Tesco cancel my food order 1 hour before it was due to arrive

[Tarano17]

AIBU to be angry that Tesco texted me 30 minutes before my delivery was duevto arrive and tell me they cancelled my order. I have 2 sen children who are on the government list of vulnerable persons who need to self isolate for 12 weeks and as a single parent with no support system I can leave them alone to go out buy food. So, so angry at this as there is no delivery slots available for another home delivery request.

Do you have a local fruit and veg market? Ours are open but are also offering delivery and order and collect. I think it just started today but loads of the market stalls have signed up to it so you can order dairy, fruit and veg

I have contacted our local councillor to see if he can help. There is a fruit and vegetable market that we would normally use but it’s a bus ride away and have no idea how to contact them. There was an online news article a few days ago about butchers who normally sell to hotels selling various food packages direct to customers online including for vegetarians so am trying to trace them now. When I originally checked they were way out of my normal price range but needs must.

Try the actual store again. Managers and staff are dropping shopping off in some cases. Our manager is hardly ever in store because he's out in his car delivering to those who are in desperate need.
Likely hood is though the driver became ill while delivering and waa sent home. Quite a few supermarket staff have been sent home with symptoms.

@Rosebel I agree. DP has been delivering fridge freezers, ovens out the back door to vunerable customers, he left work to install one for an elderly lady who only had an ice box, she tried to give him €20, he wouldn't let her in the same room and wiped it all down before he left.

Yeah, don't as a pp said, phone up and "kick up a stink". The people in these call centres are having a fucking awful time at the moment; a friend who works on a supermarket call centre is calling me at the end of every shift in tears, people are being so vile.

Call up and explain your predicament. Ask if there is anything they can do to help? Could you perhaps click and collect if they can't deliver? That say you won't even need to leave the car.

Same happened to us a week ago we are also a vulnerable household they said ‘store issues’ and cancelled it after the time slot it was due in

Are you prepared to give us your rough location?
Maybe there's a MNter willing to help?

Hi Tarano just to say with regards to the vulnerable person form on the Gov website, this list is also going to councils to arrange emergency supplies. Our council is starting deliveries of food essentials now to people on the list, they’re assuming people need supplies and texting everyone on the list to say they’re arranging a delivery and to reply ‘no’ if they don’t need them right now. So if you haven’t already completed the form, do fill it out so that you can access that support

I have filled in the form so hopefully will get something sorted for Monday from the Foodbank people. @Helpwithaversion I was also told that “store issues” was the reason Tesco cancelled my order. @Mlou32 I did phone up our local Tesco store and explained our situation and was told I was not the only vulnerable family that they were unable to deliver to. They said I would not be charged for the order and advised me to place another order which as everyone knows the slots are 3 weeks away and that is only if I can get a slot. As so many other people have found to their cost available slots are impossible to get.

@tarano17 have you tried other supermarkets? They may have slots? Where are you? Maybe one if us could drop stuff off to you?

Op- if you can give a rough indication of your location, I think people on here might be able to help you, even if it’s to track down a delivery service or find a group helping in their community

Thank you all for your very kind offers of providing us with a food delivery. Shame on Tesco for not being so sympathetic and generous. I got in touch with our out of hours council department and they have arranged for a food bank to deliver a food parcel to us on Monday. I feel really bad about this as I have enough money to pay for food myself and have never used a foodbank before but it seems that is the only way to get food in the present climate. I have been online 9.30pm checking all the supermarkets delivery slots and none has become available so far. It’s a sad state of affairs that even though there is so many people like us, who are in the vulnerable persons list, can not use our own money to buy food. I live in London where the Coronavirus is worse and its almost like this has become a third world country. With so many people seriously ill and dead with the Coronavirus I am only grateful that we still have our health which I suppose proves self-isolating the vulnerable does work.

Oh wow. Thanks for sharing the link.
I really thought they wouldn't be sticking to the advertised list.
They are and not option to add.

I'm trying to get a delivery to a diabetic. No slots anywhere. And no chance of getting to the shops because of underlying health issues and have CV.

All the supermarkets. Full. The mythical Morrisons box, none. Slots on Amazon haha.

There should be a system in place to stop people from taking the piss. For the ones who can go out, lucky to find anything in stock. Go online no slots. There should be something in place that says oh hang on why you suddenly buying a fuck ton of veg when you've never bought veg in the past 20 years lol. Or vegetarians suddenly buying a load of meat etc.

There's several of us all local, who cannot go out, all trying to find bloody food. It's ridiculous.

Call an amnesty on most criminal activity, get shopping warrants and get all the bloody panic buyers food confiscated and given to food banks. They helped cause this shit, so they can bloody help sort it out.

For those of you in need, can't your children's school help? I'm not even in a deprived area, but the Heads of local primary schools in my city sent out an email to all parents, asking them to call if they were in urgent need of a good delivery. The council were distributing food parcels to those in need. I myself was distributing them to homes yesterday. So maybe try the school if you're stuck

@Tarano17 don't feel bad. I pop bits in the food bank trolleys when I remember, & I and I'm.sure many others would be pleased our donations were able to support someone in a similar situation. Once this is all over, donate food to the food bank, and I'm sure your guilt will lift 😊

Name changed as I'm not allowed to post anything about work and don't want to be identified, but...

I work for a nursing home and Tesco refused to deliver our long standing order because of the 80 item limit. They just refused. We have 40 vulnerable, elderly residents. The home now has to try and find somewhere else to deliver to us.

SHAME ON YOU TESCO!!!

If there is anyone on mumsnet who is currently using online deliveries for the convenience, now would be a good time to stop. OP are you able to get added to the 'vulnerable' list that some stores like Sainsbury's are prioritising?

Just out of interest, did you do a block booking for months in advance?

I know one supermarket, that seems to have cancelled a lot of block bookings, and are now using them for the vulnerable (though as you said you are vulnerable, but are Tesco aware of this?)

It's an awful thing to happen, but surely people can see how it can happen. If a van runs out of time or breaks down there are no spares to take up the slack.

One reason for the 80 item limit was that larger than usual orders were taking too long and drivers risked running out of time to complete their deliveries.

SHAMEonyouTESCO "Tesco refused to deliver our long standing order because of the 80 item limit." No that's not how it works. They were delivering any orders over 80 just fine, but if someone edited and checked out their order again they would be told they had to reduce it to 80.

Of course, we can understand. It can happen on any 'normal' day.
One of the biggest issues is people using it for convenience when they could to get to the shop.

There is no way that every, single-slot for round here for the next month is for the extremely vulnerable. And, clearly not the case in other parts of the country. I mean ffs a nursing home, and the op, these are the people who should be getting food through. A lot of homes here are part-time homes. if used at all for homes.

The vulnerable list has reduced. People who were once viewed as vulnerable no longer are. Even those on the new list here cannot get a delivery. It's batshit.

I think that while it is understandable that supermarkets might end up in situations where they struggle due to staff shortages, simply cancelling an order with no explanation at very short notice really isn’t acceptable.

WRT sainsburys it’s worth checking almost hourly as they do release slots periodically and they’re not all for extremely vulnerable customers.

I am at risk but not on the government list, but I cannot go out because of a serious heart condition.

I have been extremely vocal about it towards sainsburys because initially they were listing people as vulnerable who have disabilities etc and now they’ve changed their tack. But having checked periodically I was finally able to get a slot for Monday when I checked yesterday afternoon.

I think it's a tricky one wrt 'only vulnerable people should online shop'.

I'm not especially vulnerable but I'm still going to be online shopping where possible because I am working with children and therefore not isolating. We don't have any ppe in schools so I'm pretty likely to catch it at some point. Which I'm ok with. But I'm not okay with passing that risk on to people who are staying in the house all week and making one trip to a supermarket only to be infected by me. It seems wrong and unfair. So, apart from work, I'm isolating if I possibly can. Would you say that's the wrong course of action? Maybe it is?

OP - Adults social worker here - In my area the local authority are coordinating food deliveries for vulnerable people where there is no friends/family to do it - contact them, they should at least be able to point you in the right direction. Take care

@Tarano17 I’m so glad the food bank will tide you over. If you can afford it they’ll happily accept a cash donation and some will be able to accept an amazon delivery of nappies/cleaning products/toiletries.