why won't ASDA reply??

zippy75

Does anyone know how I can resolve a problem with ASDA online grocery shopping?

I've had a look through the board for ideas, and see that there are many dissatisfied customers!!

I had a shop delivered a couple of weeks ago, which included six cartons of own-label soya milk. When I opened one (not straight away, as they are long-life and I was still using up others), it looked and tasted "off". I tried two others in case it was a one-off, but they were all the same.

I emailed ASDA on the website on Friday to explain - they say they'll get back to you within two days.

By yesterday I still hadn't had a reply, so I emailed again saying that they hadn't responded; and that I wanted to place another order that evening but wanted to be confident that any further problems would be dealt with quickly. I also explained that I have soya milk in every order. (So obviously I wanted to know that I wouldn't get dodgy soya milk again).

I even said (in a perfectly nice way), that if I didn't receive a response I would place my shop with another supermarket (which I intended to, with Tesco, as I have some vouchers).

As of 8pm this evening, still no response:mad:

The thing is - I'm kind of over a barrell as there a quite a few items that I need that Tesco either don't have, or charge more for. And also, as I have a disability and don't drive, I can't just pop to the nearest Tesco/ASDA for my stuff.

So, to cut this tale short, I need really to do an online shop with ASDA tonight, but how do I get the refunds on the dodgy soya milk sorted out?

I resent calling the helpline, as I had to do it once before (to complain about them putting in substitutions when I'd asked them not to - why can't people follow a simple instruction??:mad:), and got drawn into a long drawn-out conversation with them. I don't have the time or the energy for that, and I also resent calling an 0845 number for the priviledge of complaining.

So I wondered if I should place the order, then when the driver comes, give him the cartons I still have along with a copy of my order, the emails and their 200% guarantee.

Any ideas?

Zippy:)

PS I thought online shopping was meant to make life easier?! Hmmmm....:rolleyes:

Basil_Fawlty

Did you pay by credit card? if so, send Asda an email saying you'll get the whole payment withdrawn if they don't reply within24 hours. If they don't reply, then phone your credit card company and they'll go through the process of chargeback :beer:

zippy75

I paid by debit card, but the order was a couple of weeks ago, so the payment went out a while ago now.

Not sure what you mean by getting the whole payment withdrawn - can you do that? And wouldn't the bank charge?

By the way, love your username.:D

Zippy

BaileyB

You dont need to phone the 0845 number, find out which store delivered it to you and ring that store and ask to speak to the Home Shopping manager and give him/her a peace of your mind. They can then go and make sure your milk is not off and sort out the other issue.

You might get free delivery etc

Basil_Fawlty

No the credit card company doesn't charge you and yes you can do this

CharleneUK

They never reply via email.

I always call their freephone 0500 and ask for home shopping.

zippy75

Thanks to everyone who posted replies...:)

I would never have thought about phoning the store who did the delivery (D'oh...:rolleyes: ),

I rang my nearest store who told me who the culprits were, then rang them...

Spoke to quite a friendly and helpful chap who said the home shopping people weren't there (hmm..:rolleyes:), so rather than leave a message and wait until Christmas for them to ring me back, I said I'd phone them back tomorrow.

I'm going to go ahead and place my next shop in a minute purely because I need the stuff pretty soon, but hopefully after having a word tomorrow, they'll give me a discount or something for my trouble.

Well, I can but hope...:rolleyes:

Thanks again everyone, I'll post again when I see what they have to say about it tomorrow.

Zippy:)

fudgeukraine

It'll probably be a backlog. When I was working (won't yet name the company) we at one point had a 7k e-mail backlog which took about 10 days to respond. Chances are you're e-mails in that pile somewhere.

I'd stop being a tight!!!! and just call, I wouldn't resent paying 3.5p a minute to get money back, rather than wait to get a response.

smcaul

We use Asda weekly, I have had no problems recently (I did over a year ago on one occasion) with getting refunds over the phone from the 0845 - the call ctr seems to be in south africa I think but the staff are helpful and always refund without question if the goods are not up to standard.

zippy75

For the attention of (mainly) fudgeukraine:

Your first paragraph was mildly informative, but your second... oh dear, I wonder why you feel the need to resort to personal abuse?

fudgeukraine wrote:

I'd stop being a tight!!!! and just call, I wouldn't resent paying 3.5p a minute to get money back, rather than wait to get a response.

I actually have called them before, as you can see from the following:

I resent calling the helpline, as I had to do it once before (to complain about them putting in substitutions when I'd asked them not to - why can't people follow a simple instruction??), and got drawn into a long drawn-out conversation with them. I don't have the time or the energy for that, and I also resent calling an 0845 number for the privilege of complaining.

So, if you'd read my original post properly you'd have realised that my reluctance to phone the call centre was actually as much to do with the often time-consuming and confusing nature of calls to call centres, as the cost issue.

Also I appreciated people's suggestions to phone the local store because somehow I think it makes a lot of sense to speak to someone local to you, about a service that is after all a local delivery service (ooh, I've gone all League of Gentleman ), rather than, speaking to someone in, as smcaul says, South Africa.

I don't know why they don't advise on their website that you phone the store that handled the delivery; after all, I'm sure if you walked into said store with a substandard product, they'd be obliged to help you, whether that then involved phoning the call centre on your behalf, or whatever. Or maybe that would mean someone applying a bit of common sense (and missing out on 0845 revenue). :rolleyes:

However with regard to the money issue, I, along with many, many other users of this site, have to find ways to save every single penny that I can. We find the site to be a great source of information to help us do this (the clue's in its title ). If we can find creative solutions to get around using 08-- numbers, then that's what we'll do, and I see no reason for anyone else to make rude, sarcastic comments about it.

(I've read your opinion on how companies are supposedly gaining no great benefit from using 0845 numbers...hmm, let me think, would they actually bother doing so if they weren't benefiting? They're certainly not doing it for our) benefit are they? Can you even begin to imagine the size of (in this case) Walmart's profits?)

A great many people have found this site to be a valuable source of support, whether from reading posts or posting their own threads - I know I have, in the short time that I've been a member. We find the members, for the most part, really friendly and helpful.

Unfortunately, it would seem from reading some of your posts that you don't appreciate this, and see the boards as an opportunity to be provocative and unhelpful. My apologies if this isn't the case; this is the way you come across.

I also see from some of your other posts that you often resort to charmless language; that's a shame, other people find that they they can get their opinions across perfectly well without doing this.

Never mind, I'm sure that with maturity will come a little more subtlety and tact.

Thanks once again to all the helpful people who posted; it's much appreciated, and I'll keep the thread updated with any information that could be of use to anyone else.

I'll end with a word from Martin -

Please be nice to all MoneySavers. There’s no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.

Regards,

Zippy:)

CM86_2

In all fairness an 0845 number is local rate, and if it's causing you a lot of stress ringing it will get it sorted quicker!

Like the suggestion to get a chargeback on the shop! But would the bank do it?