ASDA: total humiliation free with this coupon

Contains_Mild_Peril

Quite right. Well done!

jago25_98

A bit of background info.
A while ago I found out that you could scan any voucher and you would get money off whether or not you buy the product it's designed for.

I heard this is a good faith deliberate measure. But I would have expected it to be be some sort of legal oddity or some kind of bigger problem. Here's why.

The first thing I tried was £1 off book vouchers. We have £200 worth of these that we got for free.

Apparently at the time some cashiers put them through, some don't. Nobody really knows what to do. Because of that I used the self scan. 2 vouchers went through at ADSA. - there was no limit to how many you could use.
I could have bought a TV if I wanted but I decided not to be so audacious and scan just 1 on every shop.

A month or 2 later it seems everyone had been doing this because the voucher slot had been taped up and a rather unofficial sign errected below the screen "Sorry we can no longer accept vouchers at the self scan".

The signs are still there so we can draw one of a few possible conclusions:

1) The computer system that governs the voucher and selfscan system is not being updated, or is generally out of date

2) The system is too awkward to update, or the consultants who put the system in are no longer involved / etc

3) The central office know about the vouchers but for whatever reason aren't doing anything about and would rather keep quiet. This could be because of some legal oddity that means they have to accept vouchers as they represent a promise maybe, or perhaps a voucher cannot be specific to a product.

As a result the local store manager takes it into thier own hands and come up with the taped over slots and trains staff.

Because of the disarray and lack of information I get the impression that they have some sort of major problem and nobody at senior level wants to touch it, so the staff on the floor have to do the dirty work. Unfortunately these jobsworths don't understand the situation because they have been abandoned by the management that are suppose to support them.

olympian

jago25_98 wrote:

A bit of background info.
A while ago I found out that you could scan any voucher and you would get money off whether or not you buy the product it's designed for.

I heard this is a good faith deliberate measure. But I would have expected it to be be some sort of legal oddity or some kind of bigger problem. Here's why.

The first thing I tried was £1 off book vouchers. We have £200 worth of these that we got for free.

Apparently at the time some cashiers put them through, some don't. Nobody really knows what to do. Because of that I used the self scan. 2 vouchers went through at ADSA. - there was no limit to how many you could use.
I could have bought a TV if I wanted but I decided not to be so audacious and scan just 1 on every shop.

A month or 2 later it seems everyone had been doing this because the voucher slot had been taped up and a rather unofficial sign errected below the screen "Sorry we can no longer accept vouchers at the self scan".

The signs are still there so we can draw one of a few possible conclusions:

1) The computer system that governs the voucher and selfscan system is not being updated, or is generally out of date

2) The system is too awkward to update, or the consultants who put the system in are no longer involved / etc

3) The central office know about the vouchers but for whatever reason aren't doing anything about and would rather keep quiet. This could be because of some legal oddity that means they have to accept vouchers as they represent a promise maybe, or perhaps a voucher cannot be specific to a product.

As a result the local store manager takes it into thier own hands and come up with the taped over slots and trains staff.

Because of the disarray and lack of information I get the impression that they have some sort of major problem and nobody at senior level wants to touch it, so the staff on the floor have to do the dirty work. Unfortunately these jobsworths don't understand the situation because they have been abandoned by the management that are suppose to support them.

Based on my experiences of using vouchers at ASDA and Tesco self scan tills, I think that they work purely from information on the barcode on the voucher- “99” at the start means that it is a voucher and the three digits immediately before the final (check) digit gives the amount eg “050” scans for 50p. I stand to be corrected on the rest, but I think that the digits in between refer to something like the issuer and not an expiry date or actual product.

So all tills just work out that it’s a voucher and the amount it’s for, but can’t validate against purchase or expiry date. That is normally down to a visual check by the checkout operator, or the “supervisor” on self scans. The only difference to this is store specific vouchers where they know the full barcode because they issued it in the first place and their own system can then validate it against items purchased.

What they do appear to be able to do, though, is set the self scans to prompt for “approval” when over a limit eg 10% or high value vouchers eg anything over £4 (which seems to be the case in my local Tesco), or even for every single voucher. This appears to be configurable and store/branch specific.

dazbyd

teedy23 wrote:

who says I knew, heard it done in tesco,s but not ASDA:A

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: really :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

i1189

It's not just Asda and it's not just vouchers. I got accused of shoplifting in Sainsburys once when the number of items I scanned using fasttrack didn't match the the number the shop assistant scanned. The security guard yelled at me for about 20 minutes in the foyer, and refused to check my shopping or my receipt or take me to a private room.

When I went home in tears I found that the assistant who was packing the bags for me had put one of my bags of shopping through twice (am I really likely to buy 2 copies of that week's TV guide?).

Yes, it was a mistake, but it was the security guard's attitude that upset me. He just assumed he was right.

I got a refund on the all of the shopping in the end, and a letter of apology, but I still hate Sainsburys.

neiljc_2

madmum 33 said

Tesco's have been a pain before, I bought turkey and 3 other items a couple of years ago, using a trolley because a turkey is so heavy I couldn't have even lifted a basket. I used the basket till as I only had 4 items and the woman behind me kicked up a huge fuss, although I pointed out that I had 4 items and she had at least 15 in her basket. The woman on the till called the manager on me! :eek: I was FUMING! That was the most pathetic policy,

glad most places have 10 items or less instead of basket tills now


Madmum I know of a number of people who have had this problem they soon shut up when the person using the trolley showed them their polio.

teedy23

dazbyd wrote:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: really :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

yes:A :A :A :A :A :A :A

dazbyd

teedy23 wrote:

yes:A :A :A :A :A :A :A

.... lol .... well they are still working in Asda ... got 6 though tonite :j

flossy_splodge

just to spread the opportunity to moneysave even further, did you know that Tesco will accept Sainsburys vouchers but not the other way about??:rotfl: I recently received some Sainsbury £6 off vouchers, one per week each week til Xmas. Last week I happily shopped in Sainsburys so used the first one. No probs. This week I was nowhere near Sainsburys so shopped at Tesco and offered the Sainsbury coupon expecting a fight (i found out ages ago that this is Tesco policy) but NO FIGHT!!!! so a good bit of money saving. Dont think Tesco take eg Boots coupons but believe they take many other food retailers. Good luck.:T :T :T :T

aeuerby

flossy_splodge wrote:

just to spread the opportunity to moneysave even further, did you know that Tesco will accept Sainsburys vouchers but not the other way about??:rotfl:

There is currently a big sign outside our Tesco's stating they accept sainsburys vouchers.