voucher embarassment at asda!!

jellyhead

this must vary from store to store too - sorry for your relative's friend

my mum works at night and is the only till op. she always thought 30% was the voucher max and she regularly took 30% from students etc. who had that amount in coupons. she went on this way for years and was never questioned about it. only after the recent debacle with incorrect scanning asda coupons have the staff been given guidelines, and she has now been told that 10% is the max. no problems with her taking 30% in the past. she's not allowed to serve friends or relatives though.

weaver

A small point but supermarkets do get the voucher value refunded plus a handling fee only around 1p but mutiply this by the amount of coupons a supermarket chain submits for a certain product. As they are paying staff anyway this is all profit.

Obviously this cannot be done for other store coupons or out of date ones - the fact of the matter is if the supermarket wasnt gaining by accepting coupons they certainly wouldnt accept them.

How many people go to buy only products that they have coupons for. I shop at the supermarket that gives me the best deal if this means getting a few pounds off my bill in coupons then they get my custom.

Remember also if they get you through the door by accepting coupons 9 out of 10 times you will come back without coupons.

Lets face it the supermarkets themselves started the ball rolling by saying "we accept Sainsburys, Asda,, tesco supermarkets coupons" all in the battle to get our custom. Tesco arnt stupid you go to buy groceries, pick up a DVD,CD, card electrical item theyve covered the cost of any coupons you use.

OK there are the clever people out there that know how to use coupons and how to maximise the usage but for every 1 who uses coupons to the max thousands dont bother - or the tills would be bulging with more coupons than cash.

The supermarkets set the limits not the customer - the cashier accepts them, the self scan should be programmed to accept a set amount or a value amount, you cannot blame a customer if the supermarket cant make up its mind on the policy.

Ok thats my twopence worth - please dont defend the supermarkets they know what they are doing.

quickstepqueen

Read this thread with interest. There were 2 points that really jumped out at me. Firstly that there are inconsistencies with store/coupon policy. Secondly, that there is a limit of 10% so as the crawley_girl states she couldn't use her legitimate coupon!

crawley_girl wrote:

I also had a prob when I had a £5 unilever coupon and was told I could only use vouchers to the value 10% of the total bill. But I had over £5 worth of unilever goods... the SA just didn't understand what I was tryng to explain!!! And I felt like a right idiot as she screamed at me at the top of her voice.

So therefore, if I win a £5 coupon in my Daz washing powder packet I would have to spend £50 in Asda's in order to redeem it! Now, that is stupid, especially as I never spend more than £50 per week in Asda, not even at Xmas!!

hollydays

jellyhead wrote:

i wasn't complaining, just letting people know that i've been warned against using more than the 10% allowed. i would be gutted if security spoke to me, and i'm guessing that most other voucher users would too. i just save a small amount, over the course of a year it's less than ten percent of my shopping and that's certainly not thousands!

for a couple of weeks i tried to get away with more than i should have done, but won't be doing it again. to be honest the only reason i use the self check-out is because the ordinary checkouts have sweets and chocolate along the side where you stand and it's a nightmare trying to stop the baby from grabbing and eating chocolate (and then vomiting over him pram because he's lactose intolerant). i'm going to use the ordinary checkouts from now on though, i don't want to embarass my mum. i'll have to stand back until it's my turn, then dash through the choccy to the packing area.

(or shop in tesco, my brother works there but won't care if i embarass him lol!)

Hang on,if "for a couple of weeks you tried to get away with more than i should have done" ,I dont understand why you say in an earlier post that they confused you with someone else.If your mum works there you surely know they may well have you on camera doing that (and the cameras can zoom in to get really tiny detail,like your name off your credit card.)While its not exactly the crime of the century, what exactly is your complaint about?

jellyhead

they confused me with someone else because they thought i had used vouchers that day, and i hadn't. i was asked the previous week by the self scan cashier to not use more than ten percent and since then i hadn't. i had some coupons i bought off ebay and for 2 weeks (2 grocery shops and once when i bought tuck for the school xmas fete for the stall i was running - see it's not all take take take with me lol!) i used more than ten percent in coupons, then i stopped.

i don't have a complaint! i'm just letting people know what i was told, they can make their own choices as to what they do with coupons at the checkouts but for the borderline coupon users like me who over the course of a year will not use more than ten percent of their shopping bill and often shop without using any coupons then this info might be useful - because they wouldn't want to be taken to the security office. hardcore coupon users might not be worried by it or would feel confident in standing their ground and insisting they'd done nothing wrong, but people like me would be embarassed.

i'm not saying i had a right to use more than ten percent or complaining about anything. just telling people of the warning i had via my mum.

djl

crawley_girl wrote:

I always have probs on the Asda self-scan, well ever since those amazing £5 superdrug ones that were scanning!

Last week I had a coupon for butter and surprisingly I had a tub of said butter and the self-scan went into lock down and needed the SA to come over and help me.

I also had a prob when I had a £5 unilever coupon and was told I could only use vouchers to the value 10% of the total bill. But I had over £5 worth of unilever goods... the SA just didn't understand what I was tryng to explain!!! And I felt like a right idiot as she screamed at me at the top of her voice.

Asda self-scan -pah!

hi crawley girl

you use crawley asda ??? pm me i live in crawley and have had problems in store let me know i can give you the extention of customer service manager who i have spoken to

darren j

littlejaffa

I asked in store 2x -at the same store I was told they only accept asda mag vouchers if you buy the product, don't take printed vouchers atall, and take manufacturer vouchers if you've bought the product but at discresion if you haven't, the second visit i was told they take all and any vouchers but only to a % of the total shop, this % is at their discresion. Apparently their discression is based on how much fuss the cashiers make at dealing with vouchers at the end of the night.

I wasn't happy with this vagueness so e-mailed customer services, thinking i could print the 'definative' and take it shopping to end disputes. I had direct contact with a girl who seemed unable to answer, being even more vague or not answering my e-mail atall, when i copied general customer service in my query and said she hadn't responded, she suddenly responded (assuming someone kicked her into touch at asda) but still no clear respons.

I think all you can do is ask at cs every time before you shop, and if what your told is wrong the person is there to back you up.

jessicar

stebiz wrote:

Saving thousands a year. I often wonder myself:D

You must be spending an awful lot every year for your savings on coupons to be 'thousands'.

I have a friend who spends a lot of time doing this, collecting vouchers, visiting different stores, trying to avoid certain SAs who have given her a hard time in the past....Then there's the way she gets worried and stressed about potential embarrassment, and rants on for ages afterwards if she does get refused and everybody looks at her. She thinks people look down on her when that happens.

I always think if she spent all that time and energy looking for work, or training herself in something that would improve her career prospects, in the long run she'd be much better off financially, and a happier person.

At the end of the day time is like money, and the amount of it she spends on a few pence of vouchers - seems silly to me.

crawley_girl

quickstepqueen wrote:

Read this thread with interest. There were 2 points that really jumped out at me. Firstly that there are inconsistencies with store/coupon policy. Secondly, that there is a limit of 10% so as the crawley_girl states she couldn't use her legitimate coupon!



So therefore, if I win a £5 coupon in my Daz washing powder packet I would have to spend £50 in Asda's in order to redeem it! Now, that is stupid, especially as I never spend more than £50 per week in Asda, not even at Xmas!!

And when I wrote to complain I got some dippy letter back saying that they were 'sorry to hear of my difficulties when I tried to use multiple coupons' when it was infact 1 coupon! No vouchers as compensation which I was hoping for! Pah Asda!

But then I used 3 x £1 Pizza vouchers when my total spend was £24 with no problems at all. They make the rules up as they go!

crawley_girl

djl wrote:

hi crawley girl

you use crawley asda ??? pm me i live in crawley and have had problems in store let me know i can give you the extention of customer service manager who i have spoken to

darren j

I constantly have problems with the Crawley store. Every time I go in there. Very useful that it is open 24 hr but when you go in after 11pm, all of the aisles are blocked with the cages and only 2 tills open, with at least 6 people queuing and then 2 people sat on the self-scans doing very little. Anyhow, I don't mean to rant about Asda, I do love the cheap prices and the handsome night staff!!!