Asda - one price for you & one price for me....VERY weird.

chrisjoanne

Hi
I received an email from Asda yesterday for £10 my next order over £75. I logged in and placed my order which included numerous special offers. The £10 was already in my account and would be applied at the checkout. However, unfortunately I logged in on my old Asda account and realised the £10 off was not there. I then logged in with my new (ish) account (which did have the £10 off code).
I had to go through the full original list and ordered EXACTLY the same goods.
Incredibly the prices on my account with £10 off were different to my other account!! I went through all the products and found many of them were different! Please see screenshots.
I'm absolutely fuming that Asda have offered me a £10 off code which doesn't actually offer me £10 off the correct Asda offers. Therefore, I'm quite certain those people who get offered money off codes via Asda actually get different prices to other people.
That CAN NOT be correct. Hopefully I'm wrong but as the shots prove, I think Asda are pulling a fast one.
In fact my shopping (if I purchased different items) could have been cheaper on my original account (ie without the £10 off - which obviously should not be right).
I'm considering contacting Asda customer services to get their thoughts on this.
Anyone had this problem before?

alanq

Something strange has been going on with multibuys. See this thread.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4112547

Scritti

Well, I can't quite work it out from those shots but, if Asda really are just charging more for items because of you being a "new" online customer - and because they're making up for the money-off offer - then that is nothing short of an absolute scandal and another example of one of the big supermarkets taking the consumer for an absolute mug.

Be interesting if any Sains, Waitrose, Tesco or Ocado customers could do the same thing and check the results.

Just reinforces my love of Aldi yet again. Never feel in the least bit ripped off with them. I know they're there to make money too but, compared with the way the customer is overcharged by many other chains, I almost feel like they're doing me a favour by not whacking an extra 30% on their prices.

chrisjoanne

Scritti - Cheers for post...The screen shots were taken very quickly and maybe I should have taken full screen shots instead of partial shots but the prices were certainly different.

I tested this by going to the bread section and looking for Kingsmill.
It listed about 10 items or so and not one had an offer. The original account had offers including 3 for £2.50. My wife has actually been to Asda today and this offer is in store. I find this incredible and you are correct, an absolute scandal if this turns out correct.

This was the case with Walkers & the Pizza too.

I'm going to write a letter to customer services and also Asda Chief Executive Officer – Andy Clarke and take it from there.

If I had to place a bet on this I would say its odds on favourite that money off vouchers with Asda get different prices to everyone else. Users would never know this unless they had 2 accounts.


alanq - I'll take a look at that thread now. ta.

Gigervamp

I think, rather than contacting Asda, I'd get on to Trading Standards.

Jue_xx

Very interesting, this is something I shall be keeping a close eye out for in future. Do let us know Asda's response.

Kayalana99

I wonder if this is something to do with having the voucher active and that not being able to use with any other offer? So they simply don't show the 'offers'?

geordie_joe

Kayalana99 wrote: »

I wonder if this is something to do with having the voucher active and that not being able to use with any other offer? So they simply don't show the 'offers'?

I think you have hit the nail on the head there, and the op seems to have proven it.

chrisjoanne wrote: »

I tested this by going to the bread section and looking for Kingsmill.
It listed about 10 items or so and not one had an offer. The original account had offers including 3 for £2.50.

Most vouchers have "Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer" or similar on them. In store, the checkout assistants don't care about this, they just swipe the voucher and if the till accepts it then OK.

But the online computer system can easily be programmed not to show offers if you are using a voucher that says "no other offers".

alanq

The way I read the OP the other offers were being hidden BEFORE the voucher had been applied. On a spend of over £75 it is possible that offers could be worth more than £10 so if there is a risk of any conflict it should be the customer's choice whether or not to apply a voucher to any given order.

Also when building up an order the system will not know until checking out whether the total exceeds £75 and should therefore show "unvouchered" prices until that point.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, strange things went on for a time with multibuys when no vouchers whatsoever were involved. I suspect that a system error rather than a "one offer only" policy was at the root of this.

Let's hope that chrisjoanne returns and tells us the actual answer.

geordie_joe

alanq wrote: »

The way I read the OP the other offers were being hidden BEFORE the voucher had been applied.

Yes but the op said the £10 was already in his account and would be applied at checkout. So the system knew it was there and would use it if the spend was enough.

Maybe if the op had not spent enough the offers would have been applied at checkout instead of the voucher.

alanq wrote: »

On a spend of over £75 it is possible that offers could be worth more than £10 so if there is a risk of any conflict it should be the customer's choice whether or not to apply a voucher to any given order.

The voucher was for £10 off your next order over £75. The system would assume you will want to use it as that would be the one and only time it would be valid.

alanq wrote: »

Also when building up an order the system will not know until checking out whether the total exceeds £75 and should therefore show "unvouchered" prices until that point.

Then you would have the same problem in reverse. The price would go up at checkout because the offers were removed. Better to remove them at the beginning and if you don't spend enough to apply the £10 voucher then add the offers in.

Which would you prefer, taking an item to a till that you thought would cost £1 only to be told it was on offer and you only need pay 50p

Or taking the same item to a till and being told it's an offer that doesn't apply to you, so you have to pay £1.50.

alanq wrote: »

Let's hope that chrisjoanne returns and tells us the actual answer.

I doubt they will tell the truth, in these situations you normally just get told what the other person thinks you will believe, or whatever they can make up at the time because they haven't got a clue what goes on in any part of the business except the little room with all the phone lines.

Lip_Stick

If you look at the Hawaiian 10" pizza. Only one has been added to the basket in each order. One is priced at £2, the other is £2.60, yet they both have the same price per kilo, £6.40. Strange.