... to complain about a member of staff at our local Aldi?

[InSearchOfMartin]

In Aldi two weeks ago I took five bottles of perfume to the checkout along with my shopping. I wasn't buying the perfume but I noticed they'd ben opened and squirted and one bottle was damaged. They were unsellable, total cost not a great amount about £35-£40. The woman on the checkout said they couldn't provide testers, so I said that it was a shame as they were losing stock. She said I could talk to the manager, who came out and I asked her about testers. She said Aldi didn't provide testers so I said, as the manager, couldn't you make that decision as you are losing sales. She said no, and I said well, then, it's a shame you are losing stock. I asked what would happen to them and she said they would be sent back. End of conversation, neither party was rude to the other.

I posted on the local Facebook forum about it, with the focus being not on the store, but the standard of customers who were entitled to open and spray themselves with perfume as follows.

What is wrong with people? I've been in Aldi today and found five boxes of perfume opened and squirted, two with damaged lids. Not testers. These are now unsaleable, and at about £7 for goodness sake just buy it and give it away if you don't like it. Really bad behaviour.

A few comments followed all agreeing with me, one person saying they had actually seen testers in a different Aldi in our city. Then today, this rant appeared from one of the Aldi members of staff!

I love how u have failed to mention the attitude & horrible, uncalled for comments to 2 members of staff on this post. U conducted ourself in the most awful & embarrassing way. U should be embarrassed, we all know u just wanted the perfume reduced, staff & customers that overheard, we all know what u were after. ok, just mind ur manners next time. It costs nothing to be nice.

So I want to complain about this. A member of their team is accusing me of wanting freebies, being rude, being embarrassing, awful and so on in embarrassing English, too. I was not rude at all. Nobody was rude. I was cross at the customers being so bloody entitled and thought I was doing the store a favour!

Conversely, this Aldi member of staff should be mortified at her level of English, customer service and ranting on a local Facebook forum. She's made herself look thick, and she's lying. Also, if someone at a doctor's surgery, library, local council etc wrote like this on a forum they'd be in trouble at work for it.

So would you complain, leave it or what?

'frustration at society' 😂😂

I'm absolutely fine, thanks for your concern.

Why would anyone give a flying fuck about Aldi perfume op? The staff aren’t even arsed. Haven’t you got a job/family/hobbies and stuff? This is ridiculously pathetic 🤦🏼‍♀️😂

Why did you feel the need to do this? Did you not think that the people who actually work there are aware of this already?

Unbelievable.

What difference would that make? It would still be their loss of profits.

Given the way you've replied on this thread I would say you probably came across as rude and aggressive irl.

Aldi is cheap and cheerful precisely because they don't provide all the frills that the likes of boots etc would.

I'm not sure what you were hoping to gain by complaining in the first place, or taking it to FB.

Yes I have all of those things, thanks for asking.

And yes YABU

As others have said, you should have contacted head office. I'm sure the staff had a field day gabbing about the weird customer who was so invested in maximising Aldi's profits.

I think you need a hobby. You have far too much time on your hands.

Large jigsaw puzzles, Sudoku/train the brain type games or learning a new language (loads of free resources online) are some of the things you can do to occupy your mind.

Working in retail can be exhausting and demoralising. Please leave the Aldi employee alone.

Isn’t that what local facebook groups are for? My local one if full of people complaining about random stuff.

It sounds utterly bonkers that you decided to tell the store how many bottles had been opened and that they needed testers. I am sure that all the staff must have thought that you were trying to get them reduced as your behaviour seems so weird.

Hmm, there's definitely an undertone of superiority from OP, and being so caught up in Aldi's perfume tester policy when you're not even there to buy it, is odd behaviour.

They probably leave those ones on the shelf as unofficial testers, I think our Aldi do, but when someone like OP is questioning you like this you become suspicious and stick to the policy like a limpet because 9/10 they're trying to trip you up, dressed up as being 'helpful'. If they'd said that's what they do I suspect there'd be an email winging it's way to head office.

The following comments about the person who wrote the post seal the deal really for me.

OMG OP. Just stop. I’m so embarrassed for you.

It’s lazy consumerism not caring about wasted stock, them being returned and binned (which would happen)

also, the way she replied to you on fb wasn’t ok and I would absolutely would complain.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Honestly, this. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

With respect, you need to get a life.

It doesn't matter where it was, low, medium or high-end store. It doesn't concern you to this extent of time and energy.

People on here have said Aldi does testers. The open bottles (they most likely knew they were open) were acting as testers. You removed them to question staff by the checkout instead of floor staff, for an item you did not want.

And if you are still concerned about things like this then you write to their Head Office. You don't post to Facebook.

I don't think the OP cares about waste, as she says in one post that people should just buy the perfume without smelling it and just throw it away if they don't like it.

I agree with this. Very unprofessional getting involved on social media, especially when the post wasn't a complaint about the staff or the way it was handled. They would want their staff not to be posting things like that, I certainly would want to know if my staff were doing this.

Actually I didn't. I said they should give it away.

Really though, who cares?