Tesco online Guide Price con

woolly1

Sorry - long rant here!
When I did my shopping last week Tescos had basically made a mistake in the price of nappies on their website ... they'd discovered their error by the next day and I was charged £1 more and as a result of their error I didn't take advantage of their 2 for £16 offer. Their response was that prices on the web are just a guide price, so in other words, none of their prices online can be trusted - they can charge what they like on the day - so frustrating when if I'd been in store and the price on the shelf was wrong they would have to honour it (and give me double the difference back if they overcharged!) Grrr!

Here's the emails I sent them:

Please will you arrange a refund as I have been overcharged for pampers nappies.

When I placed my order last night the price on the website was £7.96. The price shown on my order confirmation was the same, see pasted section from confirmation email below.

Pampers Baby Dryeconomy Pack Junior 54

Each £7.96

I note that today the price on your website has changed to £8.96, but I feel you should be honour the price you advertised when I made my order. I did not take advantage of your 2 for £16 offer as this was 8p more expensive than 2x£7.96. I had been intending to buy in bulk at Makro but your price advertised last night was slightly cheaper.

Tesco Response:
Thank you for your email.

The prices quoted on our Grocery website are guide prices only, and the confirmation email that you receive are also guide prices. The prices for items can vary slightly either up or down, from day to day. Therefore, the actual price you will be charged, is the price in our store on the day that your order is picked and delivered.

My response:
The fact is that because you made a mistake in the price on your website this resulted in me not taking advantage of the 2 for £16 offer plus I have paid more than if I had purchased at Makro as I had been intending. I only bought them from you because it worked out a similar price per nappy.

Also I concede that the price of fruit and veg etc can fluctuate on a day to day basis, but you cannot tell me that the price of nappies fluctuate by £1 from one day to the next - that is not a slight variation. Using your 'guide price' policy apparently gives you carte blanche to charge whatever you like, regardless of the price quoted on your website. This is unfair when applied to an item you have incorrectly priced and nothing to do with price fluctuation. If I had been in the store and you had put the wrong price on the shelf label you would have had to honour it.

I would urge you to reconsider your decision not to refund the overcharge in this case as I am most annoyed about this and do not accept your response as fair in this circumstance.

Tesco response:
Thank you for your reply.

I am sorry that you are unhappy with my response to your complaint, as there was no intnetntion to cause you any further annoyance.

However, I can only advise as previously, that the prices are guide prices only, and this is in our terms and conditions:

"Please note that the prices on our Grocery website are guide prices only. The actual price you pay will be the price charged in store at the time your order is picked for delivery. The actual order value cannot be determined until the day of delivery because the prices stated on the website may vary either above or below the prices in store on the day your order is picked and delivered."

If you are unhappy with any item, then you may return it for a refund.


I think this policy stinks, and now know I cannot trust the prices I see on the web. I'm hardly likely to drive 12 miles there and 12 back for a refund. If Sainsburys delivery charges were cheaper I'd shop there.

rogue_element

Well nappies aren't exactly groceries are they? Cant you argue that they weren't therefore on the "grocery" website?

milkydrink

woolly1 wrote: »

The prices quoted on our Grocery website are guide prices only, and the confirmation email that you receive are also guide prices. The prices for items can vary slightly either up or down, from day to day. Therefore, the actual price you will be charged, is the price in our store on the day that your order is picked and delivered.

Damn:eek: :mad: :shocked: _pale_ :wall:
That is appaling.
People should stop using them online, if they can decide to charge you extra the next day & dip into your account.
They say "every little helps", we now know what they mean!!!

hjb123

I always thought that the prices were only guides. A bit like Argos which says the price you pay is the price in store on the day you collect the item.

dagrowler

god, that's terrible! I've boycotted them already as i tried online shopping with them and EVERY single time i've used them its gone totally wrong. cancelling orders without telling me, sending me entirly wrong products, telling me that ALL milk and fish in sold out when clearly they jsut couldnt be bothered to find them on the shelves so sent what they could be bothered to get!

i'd give them a call, they tend to be ok. I was under then impression that sainsburys charge the same (£5). i had a delivery last night which was about £75 and delivery was free (although i think its rising to £2.50 for orders over £70 on tues, wed and thurs)

doitmyself

I frequently shop online (tesco) for my mum, and it's not unknown for something to be wrong, though nothing along the lines described by dagrowler which I fell may be just a tad exeggerated?

Anyway, for future ref don't get into the mail thing expending time and effort only to receive template responses.
Phone them, tell them what's missing or inacurrately described (e.g.33% free) or priced (the nappies in this case) and it's almost certain they'll refund what you say is due without question. That at least is my experience.

RadoJo

I agree with doitmyself - I understand your annoyance at the situation, but the call centre staff seem to be much more helpful about refunding and stuff than the internet based staff!

dagrowler

doitmyself wrote: »

I frequently shop online (tesco) for my mum, and it's not unknown for something to be wrong, though nothing along the lines described by dagrowler which I fell may be just a tad exeggerated?

hmm, kind of exagerated BUT ... i ordered cod and salmon, also semi skimmed, and skimmed milk (irritating picky family), none of which turned up, i allow substitues so i wouldnt habve minded other sizes of milks... when i rang up, they said the items were sold out... when i questioned them the guy on the phone admitted it was slightly hard to beleive.

Bizkit

First off I have to say that in the main I have been happy with shopping at Tesco online - I reckon I save about £30 per week on my shopping bill, because I am not going buying stuff that is not on my list!! Not to mention the time I am saving and as I work for myself time is money.

The main irritation I have had has been with this so-called 'guide price'.
Several times I have contacted Tesco about this. In the first instance they were doing offers on 18 cans of Guiness £14.99 instead of £20.99 :beer: . I ordered some and the price on my invoice was £20.99 a difference of £6 definitely needs following up.

They refunded the initial £6 fairly quickly as I said that when I went to their website after my shopping was delivered and it is still £14.99 then what is going on? I also said I wanted double the difference back which they did as a 'goodwill offer' .....hmmpf... goodwill my a*se

This week the same has happened again where an item was shown as £12.98 and delivered at £15.48 and still today 6 days since my last delivery it is still showing on their website as £12.98!!

Work that one out. :mad:

I am just getting the standard email responses now, so I will try the phone line.

This is starting to sound like a job for Martin!!

Cheers
Jakki

DrFluffy

You get used to this living in central London - all our Tesco in store prices are around 10p an item more than those outside central London and on the net...

It was the main reason we stopped shopping there when we moved here...

RadoJo

I can understand why they have the policy in place - if you order 10 apples, they have to estimate the weight based on an average weight per apple. When they actually pick the apples, they use the actual weight which will vary from the estimate. Similarly with things like pre-packaged cheese which comes in a variety of weights.

However, with items which are a 'fixed' price, I do not see how their policy applies - they have a system whereby you get a notification if a special offer expires before your delivery date etc, which pops up before you check out, so that cannot be an excuse. Do they really think it is up to the individual customer to note the price of every item they buy, remember this and compare this with the list they deliver with your shopping? That is ridiculous!

I also wanted to post a little warning on re-deliveries - if your shopping is not delivered on the original date on which it is due and you have to organise a redelivery, they seem to charge you twice. The first time this happened, I was spoken to very rudely by a member of their 'customer service' team who practically accused me of lying about it!! He demanded to see my entire bank statement (not bl00dy likely mate!) but relented pretty sharpish when I managed to prove that the payment had come out twice! This has happened again recently, and it was only because I was on the look out for it that I discovered the dual payment - this time it was refunded without too much difficulty though, so maybe they have realised the flaw in their process!