Fucking cheating bastards Sainsbury’s and their substitute price promise

[firsttimemama]

I have had Sainsbury’s delivery for years. In the last few months I have noticed they have been ripping me off, on this scheme. Anyone else notice? So I order 6 x juice carton at say £3, not in stock, they send 3 instead, cost £2, so no refund, same with dog food. I order 5 kg because it is better value than 2.5kg, they sub me with 1 x 2.5 kg, lower cost, but not cheaper IYSWIM. They used to send 2 x2 5 kg to make the ordered quantity, and give me back the price difference. Not I see this happening so often, it can only be a policy change IMO. Also not price match on alcohol, they keep that very quiet when they sent me a £22 bottle of Baileys instead a £10 one on offer. We are being squeezed all around!

Not always the case at Waitrose, they substituted my 3 large bottles of milk with 3 small ones rather than 6 to make the quantity correct. I sent them back, even the delivery driver said it was ridiculous.

I get so confused with their vouchers and refunds. I honestly don't think they know what they're doing from week to week!

They once substituted broccoli for 2 bags of Kale. I gave it back to the driver and he genuinely seemed confused as to why I didn't want the kale.

Cos I don't like kale, I ordered broccoli because I wanted to eat broccoli! 😂 if I wanted kale, I would have ordered that myself

Reading this thread has definitely put me off home deliveries! Shall stick to finding time for my weekly shop .

The trouble is with the no subs option is then you don't get half of what you order and have to go to the shop anyway. Tesco in my area provide great subs and long dates but I know this varies.

@Idratherbepaddleboarding you were talking to Sainbury’s not Sainsbury’s! Try the real one! I actually got very good prompt service from Sainsburys on Facebook Messenger so they do help.

@YellowTreeHouse @PanPacificBallroomChampion @containsnuts i really don’t get why you are side with the villain in this. They have the stock I want, but on the small more expensive packing. I want 5 kg they send me 2.5kg, I want 6 juice boxes, they send me 3. They just need to do what they used to do and double up the quantity. I am happy to accept subs on other genuinely unavailable products, that is not the issue. Also it is their policy to cover the price differences their policy - not mine, I just want them to actually honour it. Also I pay for the privilege and “convenience” of online delivery, so I should be getting a good service from it. Again this seems to be something that has changed. Also thank you to the posters that have said I should have got the alcohol price difference, I am going to phone them again now and see what they say.

Sainsburys had a 25% off for 6 bottles of wine offer - I worked it out and ordered six bottles and they sent me 5 and charged full price.

so I have never used them again. I used to get a delivery every week - I emailed and never got a reply. Never again. Such a shitty way to treat customers.

We stopped using Sainsburys when all our meats almost always had short life spans, but not short enough to get a refund. They used to allow refunds for items that expire 48 hours after delivery which, if you get late evening deliveries like we do, was helpful. Now it’s items that expire the next day, so when we get a 10pm delivery, we’ve lost an entire day already. So ordering a week’s worth of meat produce and having it all expire two days later without the option of getting a refund was a pain.

Now use Ocado - no problems whatsoever.

@DelilahBucket @HyggeLykke @mrsbrightside1308 thank you, I just phoned them back and they have given the refund voucher for the Baileys. I think you should try again @mrsbrightside1308. It still doesn’t make up for all the higher unit priced goods I am having to pay for, so I can actually have some food in the house and feed my dogs. I’m glad others have noticed too though, they are seriously trying to pull the wool over our eyes on this, and I want Sainsbury’s to know, that we know what they are doing. One thread I would love to make the Daily Mail! Also why are some of their customer service staff - I could say telling lies, about alcohol not being in the price substitution policy?

I don't know if I'm missing something and being really naive, because I assumed that when I choose to keep a more expensive sub and I then get the price promise coupons in my app wallet, that's it's fair? I've got some price promise coupons in my app wallet ranging from 15p up to £2.50 and I'll use them on future orders. I don't know if I'm being really silly but I don't get the issue with the price promise?

Oh honey, they’re not “the villain”. They’re just a supermarket.

It doesn’t always work out that the bigger quantity is always double of the smaller, so their policy isn’t to double up. It is to sub one item with another similar item.

You aren’t checking subs. You aren’t there when they come in. You aren’t there to refuse them. You won’t say no subs. So this is on you.

@Soontobe60 actually they used to do this - it's how I found out about lazy garlic years ago as they didn't have any garlic purée on the shelves, asked a colleague & they gave me the lazy garlic & a voucher to give to checkout staff so that I only paid the same £1 I'd have paid for the purée.

@YellowTreeHouse “oh honey” - really?

No, you do not understand, or you do not want to understand. If I order 5 kg of a product, a suitable sub would be 5kg of another product, or 2 x 2.5kg packets of the same product. They are demonstrating that they have the 2.5kg pack available, but they are not sending it. Ultimately I could refuse the sub, the point I am raising is that are stealthily making active decisions to disadvantage the customer on their price promise arrangement - do you get it now, hun?

Oh hon. Big business isn’t out to get you. They don’t tell their employees to stiff you.

There are 180,000 sainsbury’s employees in the UK. If there was a policy to stiff you, you’d know about it. The policy is simply 1 similar item.

Did it yo me with marmite this week, order the £3 jar, got the one half the size that's £2.50.
Between that and the short dates on everything, like milk with a use by of the next day on an 8pm delivery. I'm buggering off to Tesco.

They are doing it to me as well and it is annoying. I do refuse substitutions in this case but not everyone can do that. If you are having home deliveries because you can't get to the shops it doesn't help if you don't get something essential.

Is it fresh? When Tesco send my delivery, the use by dates, on the meat especially, are terrible. I feel like they take advantage of home deliveries to offload.

They do it to me and it annoys me! I order the amount I need, so it means I need to go and do a top up shop. I'd even rather pay full price for the right amount of the smaller packs and not get it price matched against the bigger pack and not have to go to the supermarket to buy more. I get home delivery for the convenience.

And as for sending a pack of 6 wraps when I ordered a pack of 8. You can't then go and buy a pack of 2. Grr.

Actually @YellowTreeHouse it does look like they have changed their policy or staff training.

6 months ago if I ordered a pack of 12 sausages at £4, a sub would be 2x 6 sausages costing £5 and I’d receive a voucher for the price difference. Now if I order the same they will send me 1x 6 sausages at £2.50. No refund, poorer value for money, and not enough sausages. It’s quite annoying for meal planning or bulk cooking.

Maybe they are trying to 'cut costs' and always subbing more expensive options may be losing too much - especially as home delivery is so popular now? They haven't notified their customers tho and I'm not sure the profit sheet is looking too bad for them 🙄

They are utter thieves and I will never shop with them again. I have no substitutes on all my deliveries. My last delivery they elected to substitute 6 cartons of cupboard milk for 6 cartons of milk that had to be refrigerated. Call centre in India is diabolical, no one will help, after waiting 30 minutes to speak to someone, the best they had to say, in very poor English, was take them into the store and ask for a refund there. Right so why exactly did I pay a delivery fee? Horrible lying cheating company.

Yes the other days I'd ordered two packs of regular paper and they substituted for one pack of premium. Really annoying as it's more expensive - I guess yes, in the shop I would have got the premium one but I'd have got the two reams we needed not one!

I just hand back the substitution if this happens. I’ve not noticed an increase in it happening, still fairly occasional for me with Sainsburys.

Supermarkets operate on really slim profit margins, making 1-3 per cent profit. For every £100 that you spend, £97-£99 is spent on buying the goods from manufacturers, distributing them, marketing themselves, paying their employees, etc. I'm guessing that with times being so hard (suppliers putting up prices as well), they are finding that they can no longer fund giving more expensive substitutes which could remove profit from their sale of goods to you. I get that it is infuriating and I would be incredibly angry if I had lost money this way too. Best to accept that substitutes are being given more often due to broader issues and maybe as PPs say, refuse substitutions. It's all very depressing, I'm hoping that if you can understand why they are tightening up their policies, it might help to diffuse your anger.

But they email you in advance detailing any subs and the costs. So if you can’t be bothered to read the email and think ‘do I want this?’ how is that the supermarket’s fault?