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AIBU?

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Original poster

To be cross with Sainsburys customer services.

63 replies

Foobydoo · 08/04/2021 20:28

I ordered six bottles of wine with my grocery order, taking advantage of the 25% off six bottles offer. On the day of delivery two bottles of the same wine were out of stock.
The two unavailable bottles were substituted for just one different bottle of wine! This meant I lost the discount and had less wine.

I complained to customer services and did not get a response for nine days.
After chasing I got a very dismissive response saying I no longer qualified for the offer as I only received five bottles.

The customer service representative was dismissive, bordering on rude. No explanation as to why the picker would substitute two bottles for just one and no apology for the inconvenience. She refused to escalate my complaint to a manager and told me to return the wine to store if I wasn't happy.
Am I being unreasonable to be very cross?
I expected more from Sainsburys for some reason and has left a bad taste in my mouth than cannot be washed away due to a lack of wineWink
I cannot go to store. I get online shopping due to disability.

OP posts:
SausageDogSandwich · 08/04/2021 22:27

Get yourself on Twitter. I can guarantee this will be resolved pretty much immediately.

I won't put up with poor customer service. I don't like Sainsburys anyway but this would be the final nail in the coffin for me.

I will also never go back to Ocado since I found out that the CEO earns in excess of £58m per year. Yes, you read that right. He earns more than 2,000 times the salary of the average Ocado employee.

Sparklingbrook · 08/04/2021 22:28

@rainbowthoughts

Such Drama. You just say no thanks to the driver and they take it away and refund you.
That's what I thought. You get an email saying what's coming and you send back what you don't want.
CrumbsThatsQuick · 08/04/2021 22:32

Tesco delivery customer service is very good and responsive if (on a very rare occasion) a mistake is made.

Clymene · 08/04/2021 22:35

I'm really surprised. That happened to me and they gave me the discount. They've also given me free meat when I complained about short expiry dates (48 hours is unacceptable IMO).

Did you ring them? Their email/Facebook customer service is a bit shit but over the phone I've found them pretty good.

MahMahMahMahCorona · 08/04/2021 22:49

@BalancingStick

Sainsbury's customer service is terrible. Worst customer service I've ever experienced. I've needed to call them a few times and without fail I come away furious. For your own sanity, forget and move on.
Totally agree. Haven't shopped at / with Sainsbury's since I boycotted them over their utterly outrageously shit customer service a couple of years ago.
GeorgiaGirl52 · 08/04/2021 22:55

I was planning dinner for four so I ordered two (2) packages of two stuffed Cornish game hens. That's four hens. As a substitute I ordered one package of four Cornish game hens. That's four hens.
What I received was one (1) package of two stuffed game hens. Counting to four was obviously too much for them.

MondayYogurt · 09/04/2021 06:14

Every single delivery from Sainsburys I've had a problem. They're useless.

Sparklingbrook · 09/04/2021 06:27

What would you say in the complaint? ‘ I accidentally accepted a delivery of wine that I didn’t want because the substitutions meant I didn’t get an offer?’

SakuraEdenSwan1 · 09/04/2021 06:35

You should of refused it at point if delivery, Sainsbury's always email you a receipt hours before delivery also, this gives you plenty of time to see what has been subbed or missing.

BarbaraofSeville · 09/04/2021 06:35

@Happycat1212

This reminds me of what happened to me the other day, I ordered from Sainsbury’s through deliveroo and if it is under £20 they charge a “small order fee” of £5, I went slightly over to avoid the fee even though I didn’t need the extra item. Well it wasn’t available and I was then charged the small order fee despite the fact it wasn’t my fault it wasn’t available. Sainsbury’s are useless 🙄
This sort of thing is why we don't do online shopping. The chances of getting what you ordered and not trip up with failing to make minimum orders or getting the special offer that made the branded item a sensible price seems so low it's not worth the hassle, but we don't have disabilities or small DC that makes having some semblance of a grocery shop brought to our door a benefit.

On the rare occasion I have tried it, they sent a 4 pint carton of milk, that would normally take us nearly a week to use, that expired the next day. Just how? Milk is generally on and off the shop floor within hours, or a day or two at most, yet whoever picked our shopping managed to find one that had been kicking around for over a week Hmm.

BarbaraofSeville · 09/04/2021 06:37

Supermarkets must know that most people only generally buy wine in lots of 6 when there's an offer of money off to buy that amount, because if they've offered to sell you 6 bottles for the price of 4.5, you're not going to want 5 bottles for the price of 5 are you?

Lovingspring · 09/04/2021 06:40

I would say I deliberately ordered 6 bottles of wine in order to be eligible for the discount. I would have bought the wine elsewhere if there had not been a discount offered. I search Google for someone high up email them, I always get refunds I ask for, I don't take the piss.

Sparklingbrook · 09/04/2021 06:42

@Lovingspring

I would say I deliberately ordered 6 bottles of wine in order to be eligible for the discount. I would have bought the wine elsewhere if there had not been a discount offered. I search Google for someone high up email them, I always get refunds I ask for, I don't take the piss.
What about the fact that the delivery was accepted despite the wine issue?
Lovingspring · 09/04/2021 06:43

I shop online so they generally just give me a voucher for the amount to use in my next shop. I think they last a year.

Lovingspring · 09/04/2021 06:46

They don't mind, I rush when I put my shopping away. I do try to check the email they send in the morning with short dated stock, but with things like fish they don't appear on that list

Lovingspring · 09/04/2021 06:46

Sorry that was @Sparklingbrook

Sparklingbrook · 09/04/2021 06:49

@Lovingspring

They don't mind, I rush when I put my shopping away. I do try to check the email they send in the morning with short dated stock, but with things like fish they don't appear on that list
The email would have the wine details on.
TommytheSquirrell · 09/04/2021 06:55

^^What would you say in the complaint? ‘ I accidentally accepted a delivery of wine that I didn’t want because the substitutions meant I didn’t get an offer?’

Well yeah, that’s what she ordered and the offer was why the wine was bought. The point in an offer is to make you buy it, then you at least receive the goods. Her complaint is valid. Then add rude customer service. People often accept substitutes when unpacking because they are rushed or they don’t think in the moment. Most of the time shops are happy to sort it.

SpiderinaWingMirror · 09/04/2021 07:15

They have always been shite. When they first started I had 3 deliveries. One of them the driver smashed the Xmas whiskey on the way up the drive. Accidents happen but he didn't even offer to clear it up and failed to report it. Eventually got a refund 10 days later. Second one dh accepted. I thought it seemed expensive and found on the receipt that they had charged me for 19 rolls of wrapping paper rather than the 1 I had ordered and recieved. It was nearly a hundred quid. It took 10 days over Christmas to get it back. They even accused me of having the 19 rolls even though I had only ordered 1!
I still shudder at the thought!

memberofthewedding · 09/04/2021 07:18

In cases of a serious customer complaint or when I believe I am getting fobbed off I always email the ceo:-

[email protected]

They will have an executive team who deal with customers who are serious enough enough to go right to the top.

My advice would be to be polite, explain the problem, and keep emotion out of it. You lost on a promotion because of the lack of care and skill of an employee, then when you subsequently complained the staff were rude and dismissive. You should always state what you would like as a resolution. I assume this would be some compensation for loss of your original promotion. I would also suggest the staff member who was rude receive further training in complaint resolution.

I have always used Tesco home shopping due to disability but I was having difficulty getting a slot during the first the first lockdown and got fobbed off by customer services. I emailed the CEO team and got a nice reply from a named person within hours. He asked for my details and then arranged for me to have priority slots which Ive had ever since.

anon12345678901 · 09/04/2021 07:19

I've never had a problem with Sainsburys online and it's done every week. You get an email ahead of time to tell you what's missing or substituted, there's enough time for you to have a quick glance and then when the driver comes reject the substitution. The drivers have always put in for a refund quickly. You accepted the changes.
I do always click no substitutes for certain items though as I have no idea how some things can be linked as the same product Grin

jay55 · 09/04/2021 07:21

Tesco are the best for substitutions and making sure you still get offers.
But Sainsbury's do some things Tesco don't so I suck it up once a month or so to stock up. They are the worst for short dates, 9pm delivery and milk best before the delivery day etc.

It does seem deliberate when they sub two bottles for one so you miss the offer.

HeartZone · 09/04/2021 07:25

Yanbu at all

But in my experience sainsburys customer service is the worst.

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/04/2021 07:27

Sending a DM on Twitter works.

That said, I always check the receipt they email me for subs and errors so I can be ready to check and/or reject on delivery.

broccolibush · 09/04/2021 07:29

I gave with Sainsbury’s in the end as I was having to raise issues with every order I had. Everything fresh (if it arrived) would be on very short dates - and they removed the form for complaining about this from their website so you’d have to call every time when something wasn’t right.

They were on their last chance after a ridiculous fight about tomatoes. They’d given me one pack of cherry tomatoes and one of normal ones, I rejected the normal ones but was told they weren’t part of the order. Receipt showed 2x cherry tomatoes. When I called to talk about the refund and that clearly someone had scanned 2x and picked up the wrong second item I was shouted at and had the call terminated, even though I had been incredibly polite and had explained what I thought was the mistake when the customer service chap kept telling me they weren’t on my order.

The second one was just before Christmas. All my booze came, with 25% off applied (sorry OP), but my bag of fridge stuff was missing. I called, was told it would be sorted within a couple of hours, it wasn’t so I called again. It took nearly three hours to get them to accept I didn’t have it and refund me and I had to go out to get the bits myself. Again they were acting as if I’d stolen £15 of butter, milk etc when the order was mostly champagne for Christmas and if I was going to nick anything, surely expensive booze with no use by issues would have been more sensible.

I won’t use them again.