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!! 💖

A couple of months ago we stayed at a hotel and at the end of the stay they asked for feedback. I just commented that they didn’t have many vegan food options and they gave me a free upgrade on our next stay and a bottle of champagne.
I’ve had compensation from Barclays when I complained about the process of opening a Usd account and how slow they were

@Sabrina124

Yes, most companies and brands do offer compensation for complaining. But it is wrong to do it as a 'hobby' if you really have nothing to complain about just to get free stuff. It means the companies may have to stop giving anything in genuine cases.

Really? Multimillion dollar corporations are going to do bust because a few people write in? Capitalism owes us at least something back! A good bit of customer service and publicity never hurt any company.

I've probably had thousands back in complaints over the years. Complaints have ranged from washing machines breaking down to getting compensation for my Grandmother after she bought a chair that arrived damaged. I complain for myself and on behalf of friends and family.

My favourite one was from the water company. About a week before Christmas I received a nasty debt collection letter in regard to a water bill I had apparently not paid. I spoke to the debt collection agency and then to the water company. Both agreed that it was sent in error and they apologised. However, I was not satisfied. After negotiating with them, I finally managed to get £200 in compensation and our water bill (RV) wiped for a year. Another good one was when I was waiting for a bus after work. It was a large bus company but the bus only ran once an hour and it was the last one of the day. I was also a broke student at the time. I called them when the bus hadn't arrived after about twenty minutes to be told that they simply hadn't run the bus. I was stuck unable to get home in the dark and really unhappy. Somehow, I managed to persuade them to send the bus to take me home. I was the only one on it and when I reached my destination they returned to the depot.

Despite the complaints, I always ensure that if I do receive excellent service, I always email in or speak to a manager.

Do you have any top tips when contacting companies @Mulderitssme ?

My advice would be to make a note of any issues so you stay on track. Always stay calm and take down names/departments etc.
It's also worth familiarising yourself with the Consumer Act 2015 and other consumer laws.
Also, be confident, use positive language and just have a go.

I got a £20 voucher for a local pub after I got food poisoning on Xmas Eve from a burger. Basically bed / bathroom ridden for 3-4 days. I sent it back and said I will never be going back after the horrific food poisoning so their voucher wasn't required.

I got a chocolate bar with a bit of metal in it years and years ago. I wrote to them to alert them. Turned out it was a bit of the machine. They did a national recall. They sent me a crazy amount of chocolate. I mean a whole van load. I ended up giving some to everyone on the street, and the staff and residents of two nursing homes. Our equivalent of Food Bank would not take any

One thing I recommend is to make a note of the date and time of any calls you make re a service issue/request, from the very first call. Even if it’s a simple matter, if it does all go pear-shaped, you can add weight to your complaint.

I’ve had two electricity supply switches go badly wrong; the first time must have taken six calls to get sorted, but at first I hadn’t noted the call details, so my complaint was vague on certain details. The next time, I had all the call details, which I provided, and got a better outcome in terms of how quickly my complaint was resolved, and the compensation I was offered. Also, aside from substantiating your complaint, full details give the company the opportunity to pinpoint what went wrong and (in an ideal world) correct any underlying system or service issues.

@sbhydrogen

The amount of money businesses lose due to people fraudulently saying they've not received something, or not liked something is staggering.

That's a very nice gesture, but a bit OTT.

Not really - not after the injury op describes

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

I once complained about my co-op lasagne sheets, they were mouldy, after I’d added my ragout.

I got £3.00 compensation. I’d twice that and more on the ingredients I had wasted.

I wasn’t after compensation, I’d have appreciated an apology more.

@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.

Can't you just cancel the DD ?

I have only complained twice. 1st time a Cadbury’s lorry cut me up and pushed me into the next lane luckily it was empty, they sent me a box of chocolate bars and 2 days later a massive box of chocolates half the size of my dinning table.
2nd time I had a double mastectomy and reconstruction and needed fitting for a new bra. Went to m&s and the lady doing the fitting refused as she didn’t deal with things like that. I was so upset and rang their head office and they sent me flowers and £500 of vouchers

I worked in complaints for years for a well known retailer. Most of the time companies will give a little something, but when I worked I notice that there was a real sense of entitlement that got worse as time went on. A complaint might come in from a customer because they bought a £1.50 lasagne and didn't like it and when a double refund was offered thought they should have much more than that. Or someone would feel they needed a £20 voucher because they weren't offered a carrier bag.

What I would say though if you do have a genuine complaint about an incident/faulty product make it. At worst you have told someone what has happened and vented (which will make you feel better) at best you may change a process/product and get a few quid in the process

Yep complained to electricity company re their level of service and had £25 credit added to my account.

Complained to my bank twice about shocking service and got about £300 in vouchers.

Complained to John Lewis re their handling of our wedding gift list and got extra set of crockery for free plus £100 refund.

It’s def worth complaining in my view

I got a £5 voucher from M&S last week because I complained about the awful sandwiches I had in the cafe just before this lockdown. I’ve never complained before

Also not my experience of Tesco. An elderly friend of mine tripped on an awkwardly protruding ledge, ended up on the floor with chest pains and needed an ambulance. When I wrote to complain they denied any responsibility.

I got given a £10 voucher to buy some Walker’s crisps when I found a small spring in a packet I was eating.

Not long after the Manchester arena terror attack I walked into Asda with my mum and the security on the desk said 'you better search him he has a bomb' me and my mum turned around and it was obviously someone he knew and he was having a joke. It was a terrible joke and it upset my mum a lot that they would joke about that. I complained to the store manager about the member of staff and what he said, we received a £100 voucher, a written apology from the member of staff in question saying he was going to get some more people training and also a very big bunch of flowers.

I'm not a serial complainer and if it hadn't have been not long after the Manchester attack i might not have even realised what he said but the country was on such high alert we thought it was in bad taste.

I am pretty amazing at complaining. I hate poor customer service and think business owners - especially the huge ones- need to up their game.

Recent wins:

2500 quid of early repayment fees waived because mortgage transfer process was so bad that I had to put three people on three separate phones together to get them talking to sort it out
300 quid back from Hsbc for blocking my mums account for no reason and making her weep with frustration

The website ceo email is very useful. If you have a legitimate complaint and are being ignored, drop a line to the exec suite articulating what the problem is.

I used to work in a shop for a high end clothing brand. Just to show you the other side of this, we had an amount of stock that we kept on hand for people who were really nice. Obviously if there were legitimate complaints we would deal with them, but the vast majority of complaints were things like "I didn't follow the instructions on the label for washing and now it's ruined" or even just "I wore this several times and reattached the tags and now you won't take it as a return".

I did once ask lush how to get out some stains a bath bomb left in my tub and they sent me a gift box as well, which was unexpected.

I was shopping when ds was a newborn and had bags from another shop in the bottom of the pushchair.

A cashier cornered me in the self checkout saying she had evidence of me stealing and that I would be taken to a back room and questioned by a security guard and the police would be phoned.

Finally when I asked to see proof she pulled one of the items out of the bag and saw it was from another shop.

Complained and got a £10 voucher.

Got £100 for my mum recently when her old energy supplier cancelled her switch for no reason. I advocate for her on stuff like this and it was a ball ache to get it sorted.

I bought a coffee and croissant from Pret one morning, to take away. The barista put everything in a paper bag and I took it into work. Took a sip of the coffee and the lid hadn’t been put on properly and a load of coffee sloshed all over me - luckily it wasn’t hot. I sent a Facebook private message to Pret and a couple of days later a lady from head office phoned and asked me for my address. They sent me a £20 gift card.

£250 for an issue at my bank

Other goodwill gestures of £50 on a few occasions.

£10 due to missing chocolates

Ongoing disputes with HSBC have resulted in a few small sums. But it has got so bad , now awaiting ombudsman intervention. Seems very delayed so wonder if I could claim something from them!! What really irritates is that they never change their systems in response to complaints . And given their activities in the past , I don’t see why I should solve their problem.