Everyone lost in the Ether II

fairclaire

Savvybuyer wrote: »

So much for the BG being "useless":D. This might be one of the exceptions...:):):) So, here it is - my shop from tonight. Let's just pretend we're still on Friday all night okay:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: (why ruin a good thing?;):cool:).

I wasn't quite used to this "TBG at the SS machine" thing, having not done that before, and scanned a pack of the Tangfastics twice:eek:(:laugh:). The bill was at over £20 and I was trying to get the beggar to come down to the wanted under £2 amount. They require you to 'commit' yourself just a little further before paying though - and I needed to put the bags number (zero:rotfl:) into the machine. It then magically, by some weird spell that I managed to cast over the machine:D:D, dropped to £1.86!:j (I didn't though - I was trying to be as inauspicious as possible, so deffo no jumping occurred at the store!)

Your detailed results

Qty Item Description Total Weight Tesco Asda Sainsbury's Morrisons*
1x SEASONAL NEW LOOSE POTATOES
0.030kg £0.06 n/a n/a n/a
1x BANANAS LOOSE
0.176kg £0.12 n/a n/a n/a
1x CARROTS LOOSE CLASS 1
0.033kg £0.02 n/a n/a n/a
1x HARIBO MAOAM GIANT STRIPES 60 PCE
- £0.10 £0.10 £0.10 £0.10
1x MAOAM SOUR GIANT STRIPES 15G
- £0.10 £0.10 n/a n/a
1x GIANT NEW REFRESHER CHEW BAR (C)
- £0.10 n/a n/a £0.10
1x BARRATT FLUMPS 12G
- £0.10 £0.10 £0.10 £0.10
1x HARIBO KIDS MIX UP/ STARMIX
- £0.10 £0.10 £0.10 £0.10
2x HARIBO TANGFASTICS P/M 10P
- £0.20:eek: n/a £0.20 £0.20
4x COCA COLA COKE ZERO 24X330ML
- £20.00 n/a n/a £0.96
Tesco comparable total £0.40 £0.50 £20.60
Competitor shop total £0.40 £0.50 £1.56
The difference £0.00 £0.00 £19.04:T:j
the same the same cost less

The bill was stubbornly above £20 though and I thought maybe I haven't scanned all the items and got 10, so I scanned the Haribo Tangfastics (still had in my hand) again. I didn't actually take two packs with me - so paid 20p and got just one pack. Thank goodness those Haribo prices at the competitor were taken down correctly!:rotfl: Morries doesn't have Giant Sour Stripes does it?:rotfl::rotfl:

I did well on these though, managing to make these 8p total between them:

1x SEASONAL NEW LOOSE POTATOES
0.030kg £0.06 n/a n/a n/a
1x BANANAS LOOSE
0.176kg £0.12 n/a n/a n/a
1x CARROTS LOOSE CLASS 1
0.033kg £0.02 n/a n/a n/a

So, with my banana (a bit big:rotfl: - but not as big as the 'mistake' of one I made at Mr A - 13p there:eek::rotfl:), the three items were 20p. Could have had two items at 10p costing 20p, but managed to have three instead. So, averages out at my 10p per filler item anyway even though I paid twice for a single Tangfastics pack.Do you think I ought to go back and claim the Tangfastics pack that I bought but didn't take from the shelf with me? Er, nah, leave it!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::T:T:D:j:j

Many thanks to the OP. Normally, I don't even go for Coke glitches as we don't really use the stuff, but for that amount at this price...:D:D:T

I reckon the price collector was fed up or tired and put the pack size in the price column. Or the data entry bloke who fills the details in on the computer was :rotfl:

Savvybuyer

zippydooda wrote: »

im over thelimit. can i ask if anyone intends to get the coke early in the morning please. my tills update about 4---5 am so good at LEAST till then

What "limit" is this? Some £100 TBG limit?:rotfl::rotfl:
No, I know what you really mean by "limit". You could get some friend who's okay to drive - or... get a taxi:eek::eek:! (Hardly money-saving that last option:rotfl:.)

I'd have thought the Morries price was stuck with now until Monday. So, all over the weekend!:D It does raise an 'interesting' point though. Particularly if 'muggles' buy this at the tills with a shop of more than 10 different items in it, and the bill dropped so dramatically that it becomes widely known to the staff! I can see "something not quite right" being thought and they may well - although it's outside hours for HQ to be there:laugh: - pull the product from the shelves/take it out of the TBG scheme. The thing is, it would seem, the stores have no ability and are powerless to correct the tills - if they couldn't correct it with Rice Krispie squares that weren't matching to a lower price...

We can be sorry for the person who just wants some Coke Zero cans, picks up a pack of 24 at what they think is a good £5 price and just buys that and pays the £5 for it!:rotfl::rotfl:

Or those people, as ever, not quite doing a 10-item shop. These limits are fixed so that many shops, such as top-ups, will not be covered and people won't get deductions on those. However, it may be 'worse' for T that this now falls through the weekend, when many people may be doing larger shops and have a deduction come off for buying 24 pack Coke Zero. I would imagine it is a popular item, in the run to Christmas and people will be buying it. Just as likely to buy Diet Coke or Regular though, not realise, and pay £5 for it:rotfl::rotfl:. It could well sneak past in a very large regular shop (i.e. not one of our ways of shopping shops). I suppose it depends on whether people happen to buy it in which stores and whether it, haphazardly, comes to attention if someone just happened to pick it up and their store drop noticeably and drastically down at the "wrong" till.

I wonder though. Wonder whether the independent agency has contracted to any liability for the loss of money to T caused by their mistaken collection of that price. I know when msm did the APG for A, the system (though powered by msm) was owned by A, so there was no question of msm compensating A for any "glitches". They were (and undoubtedly still are) borne by A itself. This was mentioned at the time of the big 3 for 2 glitch (the Ambrosia triggers thing and all the 32p cereals or whatever they were) and I read somewhere then that msm wouldn't be compensating A for the way the system was programmed to work (or mis-fire, as it did). In the end, they couldn't solve a fundamental way the system worked so had to exclude the promotions entirely from the system and stop comparing (an exclusion that exists to the present day).

fairclaire

Finally my DD has arrived home and I can go to bed and sleep. Since she passed her test I can't go to bed until she's arrived home. She is more of a boy racer than her brother ever was and I worry
She wants a motorbike :eek: I don't think my nerves could take it.

goodnight

Savvybuyer

fairclaire wrote: »

I reckon the price collector was fed up or tired and put the pack size in the price column. Or the data entry bloke who fills the details in on the computer was :rotfl:

And what type of price collector do you imagine might get "fed up" or "tired"? Do you reckon one that... er... perhaps does not have an autism condition?:D:D:laugh:

Clearly, the pack size in the price or else "1p per can" price:D.

Again, if not price collector, then data entry... you would never get me entering an incorrect price into a system. The thing is, I just notice, absolutely obviously, what I have done. I make mistakes, oh yes, but I notice I've put a wrong number in - or hit a wrong key as you do - and backspace and immediately correct it. So you wouldn't get me doing this and you wouldn't want me doing the price collection or entry!:laugh:

Wonder if they'll try and establish who it was that put the wrong information into the system? Serves them right, probably, for job interviewers choosing people that are chatty and can give eye contact instead of those that are demonstrably more suitable for doing a job:rotfl::rotfl: (that perhaps can't put themselves forward in oral communication that well, because it is a communication disorder but one that, arguably, leaves them far more efficient workers, in some areas of work, than almost everyone else, I would put forward the proposition...:D).

This isn't bugbear or grudge thing from me - I've managed, successfully, in the past (maybe by fluke right eye contact:rotfl:) to get a job and hold it for over 15 years. I just do reckon that people on the autism spectrum are accurate, often 100% accurate, and do jobs thoroughly and completely with far fewer mistakes and that this sort of error, clearly, can only be one of you neuro-typicals!!:rotfl::rotfl::A:D

See I did it there - if you came to this post immediately that I posted it, you would have seen I had written "that almost everyone else", simply because I had hit a wrong key whilst typing, again, but that I immediately noticed it on seeing my post posted and have corrected it. I think most people though tend not to notice minor mistakes like these. Obviously, there are proof-readers - and people who don't have autism are also capable of being proof-readers - but I think you have to be a bit autistic if you notice things like this so readily - it's the way information reaches the brain... I see things differently, because they reach my brain this way whereas most people, I suspect, the brain tends not to notice immediately - or not in the same obvious way that it almost 'crashes into me*' (in a good way:D) like this.

*The tiny mistake on the page or screen.

Savvybuyer

Tell you, I go round Morrisons and, while we all get tired and have dips from time to time and then have bright periods, if I've started off, then two hours later, sometimes (it depends on whether it's a big changeover), I am still there, still going and never get tired. It's just one of those things - we can do long sittings sometimes, that many more people, I suspect, would or do find more difficult - if I have had a major assignment to keep writing, when I was in university study in the past, I could be there for 7 hours straight (...and sometimes some of us with Asperger's forget or miss out our tea on occasions:o:o), still writing and amending and cross-referencing and getting sources out. And then we have our tea - phew! - but at a bit later time:o:rotfl::rotfl::cool:.

I never get bored, doing the M collection in the stores - because it is my "interest". Okay - I find boring, drab, dry stuff completely lacking in boredom and, instead, interesting:rotfl:. I don't ever get bored (my father used to ask me, when I was on other interests at home - do you ever stop? Do you ever get bored? Presumably just because he - and, I suspect now, probably most people - would get bored. But the answer is "No". Because I just keep going. And on and on, until it's done). I don't get bored - I've felt, on a rare occasion, a couple of times (in fact probably only about three times in four years) a brief moment of "why am I really doing this?":rotfl: but, most of the time, I don't think that and just keep doing the task, or what is the task.

The thing that actually would "upset" me - "upset" me that is in the sense of put me a little off my track - not seriously annoy me or get me emotional or anything like that - perhaps it would annoy me a bit (although I don't mean it) - is if one of you, or anyone I happened to know from RL, found me and came up to me and started talking to me whilst I was in the middle of the price collecting. Conversation, fine. But it would divert me off my task and disrupt my 'special interest'. And it's such that a disruption is more disruptive to me as it's harder for me to get back to something if I'm interrupted. And it sounds harsh to call people talking to you an "interruption" and as if it's something not welcome or not to be welcomed or not good. I've nothing against social conversation in general. It's good to talk and good to know people and you do need others in your life, for support etc. and other times (it's just that I cope with much less interaction than people generally I think would need). It's just that... well, yes, it would be a flaming nuisance tbh(:rotfl:) and an unwanted interruption for someone to stop me whilst price collecting. It's a serious business this thing:D:D. And, above all, gotta be done right;):).

It's just a little more difficult for me than most people to get back to something from which I am interrupted. I can do it, and I can get back to the thing and be fine - it's just not my natural style and inevitably, although I can do it pretty well, it's not the most ideal thing for me. Ideally, I work best alone and just left to get on with something (for which the rules are clear and there are no grey areas or difficulties requiring any assistance) until it's finished and to complete and 100% perfection.

So - if you do see me...
Actually, don't think I must not be interrupted under any circumstances but, really, I'd welcome you and be fine. (After grumbling to myself incessantly after we'd parted about how much of an interruption it was:rotfl:.) Nevertheless, bear in mind that I don't have much time when I am in M though - I often have enough time to do whatever is necessary for the collection. I am trying to alter it to allow me more time however, because the traffic now is threatening to start impinging on my leaving time from the first store and arrival at the second - so I'm trying to shift the time of day I go there a little and to make it easier (but you don't need to know any of this:rotfl:). Last Wednesday was good - very short quick whizz round and I had an hour and a half extra to play with before my second store:T. (Wish they kept their prices static a bit from that POV - no, actually, wish they'd put everything down in price. Imagine if they did though... the entire store on my list!:eek::eek: I have 'enough' with the small percentage of the total inventory (that's on offer at any one time, plus the SP equivalent regulars etc.):rotfl::rotfl:... but they've not beaten me yet with their changes, even when they've done really big ones:).)

Savvybuyer

Tell you, they nearly came close to beating me on one of their really big changeovers - one of the biggest ones yet - never thought I'd manage to get everything I needed to, but I did, and they almost beat me but didn't quite. It was not the last big change - but the one before I think - that was the biggest I'd had. They haven't floored me yet. I'm ready for anything they throw at me at all:D:D:).

The way it's looking at the moment, the weather is going to be the biggest obstacle I might face. Monday is going to be a quite big changeover (and the week after is going to see some change too - maybe two-thirds of offers ending tomorrow, another third perhaps on 29th November). I would like to go on Monday. I am expecting quite a bit of change and it is going to be more difficult to catch up with it later I feel if I miss it out (this being because there will be more changes later on that remove it further from the current list and increase the amount that I have to change). If the weather does intervene and I miss it however, I'll cope. I'll be absolutely fine.

So, no worries.:) Still don't know why I do it:rotfl::rotfl:. Well, I do, sort of. (And they're all rational and logical reasons, not merely one reason but several, added together and in total. All considered about in advance and thought about - I'm waffling lol:rotfl:.)

It's late and I've posted enough - see what I mean about working on so long? - so, time for bed, definitely, see you later!! And hope the Coke Zero stays good for you.:):)

See you:wave:.

Savvybuyer

It is; the Morries manual price collection - from instore. This could never happen, or at least not this way, with the scannings/automated computer scrapings by T's agencies from a.com and sains.co.uk. Human error:rotfl:.

You'd think though - now they only have brands, it'd be less work for them?!?:huh:
(I can't rule out though that this might be a collection company that collects details of a wider range of M's prices - or supposedly - they'd often miss out fresh veg. in the past - so it doesn't necessarily mean that just the information that is now used by the TBG is all they collect. I suspect T would want to know, for itself, the prices of own brand items in M. All competitors keep a great watch on each other and have a very good idea of what the prices or promotions in the competitors are and what their competition are up to. Except that maybe these inaccuracies - they don't really:rotfl:, or more so the omissions that we have seen in the past from time to time.)

Or, more accurately of course, the Morries manual collection that's done for T, as there is also one that is done for A (or a series of individual ones that are done in different M stores) that is used by the APG and gets its own data. Where specific branded items are available at A, T and M, we can see things that work on the APG but not TBG, and vice versa.

Savvybuyer

What d'you think they'll say about missing out those Giant Sour Stripes at M then?:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Shocking, failure to pick up an item!:D:T
Actually, this could, in theory, work against them too. If people bought 12 of the Giant Sour Stripes on T's own mbuy and they fail to compare. Or bought a mix of twelve of only Giant Sour and any N/A at M sweets. That said, only ten of the same item compare - so, you could get 12 for £1 as long as sticking to same item and end up with T full price vs same full price elsewhere (even therefore one of the ones that are comparing) thus no loss of BG. However, I wouldn't advise people to start paying £1 for some sweets filler:rotfl::rotfl: (in addition to the further 8 different items then required plus the Coke Zero counts as one).

I like the £19.04 figure too. It is just about the right amount, that falls under the £20 and yet is not so far away from it than an extra pack could not be bought and would have to be well under £20 difference deduction without it. I would not like to have had to stick at £17 and then not be able to get another pack as that would exceed the £20. Instead, it is nicely quite close to £20 without exceeding it:T:rotfl::rotfl:.

EDIT: It goes surreal into the minor possibilities of the sweets... for example what about 11 of one and 1 of another? Twelve for £1, whilst 11 becomes 10, plus the one... and hopefully compares full prices against M's 11 for £1 mix and match:rotfl::rotfl:. Obviously, the Giant Sour Stripes would not work. However, it's hardly worth the bother for paying more on the total shop that way! Plus you might have to avoid any further 10p sweets in the same basket, to avoid upsetting things perhaps, I don't know, maybe thinking about it (but not too deeply!, I don't need to:rotfl:) you wouldn't - and so get your fillers from somewhere else.

"Up to 10 comparisons will be made on a specific Comparable Branded Grocery Product. If more than 10 of the same product are purchased in one transaction, we reserve the right to make comparisons in relation to the first 10 products only."
https://secure.tesco.com/BrandGuarantee/TermsConditions

So they could, at their discretion, decide to compare the whole lot?:huh:

Savvybuyer

harryhfp wrote: »

Found some room in the freezer then?

Yes, unfortunately other people in the house insisted on having twice as much for tea as what they really needed:mad::mad::rotfl:. (Having had three yogurts earlier as well:eek::rotfl::p.) I caved into them (sometimes has to be done;)), 'just this time'. So we ended up using a complete pack:eek: of Chicken Steaks that were taking up room in the freezer!(:rotfl:) Not money-saving on those - I keep saying, have just one each for me and you and then the pack will last twice as long! It's true though - we're out again buying more Chicken Steaks and paying £1.50 or £1.20 or whatever soon again when they could have given an extra meal in another week's time. But the Chicken Steaks were nice:rotfl::).

All's well though - my 13p banana I bought from A was actually cheaper than the 12p one I had to buy from T in order to get really cheap packs of you know what that we all really wanted:D. Fiddly nuisances:rotfl: (these supermarket T&Cs:rotfl:). What an annoying, fiddly shop that just takes us more space and time of their SS rather than just letting us take 4 packs of Coke Zero for 96p (or even £1.87 isn't 'bad'!):D.

Savvybuyer

bubbs wrote: »

Glitch?

Coke Zero 24 pack 44p in Tesco (Brand Match rules to buy 10 different items)
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/coke-zero-24-pack-44p-tesco-brand-match-rules-buy-10-different-items-2327687#post26520590

Thank you bubbs. Sorry I didn't see your OP first, and saw aau1's - so thanked him first. And thanked both of you now.:)

To answer your question(:rotfl:), yes, I think it might just be a bit of a glitch. Just a little bit don'tcha reckon?:D:rotfl:

Actually just thinking about how T is currently on an offer price of £5 for these. £5 for 24 is an offer isn't it? Thus how it has helped us that the price in T is lower than say regular £10 and therefore allowed us to buy more per shop within the maximum limits of the deduction. Wondering why OP got £18.24 - obviously must have bought other items that lost some of the full discount. And her friend who probably paid nearly £4 for one of their packs:rotfl::eek:. Wondering why she bought 4 boxes in the first place - was that really what she was going to buy anyway? - if she didn't already know of the glitch:think:. Anyway, excellent that she posted!

From hotukdeals:

"Great deal - getting it sounds a bit complicated though[...]" - :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

"What do you need to show Tesco to prove its cheaper elsewhere? And where is it cheaper?" - Not everybody gets it obviously.

"Yep, 1 bottle of vodka, a bottle of JD, 4 pack of glasses, ice, lime, some straws, a pizza, chips, dips & Ben & Jerry's.........sorted." - :wall::wall: Why go to T and buy extra items of that nature from them that you wouldn't have bought at all if you hadn't gone for the Coke? It's like - unnecessary impulse buying on top:rotfl::rotfl::eek::rotfl:!

Probably risk losing some pounds off their deduction if they buy the wrong vodka - or Ben & Jerry's (£2.24 T, £3.97 M:eek: - I did have to look that up using msm, which itself should tell you something;)).