To ask if you've ever had compensation for complaining..?

[thinkingoutloud4]

So I was in Tesco last week getting our weekly food shopping with my DP, when a member of staff came out of the warehouse section with a large trolley filled to the brim with produce to fill the shelves with.
The staff member didn't check behind him before moving out onto the shop floor, and pushed the trolley into my ankle causing a nasty gash, and quite a lot of blood 🥴
He was lovely and really very apologetic, I was hurt but not extremely and although he offered an ambulance 😆 I politely declined.

The store asked to take my details to make note of the accident, which I complied with and left my name and address etc for their accident log.

Anyway.. fast forward to today, and I've received a lovely letter in the post from the store manager, and a store voucher for £150. I'm completely blown away!

it got me thinking, as i remember once a friend of mine once said her sister complains as a hobby to companies and receives large amounts of free items, vouchers etc...

have you ever been sent something from a company following a complaint?

I have just sent a thank you letter back to Tesco, as I am completely shocked and so grateful for their lovely gesture!! 💖

@ZombieAttack

We complained to McDonald’s as twice now they haven’t added the extra bacon DH ordered, sent us the wrong sauce and didn’t put gherkins in my burger (I love gherkins). Never heard a thing.

McD's is franchised so I think it depends on the owners. Our local one changed hands about 2 years ago and no longer respond to complaint either.

DH has recently got a new car. It’s an electric so we had to pay towards the electric supply on the side of the house.

The car got stuck in Belgium. Don’t know why, tbh, but we complained. In the end it took a couple of weeks longer than it should to arrive.

Not a great hardship, he still had the old car, & is WFH anyway.

Car manufacturer reimbursed our electric supply cost - £600!

Twice from Starbucks - one was just this morning! I treated myself to an extortionate Christmas coffee because I daydream about their eggnog latte all year. I picked it up at the drive thru and when I got home I realised the cup wasn’t even two-thirds full. They emailed back immediately and said they’re sending me vouchers for a couple of free drinks.

The other one was on my 21st birthday and it was embarrassing. My friend and I had spent the day lazing in the sunshine and, ahem, having a smoke. We stopped at Starbucks and I cut my finger on the fridge that holds the sandwiches. I only asked the barista for a plaster but there was a flurry of activity with an accident book, our drinks were supersized and comped, plus I got two extra drinks vouchers. I didn’t even feel the cut when it happened

Ones I can think of: £300 from old bank, £120 from new bank, free meal from McDonald's, £80 B&M vouchers, £80 from Argos, £15 Pampers Nappies vouchers, £5 off washing powder (given from Pampers), 2 free returns to go anywhere with Northern Rail. DP is the king of complaining, if we have an issue then he deals with it because we always end up getting something back. Wouldn't purposely look for something to complain about though

@SuperbGorgonzola

At the moment DH is wrangling with Vodafone after they've continued to charge us for broadband every month for four months since we cancelled. He's rung every time it happened, spending hours on hold, and they've apologised and told him this time it's definitely cancelled, but each month the money has gone out again. They've not offered anything.

Why can’t you cancel the direct debit?!!

Last time I complained that our film (1917) started about 30 minutes in. I got vouchers for us and a queue of about 20 people behind me.

I’ve also given compliments for great service and had free drinks or vouchers or discounts.

A friend of mine slipped on a grape in tesco and twisted her ankle...she got 10k without even taking them to court.

When I was a child I had a great addiction to eating whole boxes of Twiglets (entirely by myself, often in one go). At one point, the then manufacturers (Peek Frean) stopped putting a red pull strip in the cellophane cover for ease of opening. I was, for some reason, outraged and wrote them a poem about how sad it made me. They sent me a very kind letter back and explained their reason (kept Twiglets more airtight and therefore fresher) and enclosed three free boxes of Twiglets.

When I was at college, one of our housemates was on a catering course and offered to do pancakes for the house on Shrove Tuesday. Pancakes made and we all sat down to enjoy them, except the plastic Jif Lemon would yield no liquid. On cutting it open, it was full of green mould. Housemate sent it to Jif with a covering letter on college headed paper.
A week or two later, he received a huge box from Reckitt & Colman (who apparently owned Jif at the time). It was full of all the products they made. Everything from bleach to mustard!

We stayed in a suite in a very posh 5 star hotel and it was utter shit. The tv in the room wasn’t working. We ordered room service at 6pm before going to an event and when we got back to the room it was still there and the room stank.

DH moved it outside the door and when we left for breakfast the next day it was still there (not envy). Nobody appeared to take an order for hot breakfast so eventually we had sweaty meat and curling cheese from what was left of a breakfast buffet.

I complained that it was not a 5 star experience and they invited us back for a 2 night stay in the suite with a promise of much improved service and to be fair to them it was much better second time.

I complained about service in a chain restaurant once as the wait staff were so exceptionally and with no provocation rude and ruined what was supposed to be a special meal. We were given a voucher for a free meal there but never went back as I was afraid they would spit in our food.

I complained to Morrisons because a chicken I bought ( in the reduced section but still within date) was off. The woman at customer service was completely unapologetic and said " well i wouldn't buy reduced chicken". I wrote to them saying I thought that wasn't an appropriate response and got no reply at all.

And I complained to Lidl when they brought out those small trolleys for kids. I was rammed by a toddler running at me with one and knocked to the floor. I reported it to staff, no accident report or anything. Contacted Lidl to raise awareness of the issue ( an older person could easily have sustained a fracture) and ask them to put signs up asking parents to supervise their children when using the trolleys. No action.

I didn't want compensation, just for them to take action to make things safer. Still unhappy with their response. They seemed more concerned that I might sue them than in reducing the risk of such an incident happening again.

Not a complaint but a nice gesture from Amazon. Years ago I bought the CD boxed set of the West Wing. I got to the last disc of the last series and it wouldn't play. It was well outside the refund period (there are a lot of episodes) but I contacted Amazon and they replaced the whole set. Thankfully all the discs worked this time.

We got a free hotel room years ago because some drunkards were running up and down the corridor shouting in the middle of the night, then the fire alarm went off. We figured it was probably them and got dressed then went outside. Really felt for whole families standing around in their nightwear in November, who thought it was a real emergency. We complained and just expected a discount but they just refunded the room. Must have lost a lot of money that day!

I got a free night at a campsite. It wasn't even the campsites fault. Two young couples pitched up one day and despite there being signs all over saying 'family friendly' and silent at midnight, they decided to get drunk, play music and talk loudly until the early hours of the morning. I complained to the campsite owner just expecting him to have a word with them, but he kicked them off the site and knocked that night off our final bill.

Good customer service. We've been back a couple of times now and recommended the campsite to our friends who have also gone there for a visit.

Ive had bits and pieces over the years.
No crisps in a bag, hole in my loaf, three tiny prawns in a family paella, maggots on figs.
Generally I get a voucher back from the company/supermarket.
The maggoty figs brought on my labour, so I got a baby that time 😂

We had a couple of thousand pounds of early mortgage repayment fees waived by natwest as they had miss advised us and put it in writing to our conveyancing solicitor. All it took was 1 letter from the solicitors secretary, which they didnt charge us for (the same lovely solicitor signed and witnessed our affidavit to marry abroad for free as we'd used him for every house purchase). I always recommend them as they have been second to none.

I have had a lot of various 'freebies' over the years. I have a strong belief in fairness and good customer service. If I'm not happy about a service or goods I will raise it in a very polite balanced and constructive way. Usually it's because the item is high ticket like a new car that had everything wrong with it,an expensive holiday that was a disaster or a 'brand new' laptop that had someone's photos uploaded on it! But I will also raise poor service in a restaurant (never blaming the floor staff/kitchen but escalating to the manager on duty - looking at you Jamie's at Westfield as an example) or on lower cost items if it's caused inconvenience, significant disappointment or is obviously from a place of not caring what the customer thinks. I've held banks and energy providers to account and challenged a government department with great success.
In most cases I've had a replacement, discount, vouchers or compensation.
That said I am also big on compliments. If I have had great service, had someone resolve a problem well or found someone to go above and beyond I will tip well, leave a cracking online review, email their head office etc. At work recently I complimented a colleague in a partner agency to her supervision and she replied back saying it had made her cry as she had being having such a bad day. I was so pleased that a few minutes of my time to write an email had such a positive effect.
So in summary I don't let shit service and poor quality goods pass but I big people up when it is warranted. If the company wants to send me a voucher, a freebie or other form of 'compensation' I'm not going to be churlish about it.
I wish I could say what the biggest value item I received was but it would be ridiculously outing although suffice to say I deserved it for the trauma of nearly dying!

I got £50 when someone in Nationwide’s call centre was really rude and upset me. My DD got £100 I think when a clerk at Santander wouldn’t let her open a student account. I got a £2 voucher when I complained about maggots in a Tesco fruit pack and £5 when Sainsbury sold my daughter a dud iTunes voucher.

Some time back in the 1970s, I found a brass woodscrew in my breakfast Alpen.

I wrote to them to complain and they sent me a battery powered kitchen wall clock.

Got £50 Waitrose voucher after finding a lump of chicken in a vegetarian soup which they were serving in their cafe! Could’ve been far worse, as I’m not vegetarian.

I hate complaining and rarely do. I have filled in forms for compensation for delayed trains a few times, though. Best one was when I got the total fare refunded by both National Express and Scottish Rail (I'd only filled in one form).

I argued against a refund once. I'd bought a bacon roll at Debenhams and noticed there was foil stuck to the bottom of the roll. I simply pointed it out to the staff to give them the heads up. The waitress gave me my money back even though that had not what I'd been after, and I tried to refuse but she wouldn't let me.

The only other time was in an Italian restaurant. I asked for my dish without one ingredient, my mother had hers as it was. Neither were that great, and we left a lot of food. When we got the bill they didn't charge for mine, even though I'd argue that the reason it didn't taste great could have been the fact that I'd altered it. But never mind!

I complained to Currys when they sent me an incorrect product and wouldn't change it (long story) - I got a £50 voucher. I wanted a refund (£900) but they refused.

I once got a £10 voucher for my Asda shopping being 24 hours late, thought that was a bit rubbish.

Complaining as a hobby is a vile thing to do.
But in your case, Tesco probably offered you that amount of money as they knew you had quite a nasty wound caused by one of their team, and you could probably have got more money out of them if you'd wanted it.

We’d bought two recliner sofas from Tesco and after a month I moved them to vacuum underneath and the recliner mechanism had made furrows in the carpet which were black. I contacted Tesco and they sent someone from the furniture ombudsman who inspected them and said they were faulty because the mechanism was at the wrong height and was damaging the carpet each time. Tesco agreed to refund the sofas in full without asking for the product to be returned. The also offered £150 for us to clean the carpet as it was beige and we were in a rented property. We tried cleaning the carpet but there was still a mark and so we asked for it to be replaced as we’d lose our deposit when leaving. We didn’t realise that the carpet was incredibly high grade wool which cost £2500 to replace like for like but Tesco agreed to meet the cost. We lived with the carpet until we moved out as had two young children but then the letting agency had forgotten to re-protect our deposit and said we’d passed inspection on the hope we wouldn’t go to court for three times the amount. After three years and monthly cleans the carpet stain was hardly visible but we ended up with a free sofa and £2650!