmas was cut, because of people from this site using codes that they weren't entitled too. Now because of selfish people this site has COST me money not SAVED any. Soooo maybe you will think twice when using vouchers in future, because someone somewhere will get financially hurt by people using them.

shrek101

Christmas bonus were not cut because of this site, my wife also works for them.

It is because Sainsburys invested large amounts of money on a high tech infrastructure which doesn't work and as a consequence some goods were not delivered and shelves got empty.

What you failed to say was that while bonus was cut staff discount increased from 10 to 15% from October-December (which actually ended in Jan 2005). Also note the date of the article below was May 2004 well before the announced codes, so your argument about staff discount being effected by these codes is invalid one.

About Christmas bonus
http://www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/story/0,12784,1222401,00.html

About supply chain

http://www.pcw.co.uk/news/1160511

m00nie

ReductionQueen wrote:

But surely if you are offering a none-transferrable voucher on this or even the proper board, is against the T&C (hardly fraud, try calling the police and see if they are interested......) where ever you display it. So what is the point of posting them at all? Come to that, what is tha point of having a board for them, so that nannies like Sainsbury's can find them all in one place and have a go.

they are not ALL non transferrable codes, alot of them are general codes open to everyone which is why the board is there for them.

having them in the one place is easier to monitor and people should be following the rules there and stating the origin of the codes(as they should the whole site)

if a company decided to take action against it then the police would have no choice, if you are swapping and using knowingly non transferrable ones it IS fraud and you COULD get in to trouble. but i imagine it would take alot for before a company actually went that far.

Marigold123

ReductionQueen wrote:

But surely if you are offering a none-transferrable voucher on this or even the proper board, is against the T&C (hardly fraud, try calling the police and see if they are interested......)

There are a lot of things you can be sued for in the civil courts that the police won't touch. If it wasn't possible to enforce terms and conditions, (don't forget, we are legally signing a contract by agreeing to them when we sign up with a website - ignorance is supposed to be no excuse in the eyes of the law, etc), then there wouldn't be any point in asking us to agree to them.

We are all very quick to insist on satisfaction when the T&Cs are in our favour, (and quite right too!), so why should we assume a large company would do any differently? They may CHOOSE not to follow up infringements, for the sake of good overall customer relations, but that doesn't mean they can't. They have had a lot more practice at legal games than the average consumer, as well as access to better lawyers!

There has been a lot of discussion on what companies can/cannot and will/will not do when T&Cs are breached by customers, but I think we are all rather in the dark about actual instances of litigation and prosecution. Some posters take a very cavalier stance about possible legal consequences, others may be over-scared. Neither of these situations is ideal, (though the latter is obviously safer), but it is not surprising considering the newness of the area being explored.

As a point of interest, I would be quite keen to see a thread listing actual cases that people know of where companies HAVE struck back at the consumer, and whether they have won, or lost. That is, if Martin doesn't think it would undermine the ethos of the site and the long-term opportunities for moneysaving. Or unless he thinks such a topic might cause moneysavers to become overconfident and expose themselves to legal risk. (I am actually hoping it might have the opposite result, and give us a better sense of proportion concerning our vulnerability or lack of it.)

The Sainsbury's situation is the only one I know about that has gone beyond a polite request not to mess up the companies' tracking activities, and the offer of an exclusive discount code to use on the site. However, I haven't followed the situation closely enough to be entirely sure whether legal action was actually threatened or only implied, and if so, whether that action was directed towards Martin and the site, or the individual consumer. (Please note, this is NOT a request for specific details, Martin. We wouldn't want you to post anything that would compromise the site or yourself in any way. )

Marigold123

shrek101 wrote:

Christmas bonus were not cut because of this site, my wife also works for them.

It is because Sainsburys invested large amounts of money on a high tech infrastructure which doesn't work and as a consequence some goods were not delivered and shelves got empty.

What you failed to say was that while bonus was cut staff discount increased from 10 to 15% from October-December (which actually ended in Jan 2005). Also note the date of the article below was May 2004 well before the announced codes, so your argument about staff discount being effected by these codes is invalid one.

Good call, shrek101!

Thanks for putting us right on that. It sounded bogus to me, but I didn't have the information to back me up.

And well said to Moonie, also. I agree that it is important to have all the codes in one place where they can be monitored properly. And if Sainsbury's want to come and check up, as I'm sure they do, they can see that the issue is being addressed responsibly, and we should have no further trouble with them.

All big businesses will eventually tighten up their online ordering systems so that this kind of opportunity dies out. In the meantime, it is good to know what we can and cannot get away with. I feel that this is an important part of the function of this site, as well as just finding bargains.

Pat__3

shrek101 wrote:

Christmas bonus were not cut because of this site, my wife also works for them.

It is because Sainsburys invested large amounts of money on a high tech infrastructure which doesn't work and as a consequence some goods were not delivered and shelves got empty.

What you failed to say was that while bonus was cut staff discount increased from 10 to 15% from October-December (which actually ended in Jan 2005). Also note the date of the article below was May 2004 well before the announced codes, so your argument about staff discount being effected by these codes is invalid one.

About Christmas bonus
http://www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/story/0,12784,1222401,00.html

About supply chain

http://www.pcw.co.uk/news/1160511

Thanks very much Shrek101 for putting us straight on this one.:)

shrek101

I also recall think it was on BBC2 working lunch that because of the problems with there IT stocking system that they were planning on suing the company that installed it thatw as a few montsh back so I am unsure if anything else has happened.

I do know that my wife did say that often shelves where often not fully stocked, although I did hear only recently that things are improving.

I aint knocking Sainburys its good to have competition, however companies and for that matter governments dont always make wise decisions of computer IT systems.