To be a little disappointed with Ocado’s response

[Ocado100]

I love a particular brand of kimchi Ocado stocks. It’s £5.45 for a small jar, so a real treat. So I ordered 5 jars. They arrive, ocado man leaves, I open bag in kitchen and all jars have lids loose and kimchi oozing. As I pick up one, a hairline fracture in the glass causes the jar to sort of break apart in my hand and kimchi falls on my new (7 week old) carpet.

For anyone who doesn’t know kimchi, it’s potent red. I cleaned it immediately but outline remains (sounds daft but the new carpet was a really big deal for me and it’s killing me when I see the stain!!). All had to be binned obviously.

I ring Ocado, they say they will refund the order, give me £10 voucher and they will refer the carpet damage (I sent pics) to management.
I made a new order using the £10 voucher for the next day. It arrives and when it arrives the Ocado delivery man explains all lids are off and no point me accepting the delivery (pic attached). Pricing unquestionably that fault with product.

So all sent back and refunded.

Ocado asked for a carpet clean quote. I had a guy around and he’s quoted £100 for carpet clean - it’s a large room and leads on to hallway with no break, with stain treatment.

Ocado have come back and offered £100 in vouchers. I asked for cash instead but they have said no.

I’m a little disappointed. I don’t want to shop at Ocado again! It’s only for my kimchi treat every now and then - and really, I’ll just source them elsewhere. So now I have £100 in vouchers but the carpet clean man isn’t going to accept vouchers in payment! So I will be out of pocket.

What do you think? Suck it up and I’m being unreasonable. Or pursue? I’m not at all grabby. It just seems a little unfair but willing to be told I’m Being Unreasonable!

I think £100 vouchers is very generous of them.

The point is she doesn't want to shop with Ocado anymore so the vouchers aren't useful, and she needs to pay the carpet man £100 in real money.

I'd escalate it, explain the vouchers are worthless to you, state clearly the outcome you're looking for eg £100, or they sort the carpet cleaning. Don't hire a rug doctor, they wreck carpets.

I don't think it's generous at all.
They're trying their luck - their faulty product has damaged your carpet and if you want the money in cash that's what they should be providing.I would go higher up in the company and speak to trading standards.

A similar thing happened to me - but someone had packed something heavy on top of a pot of cream and it leaked all over my rug. They paid for that to be cleaned (in cash not vouchers). I now get them to take the shopping to the back door and straight onto the tiled surface. I probably get a leaky item every 20 deliveries or so.

I think it’s mean (or lazy perhaps) of them to insist on vouchers rather than cash. £100 doesn’t go as far on Ocado as it would in, say, ASDA, so technically you could be out of pocket if you usually do your food shopping in a more budget shop. If they are admitting fault then why try and fudge the issue with vouchers? They should be giving the cash. As it is, they are trying to save a bit of £, as the vouchers will be cheaper for them.

I’d be unhappy too, OP, they have caused you a problem but want to scrimp on its resolution. Not the action of a company that really values its customers.

Ocado is too expensive for me generally. £100 would get me so much more for where I usually shop. The kimchi is a quarterly treat because I love it so!

But yes - just looks like I’ll put it towards groceries. The children will be happy!

Why would you go from the kitchen into a room to open leaking jars?

I’d be happy for them to arrange a carpet clean and pay directly! I don’t want to pocket anything. I’d just like the damage rectified

You have a carpet in your kitchen? That should be illegal

You have a carpet in your kitchen? That should be illegal

What should be illegal is not reading a thread! And a short one at that!

I’d just like the damage rectified

The damage that you did...

Lol poor OP. I think I’d go back to Ocado and say you don’t have the cash to pay for the clean so vouchers are no good

Just seen it's got 20% off when I googled to see what kimchi is

If you had any idea how many people "try it on" with retailers, you would realise you have a good response.... I run a business. People are always trying to get money back or money off or a free item for nothing. They scream and shout down the phone at my staff, a very few are genuine.

I wouldn't accept that and would escalate this. Morrisons delivered leaking bleach once that ruined my hall rug. They gave me proper cash to replace it with.

I think you were very lucky they gave 100 in vouchers as you've been careless.

Don't be grabby.

Sell the vouchers for face value?

That only works if OP has a family member or friend who is about to immediately spend £100 or more with Ocado and also wants to be kind.

The basic premise of re-selling vouchers - which is asking people to exchange Bank of England gift vouchers, which can be spent absolutely anywhere, for vouchers which are limited to just one single shop - is that you give people a hefty discount on the face value; otherwise, what on earth is in it for the buyer? As well as limiting themselves to just one shop, the buyer is also running the risk that the vouchers might turn out to have expired, be stolen or be counterfeits that you've knocked up at home. Who in their right mind would hand over £100 of hard cash in exchange for £100 of vouchers unless they really wanted to help out a close friend/family member?

Op, can we see the picture of the damaged carpet which is NOT in your kitchen? In the photos you e already posted you're outside. I'm not entirely sure why you took it inside! Why not just give it back to the delivery driver in the first place?
If it's a new carpet, cleaning it in one area should not mean the whole lot needs cleaning.. your carpet cleaning contact is having you on! Especially if the stain is on a step. In fact, you'll probably have some off cuts so should get the fitters back to replace that bit.

Also, I'd buy £100 of Ocado vouchers for a 10% reduction cash!

This thread is amazing.

And Ocado are amazingly generous.

YANBU but this is AIBU, so even if the delivery man had come into your house and started throwing jars of kimchi about, there would still be some posters saying that it was your own fault Or not RTFT and asking why you'd been throwing kimchi at the delivery driver.

I would go back to them and say that vouchers aren't acceptable recompense and that you would like cash. Say you're happy to provide them with the invoice if they want.

The issue happened as a result of faulty product/packing - contact them again and tell them you are happy to provide receipts for the cleaning service to confirm actual price but you cannot use vouchers to have your carpet cleaned.

Picking up a jar which is so faulty it falls apart is not carelessness.

I've had issues with Ocado on deliveries - their delivery staff are lovely but the bags tend to be packed with all the skill of the average three year old. I've had eggs under tins, packs of salad squashed under heavy goods, cracked cartons etc. They sell some items hard to get elsewhere but I don't use them much due to the poor packing.

Picking up a jar which is so faulty it falls apart is not carelessness

Picking up a jar which you can see is faulty over a brand new carpet is carelessness.

If you can see something is faulty why wouldn’t you take the bag that it was safely in straight over to the sink? Or take a photo and then straight to the bin?

@Reallybadidea seriously? So if you saw a number of leaking jars you would open them where they can leak onto your carpet, then complain that they leaked onto your carpet?

Of course you wouldn't. You'd take a picture of the leaking jars, in the bag, and send them to customer services for a refund/replacement.

Or if you wanted to use them, you'd open them over the sink.

Yes the product was fault, but the damage was easily avoidable and wasn't Ocado's fault.

I'm sympathetic OP, but have a guess what kind of response you'd have gotten from Asda, Tesco, Iceland or Sainsbury's. This thread inadvertently reads like an advert for Ocado.

(And FWIW while they are more expensive than some other supermarkets if you look at their special offers on things like meat, 3 for £10 etc, you can spend your £100 well there and then use the money for a carpet clean.)

Vouchers aren’t acceptable. Write to CEO as pp suggested with photos and also put on Waitrose’s Facebook page if you can or tag them in a post. The bad publicity might prompt a more acceptable offer from them.