Help! Tesco coupon policy? I've been banned!

barmonkey

the thing that gets my back up is the "its company policy" excuse from the managers in tescos.

i live about 300 yards from the soon to be (if plans are accepted) 4th biggest tesco in england, and about 100 yards from an express shop, so tesco get a lot of my money, and as im on the road a lot its very easy to nip into tesco and get lunch on my clubcard plus.

over the last few years i have comlained about a few thing.

i complained about the lack of policing of the disabled and parent parking spaces, i was told it was company policy not to stop anyone parking in these spaces.....this is rubbish as i know of at least 2 tesco stores who do this and i have even seen clamps put on cars that were parked in a disabled bay.

i asked once why they do not serve mushrooms with the breakfast in the cafe, i was told it was company policy that all tesco cafe serve the same food.
when i pointed out that id had mushrooms 2 days befor in a tesco less than 15 miles away i was told i was mistaken.

of course i have also complained about the coupon policy, after using a internet coupon on friday, i was told on monday that they did not and have never taken self printed internet coupons because its company policy not to.

i tryed to get cash back from my clubcard plus in an express in exeter and was told that due to company policy express shops do not give cashback. 45 mins later i got my money from another express on the other side of town.


so i really think more training is in order and a blanket company policy to cover all shops

wallace_3

Jon_C wrote:

A company's head office is superior to any and all of its snottery managers who might make up their own rules on coupon use because they are on some power trip

As other people have already pointed out, a Tesco store manager is ultimately in authority for what does or does not happen in their store. If they feel the guidelines issued by head office do not suit them, they can ignore them. In turn, checkout managers or customer service assistants are ultimately responsible to the store manager, and will do as they are instructed. In my opinion, this is a big reason why there is such confusion and there is no 100% definitive policy throughout the country.

Jon_C wrote:

a more pertinent question might be whether, as a previous poster mentioned, Tesco itself is committing fraud by asking product manufacturers to remunerate it for accepting coupons against goods it has not actually sold.

Two people have already said that a large number of coupons are not redeemed because it is not worth the time it would take to process them. And for every coupon Tesco does redeem, they probably sold another 10 units whereby the customer didn't use a coupon. The suppliers know how many units they have sold to Tesco, so they would be able to tell if Tesco present a number of coupons greater than the actual number of products they had in the first place.

Jon_C wrote:

the card itself is just a piece of plastic with no intrinsic value and the manager could have just closed Igloo's account instead of demanding it back.

Igloo refused to give her personal details or the Clubcard number - how is the manager supposed to close an account if he does not know any details for it?

Jon_C wrote:

The police should at least have a word with the two staff members (and it sounds like they are interested in doing so, Igloo - but you must make a formal complaint before they can).

There is nothing the police can do - igloo did not receive any injuries (which would be evidence), so it's her word against however many members of staff were also in the room. Presumably there is no independant witness, and I doubt there is a CCTV camera in a private office.

ROCKINGHAM

Slightly off track here - but I seem to remember that Sainsburys were taken to task about coupon acceptance in the past - hence they do not accept them unless item is purchased. I know some MSErs have mangaged to have some accepted recently but as a general rule its a No Go with them.

Mumstheword

Hi Wallace,

If the manufacturers who issue vouchers state that the store must only accept the voucher as part of the purchase of that product, then is it not fraudulent for tesco to accept it for something else, then pretend it was taken for one of the actual products that they sold to someone else without a voucher?

I'm happy for them to do this, as it works in my favour, but for them to then accuse someone else of fraud is a bit rich! pots and kettles, lol!

ben500

wallace wrote:

As other people have already pointed out, a Tesco store manager is ultimately in authority for what does or does not happen in their store. If they feel the guidelines issued by head office do not suit them, they can ignore them. In turn, checkout managers or customer service assistants are ultimately responsible to the store manager, and will do as they are instructed. In my opinion, this is a big reason why there is such confusion and there is no 100% definitive policy throughout the country.

Just because it has been said doesn't make it fact. I think you will find that the average Tesco store manager needs to make a telephone call to head office just to get permission to go to the toilet and has no authority whatsoever to overule head office policy. !!



Two people have already said that a large number of coupons are not redeemed because it is not worth the time it would take to process them. And for every coupon Tesco does redeem, they probably sold another 10 units whereby the customer didn't use a coupon. The suppliers know how many units they have sold to Tesco, so they would be able to tell if Tesco present a number of coupons greater than the actual number of products they had in the first place.

again just because two people have said it doesn't make it fact. Tesco most certainly do redeem the coupons, you may have incidences where managers "right off" the value of some or all of thier coupons again this would be done outside their remit as a store manager and in contravention of company policy.

Igloo refused to give her personal details or the Clubcard number - how is the manager supposed to close an account if he does not know any details for it?

Simply trot off to the till she just came from and get the details from there not rocket science I'm sure you will agree


There is nothing the police can do - igloo did not receive any injuries (which would be evidence), so it's her word against however many members of staff were also in the room. Presumably there is no independant witness, and I doubt there is a CCTV camera in a private office.

It is not a qualification of unlawfull detainment that you have to beat someone to a pulp, merely prevent them from leaving a verbal refusal from two males to a female with children in tow would certainly satisfy such a claim and there is every likliehood that this room would have cctv {not that it's even needed to substantiate the claim} as it is most likely used under normal circumstances to house would be shoplifters and card passers and frequently such people are left unattended in these situations and observed remotely to see if they try to dispose of any incriminating material. No independant witnesses would be required as to the best of my knowledge in this particular incident Tesco are not denying having detained Igloo

Like I have stated many times before what we are talking about here is a manager, just another guy doing another job with no special powers whatsoever and acting well outside the law and if Igloo so chooses to pursue it the police will have no choice but to investigate, they might not particularly want to because in these types of situations what usually happens is they expend a lot of manpower the supermarket crumbles in its defence and offers settlement out of court to avoid publicity and ensure it can continue to carry out the same practices up and down the country until someone else has the gumption to stand up to them at which point the simply follow the whole procedure again.

santana-mx3

thepearce wrote:

I'd gone on the hunt for the BE beef and managed to find about 20 (I didn't clear them out). ...Customer services (when explaining bulk buy) did state that they would happily do a special order for me. I took them up on that a few days later. A few days after that I went back to that same store, and bought over 1,000 of the damn things I even went through the 10 items or less queue with the cage of beef in tow.

Wow. Are you serious? So do you have a catering business or are you throwing a barbie for the whole MSE forum? BTW, couldn't you have had them delivered?

wallace_3

ben500 wrote:

Just because it has been said doesn't make it fact. I think you will find that the average Tesco store manager needs to make a telephone call to head office just to get permission to go to the toilet and has no authority whatsoever to overule head office policy. !!

The two people I refer to stated from their own experience that Tesco do not redeem all the vouchers they accept.

You claim to have a lot of knowledge about Tesco yet you don't say how you have come by this knowledge. For example, you claim a store manager has no authority to over-rule head office. How do you know this for sure?

My local store takes over a million pounds a week through the checkouts. Tesco wont want any Tom, !!!!!! or Harry in charge of such a large operation and will employ a manager who can be trusted to make important decissions by himself.

(Indeed many job requirements require someone who has the ability to think for themselves and not require constant supervision).

wallace_3

Mumstheword wrote:

Hi Wallace,

If the manufacturers who issue vouchers state that the store must only accept the voucher as part of the purchase of that product, then is it not fraudulent for tesco to accept it for something else, then pretend it was taken for one of the actual products that they sold to someone else without a voucher?

I'm happy for them to do this, as it works in my favour, but for them to then accuse someone else of fraud is a bit rich! pots and kettles, lol!

The coupon terms are most likely to cover the supplier in case the coupon is presented in a small corner shop, in which case the supplier may well insist the coupon has to be used correctly. But in the case of Tesco, I suspect the suppliers have aggreements and understandings.

For all we know, Tesco may well have an agreement with it suppliers whereby they are happy for Tesco to take the vouchers against other products, in return for a more prominent position on the shelf.

thepearce

santana-mx3 wrote:

Wow. Are you serious? So do you have a catering business or are you throwing a barbie for the whole MSE forum? BTW, couldn't you have had them delivered?

Yep, I ordered 1,140 and 1,104 turned up. I gave them all away, to local homeless hostels and the salvation army, who were really grateful.

They would not deliver them as it was a store special order, not online. In the end I only had to make one trip to a hostel in another town as I met, as planned, a guy who works for the council. He took all the beef I hadn't loaded up in his van for distribution to the local hostels. He also had two chest freezers to store them.

Martin has asked me to write up my little episode, so I will do that soon. It took some phoning around to donate all that beef but was very simple on the day. I should point out that I'm not the only one to donate like this - bylromarha for one has done some of this, and I she gave me some advice on who to call etc.

thepearce

...and the seemingly eternal problems with redeeming coupons rumbles on. yesterday I thought I had finally cracked it. I called HO who spoke ot the store and I went shopping and used some coupons.

Today, I wanted some things from a different local store......who have a different idea of any policy. Cue a "discussion", a call to HO, and more frustration. Just waiting for a call from a manager at HO CS.

I really hope they don't change their tune from yesterday. I was quite calm when putting my idea of policy today, but for some reason these discussions really infuriate the staff it seems to me.