Category Archives: Shopping

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Did you know that if you try and buy more than 10 of one item from Tesco online that it is classed as wholesale and they stop you? Current consumption of Kick (the cheap version of Red Bull) is just over 2 litres a day so we actually have to to buy it from the store. And yes I can buy more than 10 there.

GAME, Peter Lewis and some small print.

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On 22/04/2010 I got this in an email:

Dear Customer,

This email is to inform you that we have made some changes to our Terms and Conditions.

Before you make your next purchase, we recommend that you read them carefully.

http://www.game.co.uk/Help/~h3917/Terms-And-Conditions/

I sent:

It’s lots of small print though and how do I easily find the difference?

Could you send me the previous version so I can compare and see just what has changed for me please?
Thanks,

and now I get the reply:

Thank you for your email.

Apologies for the delayed response.

I am afraid that as our ‘T&C’s’ have been updated, we do not have a copy of the previous terms and conditions as there is no need to keep any record of them. It is only a few minor points that have been amended.

Sorry but I am unable to supply you with this information.

If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

So, when I reply saying “Well actually the item I bought in 2008 is now faulty and according to the copy of the T&C’s I kept and which apply to my purchase I can have a full refund, a 4 week holiday at your expense and a new house” don’t you think they’d suddenly find them? So why not send them to me? And ‘a few minor points‘? How can a legal contract have a few minor points?

A phone

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Wanted a new mobile. The Orange phone packages were expensive so looking around Vodafone seemed to fit what I wanted. Placed an order online and got the email saying the phone would be with me soon, they’d send an email when it was despatched. It was close to 5pm. Next day no email, no phone. Next day no email no phone. Moments after 5pm I rang and was told I would have to ring the warehouse. It shut at 5pm though. Next day (that’s today) I ring them up. They are out of stock but are getting some in today. Great I say because I wanted it by Saturday. Can’t get it to me that quick though – it has to be Monday. They don’t deliver at weekends. So they let me buy something that is out of stock, they do not work weekends. I cancel the order.
I phone T-Mobile. They also have what I want (it was better actually) and I get through the credit check. (Moments after this Jacqui gets a call from the bank. The 2 credit checks have set off alarms on our account because we never apply for credit anywhere. Anyway..) The woman on the phone then says I have to answer 2 questions from my credit record because I am not there in front of her/in a shop. I check I can ask Jacqui as I head downstairs and am told that’s okay. I forget the first question but my answer was quick and correct. Then she says that there is a home shopping catalogue on the account and in what year did I make the first purchase. Jacqui knows masses about our finances, I know nothing but this is a total non-event to ask about. I have the choice of 4 different years. I say I am guessing and I say the second choice. It’s wrong. The woman on the phone apologises, gives me the credit check reference number and says if I go into a store I will not need to answer those questions.
In the city I walk into the T-Mobile store with plastic cards, passport, utility bill. I am told I have to answer exactly the same questions. I say I was told I would not have to but this is the manager telling me I must. I get the year wrong again. She tells me I cannot try again for 3 months at T-Mobile. She tries to sell me a phone that does not need such a check. Screw that.
Wandering back to the car park I pass an O2 store. I remember that not only are they more than I want to pay but that another credit check will also set off alarms probably. Skip past there. Vodafone store appears and despite their incompetence previously I walk in. Ask for the phone. Deputy Manager says No, sorry, sold the last one an hour ago. One of the assistants – as I am almost outside – says No, we have 2 over there…. and I get to buy the contract phone I wanted.

Nonsense.

orange.co.uk in Leicester

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Walk into any Orange mobile phone shop.
Buy a phone
At the till the sales person will open the box and insert the SIM. They say they are “setting the phone up”.
You pay.
On leaving the shop turn around and walk straight back to the same person. Say you have changed your mind, that you want a refund.
He will say you cannot because the box is opened.
True.

Never buy anything at all from them and certainly not toward xmas because the ability to change it does not exist.

And the Orange shop at Fosse Park in Leicester? Stay away. That’s one place for this scam, this rip-off, this theft, this con.

Asda management choose not to read

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We shop weekly and for the last few years it’s been at Asda. But over the months they are increasingly having promotions which mean there are large displays jutting out into the main aisles. They also have those promotions at the end of the ailses but these are in the actual aisle. They significantly narrow the aisle exit. (The widest aisle? The beer one). Anyway, the frustration level has got too high recently. A wheelchair trolley is pretty wide, has a larger turning circle. I can manouvre it without a problem but with these obstacles it makes getting around other people impossible. We have to wait while some idiot hangs their trolley across the aisle while reading a label on the other. Battering through – which I have done – J doesn’t like. Being abusive just loud enough to know they are being sworn at but will be unsure what I said has J worrying we’ll be launched from the store. Not that I’m sweetness and light.
So we have Corporate policy that says SELL! (which reduces space) and moronic users (which reduces the in-store collective IQ). The sum of that is a decision to probably not use there again. Sure Tesco has it’s share of knuckle draggers but at least the aisles are wider. Except for the complete idiots who stop at the top or bottom of the escalator and wonder where they are going. They’ve had the whole moving journey to decide that frigging detail ffs.
Back to Asda. I used their contact form to tell them about the space and a wheelchair. I was really nice – I know this because J said so. I said their staff were excellent (which they are), that I know customers are an issue which they cannot solve (true) and that it is most obviously company-wide promotions to sell whatever that week’s product is. I said that this was the problem, that this was difficult for wheelchair users, that the result will be less shopping there. And I said the staff were wonderful. Yes, I said it twice because it’s true.
The email back from Asda:

I’ve now passed your complaint onto the store management team so they are aware of your complaint and can prevent this from happening in the future. All colleagues at the store will be spoken too & re-briefed on policies, procedures and the importance of delivering legendary customer service as customers are the most important part of our business.

Since when does that address what I wrote? The store manager can hardly stop the promotions and the “colleagues” are not the problem. Why batter the staff when I’ve praised them twice? Talk about avoiding the damn issue. And that non-reply makes me even more likely to avoid Asda. And why try to reply when they didn’t read the first?

And the email from Lucy?

Please do not reply to this email. This is not a monitored inbox and you may not receive a reply.

That says a lot.

Update:
The manager of the Asda we used called me. I told him his staff were wonderful more than once, he apologised for the navigation problems and I emphasised that I thought it was from Head Office that they do things etc, was not his fault. And he apologised. He sounded a really nice guy and I genuinely hope he was not offended but it was still a Corporate decision and he did not say it was not – because he couldn’t. But then he didn’t say it was – because he couldn’t. I’d have done exactly the same thing, have done. Asda Corporate need to get the clue, not the people working hard in the stores.

Enduring PCW again.

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So the last of the daytime shopping has been done. Two midnight trips left. After much hunting for something we wanted to get the girls it came down to one place and one place only – PC World. I did the payment online, checked that it really really was definitely there. Went in.
Girl at the desk confirmed the model – there are 2, and I know precisely the one I wanted. She seemed to have clue. She takes a note to a muppet – who promptly goes to the back to presumably find something broken to shove in the box. He brings the items out. Wrong model. The boxes have obviously been opened – he claimed they were brand new, just arrived, not even been checked. I make a big deal out of checking the boxes, the models. The muppet takes them back. I pay at the till and muppet returns. This time the boxes are pristine. Not a crease on the opening part. In the car I check and the items appear to be perfectly wrapped inside. So thankfully this time PC World didn’t get to sell me a dead item.

I hate, loathe and detest the place for any number of reasons and I tried really hard to need to not go there, but this time I had to. There was no other option. Strangely, yesterday when passing I popped in and said “Do you have any of these” and gave him a full description. He said no, never heard of them. And yet they sell them. So there’s one lazy muppet already.

Anyway, the girls should be happy and yes I’ll be keeping every single bit of the wrapping, even the cable ties.

Back to Tesco – once

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Early evening last night I realised that Metroid 3 for the Wii was out. And I had forgotten (see, I get so wrapped up in work!) and I said to J that tomorrow I would be going town to buy it. I then tuned back into work mode.
Some years ago I read a book called “Why men don’t listen and women can’t read maps‘. This really is an amazing book. So much so that if you see it, buy it. Just get it. I promise you will not feel the money is wasted. It has saved so many arguments and given us (this includes my daughters) so much insight into how we (Man/Woman) operate that the book is gold. One such thing explained is called “The butter is in the fridge”. I will ask where something is and I’ll be told (for instance) it’s in the fridge. I’ll look and say it’s not there. I’ll be told that yes, it is and I should look properly. Again I look and yet again I state categorically that the item is not, repeat not, in the fridge. As this point one of the ladies in the house will open the fridge in front of me and take out the item – which could well have been on the front of a shelf. This used to irritate them hugely. “Are you blind or what” (No) “Why don’t you look properly?” (I did!) “You just wanted to annoy me by making me get up and come this way to get it for you didn’t you” (No, I really don’t need the grief) and this book explains that this is typical Man behaviour. It’s not my fault. It’s The Way It Is.
Now J used to come in from work and would then rabbit on and on and on about her day, who did what, when they did it, what someone didn’t do, what was said to who about who etc etc. Used to drive me nuts – every day this happened and I never did this. Work was work, it happened elsewhere and stayed elsewhere. In the end when she walked in, I tuned out. Later she could say “Remember I told you..” to which I would have to reply “Yes of course my dear!….” though she eventually realised I was not listening and that irritated her. Another thing that still drives me nuts is ‘Woman Speak”. Example: Man is out and he damages the car. He enters the house and says “I damaged the car, bloody idiots on the road, if I could catch him, it’ll cost me a packet”. This succinctly conveys that the car is damaged, it was not his fault, he is angry at the other person and he didn’t want to have to spend the money. Now, here is the Woman version: She enters the house, “You’ll never guess what happened. I’d just come out of the shop and – did I say I met so-and-so in there? haven’t seen her for ages. Well she’s dumped the guy she was with and she’s hooked up with that guy you used to play football with – why don’t you play any more? You really should you know – anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I wish you would out the mirror back as I like it in the car after you have used it. I got to the car ……” and sometime later she mentions that the car hit something. When J did this it used to really drive me crackers. Inside of me there would be a little person screaming “Get to the point dammit!!”. But because of that book I know understand that this is a Woman thing and She Cannot Help It. So I take deep breaths. I tried saying “Yes yes but what’s the end of this? What’s the point” Where is the result?” to which she would say “No, you won’t understand, you need to know all this”. Like hell I did.
Back to the droning on she used to do when she came back from work. The book mentioned trigger words that would cause the Man to stop ignoring and immediately tune in. Like when in a room someone whispers your name. We worked out that I had at least one trigger word – sex. If J said that I was all ears. This was very effective. No matter how tuned in to the task I was, the mention of that word get her attention. It was that effective that the girls would use that word when I seemed to be ignoring them – which I wasn’t, it was a tuning thing. Metroid. So I’d said to J that I’d be going town and I was soon back reading, replying and fixing. At some point while talking to P (who has just had her hair straightened and she looks fab) J said “Tesco”. I have no idea why but that word tuned me back in. I leant back to look around the corner and said that it was open 24 hours and that we should go there right now because they sell Wii games. This was about 10pm. I then tuned back into work again thinking my words would be useless. But P then said she needed some “hair stuff” and J wanted some Jelly babies. So off we went.
Tesco is a sane place at 11:15pm. Hardly anyone around, no rushing, no distractions, security are too busy watching some drunk lads coming into buy beer and I could actually go in straight lines between the parts of the store I needed. Very nice. Last year we started shopping in the very late/early hours because of this. Saves so much hassle. So I bought Metroid, P got hair bobbles and bread to take to feed the ducks today and J got her Jelly babies.

(I have News 24 streaming on the PC. Has anyone noticed they are using a sample of Bejewelled music in the summaries?)

Go buy that book. And I will hope that Tesco has not replaced sex in my life.

Security, a letterbox and a distraction

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All in a single trip to Tesco. I look fairly reasonable these days. Gone is the shaved head, gone are the facial piercings, gone is most of the attitude I used to carry with me. So for the second week running being followed around Tesco by Security was annoying. Watched while checking out the video games, while in the toiletries section, watched as I deliberately went back through the store to see if I was being watched. Going to the tills and finding 1 security guy quite close, another a couple of lines away. Noticing too that the lady at the till caught the eye of the guard.
I accidentally bumped the guy unloading his stuff onto the conveyor. He turns around and says that there are a lot of letterboxes around today. I had no clue what he was on about as I briefly glanced around. He can tell that I’m lost, so he nods in a direction and says “black letterboxes”. I then see what the fool is on about – some ladies are wearing a niqab. (Apologies for the incorrect spelling). I started ignoring him – I have no place for garbage like that. His 2 kids ask him about these ladies. He tells them to never ever ever talk to them or touch them, that they are really wrong, that they’ll mess with their heads. Nice dad they don’t have.
Back at the car I have the boot open while loading stuff in. Because the wheelchair is in there I also have the side door open. 2 open doors, 1 trolley full of shopping. A girl – about 12 I think – comes through the cars on the other side of the carpark road.
“Hey mister, are yer gay?”
“What?”
“Are yer gay? Me mate says yer gay” and she points down the carpark behind me. She’s still walking toward me and has not stopped actually looking at me, even while pointing.
“No I’m not”
“Well he says yer gay so ya must be gay”. She’s still pointing and she walks right past me – again she never broke her stare at me. She sends a volley of abuse at me once safely past me.
I am totally certain that if I had turned and looked then part of the shopping would have been grabbed.

Tesco at Beaumont Leys – all the reasons you need to buy online.