Returning a non-supermarket brand item that's a really crap product? Acceptable/not?

jfh7gwa

Hi folks,

Just wanted to get a bit of a perspective on this one.

Bought this at the supermarket last week.

My husband tried it last night, but the floss is really weak compared to normal floss, and the fibers broke apart as soon as it got wet - if you can imagine stringy bits of single fibers, that's what the floss breaks apart into almost immediately (very odd and pretty useless as they then become really weak, but kind of stretchy!). He ended up getting it stuck between his teeth and having to use a toothpick to get all the little fibers out.

Suggesting that he was being a bit of a dafty, I've used all sorts of floss in the past without any problems - I then used a bit myself, and the EXACT same thing happened - the floss broke apart into a myriad web of little fibers, and lodged in my test tooth so badly that I spent the next half hour trying to get rid of them. In the end, I had to resort to using sewing thread to sort it out, which, as you can guess, resulted in bleeding gums and the practically unused floss container being chucked across the room in annoyance.

Normally I'd write this off and just bin the product and not buy it again, but it's so crap I feel - why should I? I have the receipt from last week, but threw away the outer packaging, but the actual floss reel is unused apart from about a meter where we both used it - would the supermarket exchange it or refund it, since it's not an Asda product?

It's more the principle that I hate wasting money, and to try a product that's so crap and to bin it almost immediately seems anti-MSE.

(Oh, and yes- we'll be sticking with Oral B or supermarket brand floss from now on!).

Clearly, this item is quite trivial, but it did raise a query in my mind that - IS it acceptable to request a refund/exchange for something (and make up the price difference) if you're unhappy with a non-supermarket branded item? Or would I be best to contact the manufacturer/just add it to my personal blacklist in future?

zenseeker

I'd probably consider going past the store and making a direct complaint to head office. They need to know how useless this product is, and if they get enough complaints they might do something about it.

Complaining to store will just result in a refund and the item chucked in the bin.

jfh7gwa

zenseeker wrote: »

They need to know how useless this product is, and if they get enough complaints they might do something about it.

Yes, I do wonder how many other people have bought this product, realised it's absolutely awful, and just binned it or asked for a refund.

That's what I would normally do (bin it and move on), but I'm making a big effort to stop wasting money - and I figure, this item so bad I figure maybe if other people had let the store know it's awful, maybe it wouldn't have been on the shelf for me to end up wasting money on!

RhiBi

It could also be a bad batch and isn't normally as rubbish. All the same, worth contacting the manufacturer to let them know I think!