Tesco Ignoring Complaints On Out Of Date Food And Damaged Goods In Home Delivery

Lady_K

Hi suekjw

My driver tells me to ring up if the substitutions are not ok and is always in too much of a hurry to hang around whilst I look through anyway. Plus the fact that I have always stated exactly what I did and didn't want in substitutions and put or dont sub if none so if they follwed the edit notes I should be able to trust the substitutions anyway but as I said they just ignore them. If Asda delivered in my area I'd try them

sweetnest

This is happening to me right now. I had my shopping delivered last Thursday, on saturday i went to use my chicken fillets and on opening they stunk. Looked at the date and the use before date was on the friday. Had to rush to sainsburys as i was in the middle of making a curry !!!

I emailed tescos which took 6 days for a reply, this is what it said...





Thank you for your email.

I was concerned to learn that the expiry date was short on some of the products you received, and I apologise for the inconvenience caused.

In order to offer the best service possible for our customers, our products are constantly replenished and ordered just in time for optimum freshness. This also helps to keep excess stock to a minimum. Types of products such as Organic, Instore Bakery, Morning Goods, Fresh Produce (Strawberries, etc) and cream cakes only have 1-2 days shelf life.

Our personal shoppers are trained to select the longest date codes available and it may be that, at the time your order was picked, the items you received were the only goods available.

I will inform our Home Shopping Manager of this matter. If it is felt necessary, this will be taken up as a training issue.

It is always disappointing when a customer is unhappy with any aspect of our service and I would like to thank you for letting us know.




No offer of refunding my money or anything (they cost £4.30)



Needless to say i have emailed them again asking for my £4.30 back

suekjw

I've never had that problem. I would suggest asking for the delivery list fist though so you can check substitutions. They can accept them, obviously because my drivers do (and I have had two separate stores deliver to this address). I suspect your store is just being difficult. My current store actually employs someone PT to put refunds back on cards!

Phone (sorry to suggest that!) CS and ask them what their policy is re subs you don't want.

Sue

Twopints

juno wrote:

That's only for past the use by date. Most items have a best before date, and it isn't illegal to sell those items later.

Agreed; that's what the quote referred to, use-by dates.

But:What do use by and best before dates mean?
Best before are used on food with a long shelf life (for example, biscuits) and are for guidance only. A use by date is used on foods with a short shelf life (for example, packaged sandwiches). It is illegal to sell food after its use-by date.

digp

the local tescos here sells items at x % off, but they do not make it clear that the item of food is expiring that same day! tescos are a bunch of mumpties.

MarkyMarkD

Why do you expect them to be reduced, digp?

Our local Co-op never reduces anything until the best before/use by date - why should they, if they expect to sell it on that date which is still legal?

The best before/use by date is easy to read - it's the buyer's responsibility to check it's far enough away to satisfy their requirements. The retailer's only requirement is to sell food which is legal and that includes food which has a best before date of today.

bonvonnie

if i've ever had any problems with my Tescos.com delivery, i just ring them up staright away, might cost u a local call in monies, but at least u get a rapid reply, instead of waiting for an email reply.

i had some mushrooms and trifle with the delivery date on, as the use by, but i didnt do anything about them.

Was going to call them up once and complain about whoever packed/bagged my order, as i'd order 2 packets of fresh meat, and if you were to go shopping you'd place them in the same bag, as its raw meat.
but nope, i have the chicken packed with my baby yogurts, and the fresh pork, in a bag with the salad ??!! dont think they would have done anything if i'd have complained anyway.

Its the Tesco store about 12miles away from my house that picks the deliveries, as I've seen them doing the homw shops, and they certained dont pick you the items with the longest shelf life, usually the items on top.

greenwich

My experience of Tesco's delivery service is that 1 out of every 5 items gets substituted and the goods are often nearly off. I have stopped using them now. I now use Ocado. They are more expensive but they deliver what you order and give an immediate refund if something gets damaged in transit. In fact we usually get a phone call or letter of apology afterwards as well.

TigerAngel11

Internet grocery shopping has potential for so many problems across the board - and Tesco isn't the only company who has problems - simply because you cannot pick out what's available: many companies find substitutes without checking and aim to get what's on your list without thinking about aspects that you would think of, such as the use-by date - if you were in a supermarket on, for example, Wednesday and wanted some chicken for Saturday, but all the use-by dates were for Friday, you would probably leave it and either go to another supermarket or try again later in the week. The internet shopping people don't know you want your chicken for Saturday, so they don't think about it.

Best-before dates simply mean that the product is at its best before that date and may not taste so good after that date, but won't harm you. Use-by dates mean that the food may not be safe to eat after that date (although plenty of people eat things like yoghurts after the use-by date with no ill effects).

Damaged and out of date goods are not saved for internet deliveries - if the products are damaged/spoilt, they are either thrown away or reduced and sold instore and have no connection to the internet delivery service.

I have not ordered any groceries from Tesco online, but I have to say that I have found their customer services excellent: I once bought a CD for a Christmas present and was charged at £11.99 when the price on the shelf said £9.99. I pointed this out, expecting to get just the £2 refunded, but got the whole £11.99 back and got to keep the CD. :-) They've also been great with the few other little problems we've had over the years.

Zaphod_Beblebrocks

I loathe Tesco's local store but do my shopping online with them using the vouchers from MSE - usually means free delivery,the idea of someone else battling the hiardes for me and delivering to the door free is great, never had a problem and once you have done a couple of shops you can get your weeks shopping done in 5 mins...surely one for timesaving expert!