Sainsbury’s shopping fury

[Quit4me]

I usually shop at Tesco’s and get a delivery, but obviously at the moment it’s tricky to get a slot so a couple of times I have ordered with Sainsbury’s.
We are a family of 5 (3 kids all older than 7) and get through a fair amount of food esp in lockdown- around £130 a week.
Last night we had a delivery booked at 8-9pm. We live in an area that yesterday, only had a dusting of snow.
Waited until 10pm with no delivery and no email or text to say where the delivery was.
Spoke to customer services via online chat- our delivery had been cancelled due to bad weather. No text or email.
My money should be refunded in 3-5 working days! They advised rebooking a slot of click and collect.
Great. So no fresh food for the kids today. Not enough milk or bread. Too late in the evening to drive and get something.
Am I just supposed to fork out another £130 before the money has come back (possibly not until next Monday?)
I asked why I wasn’t informed earlier and had to find out myself, got no response back.
AIBU to think this is shocking service?
I know we are in a pandemic and there has been some snow- but it’s really not snowed heavily here.
The other think that has annoyed me is previous deliveries I have had from them, things just haven’t been in the shopping at all. When questioned, they give me a credit note against a future order?
Why? If I pay for something that doesn’t turn up, I expect the money back in my bank, not a voucher?
Tesco always refunds. I hadn’t realised Sainsbury’s were so crap?

*same DAY

I’ve been shopping with sainsburys for 8 years and never had any problems. I alternate deliveries between sainsburys and Tesco’s. Had a sainsburys delivery yesterday, we have snow and they were actually early.

Ocado on the other hand are utterly shite, it’s virtually impossible to get delivery slots from them, the way they have treated the vulnerable during the lockdown was atrocious, their M&S food is crap and they still don’t have an app a year after taking it down.

We had over a foot of snow this morning. Sainsburys were out delivering. One of their vans got stuck on the road out of the estate but they got pulled out no problem.

My issue with sainsbury (and asda too) is, you complete the order at 10pm, about an hour before they start packing them and you get an email a couple of hours later saying "sorry xxx wasn't available" Are they really saying there has been a massive run on frozen mixed veg or superglue at 10pm? Their systems obviously don't keep up with stock levels. I rarely have that issue with Tesco.

@MadameButterface

I can't imagine you'd get enough subs to take you 'easily ten pounds' over what you've budgeted - a couple of quid maybe.

whether something does or does not happen irl is not concomitant with your ability to imagine it. I have a hard time imagining people who don't get how many people live absolutely hand to mouth, and yet here we are.

Wow. You're being a bit unnecessarily pissy

The refund taking so long would make me so, so angry.

I used Sainsbury's once, an entire bag of meat was missing from the delivery. I'd been charged for it all though but it had seemingly got 'lost' en route.

The problem with 'fury' at this, is that it doesn't leave you anywhere to go when things get worse.

We both know when your neighbour parks across your drive, you'll wish you kept the word fury in reserve for that. Slight angst just won't cut it!

P.S. Will expect a diagram.

I’ve been using Sainsbury’s for the last 6 months or so and have had no issues with them at all. I used to use Ocado but the change to M&S put me off going back to them this time round.

We’ve had no silly substitutions, every delivery has arrived on time, delivery people always polite and helpful. Once I ordered some stamps that didn’t arrive and they refunded quickly via live chat. The substitution voucher doesn’t bother me as I use them weekly.

I appreciate that it’s completely dependent on your local shop/delivery hub etc but I’ve had no problems with them.

Why are you doing click and collect?
Those spots should be for those who litrally cant leave home like extremely vunerable shielders, if you can go to the shop then (a family of 5 with 2 adults and a car should easily be able to go yourselves) then go - just so much laziness, yes most have home schooling and jobs but everyone else manages without taking up the lifeline of those that actually need them.

Also how is 10pm on a tuesday too late for a 2 adult household with access to a car to go to the shops for essentails?
We do it often, most supermarkers are 24/7 throughout monday to friday and only one of you needs to stay home with the sleeping kids, if anything its far easier to do a quick run.

The 3-5 days to refund isn't Sainsbury's fault, it's just how slow the banks are unfortunately. Really bad that they didn't let you know your slot was cancelled though!

I have Sainsbury's as they are the only delivery that can find my house, they deliver in the snow and have always contacted me if there is a problem.
Tesco not only didn't deliver my food, they didn't contact me and took 4 weeks to refund me!

That's why I use Ocado, never had a cancelled delivery, always turn up in bad weather. Had late deliveries, yes, sometimes they turn up early in which case they call first. Subs are not often, usually only one per order and sensible. I think because Ocado's business model is home delivery, everything in their supply chain and logistics is set up for it so there's less to go wrong.

AlternativePerspective

That's not true.

I shop with Ocado, using their app (have done for months now) and they've been fantastic to my vulnerable parents-in-law during lockdown and since.
Your opinion on M&S food is your own; personally, I preferred Waitrose, but the Ocado range and some of the M&S is fine for us.

It's not Sainsbury's generally, it's just your local on probably. Have had deliveries from Sainsbury's for about 6 years now and never any problems. Tesco meanwhile... I could write a book.

I hate ordering deliveries or C&C with Sainsbury’s but in our rural location sometimes it can’t be avoided if the other supermarket doesn’t have any slots available. So many issues over the years but my biggest one is that if they substitute an item they will never sub more than 1 to get it to the quantity I originally ordered so they don’t lose out, I.e. say I ordered a pack that was 500g or say 9 toilet roll they would sub it with something that was 250g or 4 toilet roll, they don’t supply 2 packs of 250g or 2 packs of 4 because I guess they know that they have. I once rang customer services to make a complaint about this once as it happens every order and they said they don’t have a policy on this and their staff wouldn’t choose to limit my shop like that, I sent them about 20 examples of where they had from the past 6 months and they said on all those occasions they can’t have had any more stock than the 1 item they delivered, I highly doubt that was the case every time!

Have also had issues with not being told about cancelled deliveries and having to ring to find out myself.

I love the logic of MN. Everyone is obsessed with nobody ever losing a job...but people a simultaneously shamed for not picking up their own groceries

Either tell people that their delivery not turning up is their own fault for not driving out to collect it or kick off about how important delivery drivers jobs are. You cannot have it both ways. Jeez it’s like everyone should be grateful and willing to pay through the nose for even the most shoddy basic service...else they’re a spoilt child

Just a FYI, I've been doing my shops spread between Sainburys and Tescos during lockdown.

Now I've changed it to Tescos and Ocado as Sainsburys constantly didn't deliver certain items. Tescos were always great, Ocado same.

My DM uses Tescos and Sainsburys and I don't know why she doesn't cancel Sainsburys because they're rubbish.

DB and his family use Sainsburys and they cancelled last minute no warning - they're in Bath countryside so they're now using Ocado.

^ Fwiw I find Sainsbury’s good in terms of availability and dates but have also been charged for items which didn’t actually arrive and also found huge discrepancies in their online vs actual product allergy info.

During the first lock down my infant son was diagnosed with a food allergy and our diet had to change drastically over night. So many times I ordered items that said they were safe online but then turned up with giant ‘not suitable for milk allergy sufferers’ on the packaging.

I ended up in frustrated tears so many times and contact centres were never open so nothing could be done. We just had to go without, we swapped to Tesco!

Sainsbos are shite! I usually click and collect from Tesco as avoiding going shopping.

Made the mistake of going to Sainsbos as they had an item I needed and Tesco's didn't..

Collected on Sunday and half of the order was not completed (never had one substitute form Tesco, or issues).

Then the best bit is the voucher rather than money.. no thanks, won't be going back! Lesson learned.

I've found Sainsbury's brilliant, I started getting deliveries in the first lockdown and they've never let me down, they did come early once but phoned me and said they could deliver early or otherwise the drive would wait and eat his lunch. If I get a more expensive substitution they refund me the difference, so last week I ordered some beef, it was £5 something, they sent a piece that was £9 so I paid the extra £3 odd but got it back and I had a big piece of beef so we had half on Sunday and the other half got used on Monday. They always let me know if there are substitutions and then the driver asks me if I am all right with them.

I know the drivers cover a big area, I'm on the coast in Devon and they cover out on Dartmoor so they could easily get stuck out there even if I have no snow near me.

Another Sainsbury moan: I would always get a bag of rocket and a bag of baby leaf salad.
For weeks and weeks it was at the bottom of the crate, crushed, so I refused it and got my refund. I did phone to tell them it kept happening but nothing changed. I stopped ordering it from them.

@mam0918

Why are you doing click and collect? Those spots should be for those who litrally cant leave home like extremely vunerable shielders, if you can go to the shop then (a family of 5 with 2 adults and a car should easily be able to go yourselves) then go - just so much laziness, yes most have home schooling and jobs but everyone else manages without taking up the lifeline of those that actually need them.

Also how is 10pm on a tuesday too late for a 2 adult household with access to a car to go to the shops for essentails?
We do it often, most supermarkers are 24/7 throughout monday to friday and only one of you needs to stay home with the sleeping kids, if anything its far easier to do a quick run.

There are plenty of Sainsbury’s slots here- all times of the day, every day? Any vulnerable person could secure one any time if they wanted to? Not sure if you are stuck in time 6 months ago or if your area is different? No, I do not have time to go out shopping. Both me and my DH are working full time to keep our jobs around having to home school 3 kids. I’m getting 6 hours sleep at most and working until the small hours most nights. At weekends, funnily enough I want to spend it with my children who have had to spend a large part of the week (after home school) on their own in front of the tv. Hence why I want a delivery. I didn’t have time to go to the shop last night. DH was in bed ready for an early start this morning and I was working until 1am. If I didn’t work until 1am, the kids wouldn’t have been able to complete their schoolwork this morning as 2 of them need constant supervision and tech help.

But yes, I do feel really lazy at the moment, working 17 hours days.

Sainsburys are awful for cancelling orders without telling you- it's happened to me twice where I've been left with no shopping (and I have 2 under 2). I am never shopping with them again.