Shocked at hidden fees in my Asda shop

[Lucie984]

I’ve shopped through Asda online for years and with the exception of a few minor issues have generally found the service and produce to be good both online and instore. I’m also aware they have a £40 minimum basket charge ( fair enough) we have an anytime pass so as long as I do a £40 shop I should only be paying for the groceries purchased….
However the cumulative basket total shown in the corner as shopping can show £40 but this does not mean you have actually reached the minimum £40 basket total. Was very upset to look back through the full receipt of many of my recent orders I have been charged £7.50-9 in these hidden fees. Shockingly even when actually adding a few extra items would have still made the overall charge on our credit card nearly 25% cheaper!

Asda is expensive if you’re on a tight budget. Would you not go to Aldi instead?

Some people can't shop in-store

I’m sorry OP but I haven’t had an issue understanding my receipt either.
Maybe if you’re doing other things like cooking the dinner and feeding the baby at the same time then maybe you’re rushing and not taking enough care to read it properly. Just a thought, not trying to have a go at you.
Could you order from a different supermarket if you don’t like the way that Asda run their online shopping?

I think if you are doing several £40 shops a week and having to put it on a credit card, you would be better off doing one big shop and stopping in once to pick up essentials. How is milk and bread not lasting? We shop at Tesco (about £100 ish a week for 3 meals a day plus snacks for 2 adults, a hungry teen and a primary school aged dc).

Milk lasts well over a week (yesterday’s milk had 29/9 use by date) and same with bread (definitely lasts at least 7 days, often I can get longer than that out of it). Fruit and veg easily lasts us a week, just sometimes we need more of it because we eat a lot of fruit. 😳 If food isn’t lasting, I’d be shopping elsewhere to get better value, especially if it’s already going on a credit card.

Switch to Morrisons if it is an option. £25 min basket spend on the any time pass.

& I’ve never had any hidden fees

@Lucie984 I can imagine that must be so frustrating, especially if the Asda system is different to the delivery system you are used to.

However, view this as a cautionary tale in taking care when doing any financial transactions online. Scammers rely on busy people juggling admin along with other tasks and clicking on links. It’s why phishing scams are so common and so hugely successful.

The new system has confused me too, but I've caught it before checkout, thankfully. I use Asda for a top-up so have smaller orders.

I want my shopping lists back though! I have brain fog and need shopping to be as idiot proof as possible.

Thank you for understanding the point I’m making!! I only put it on here so other people wouldn’t get caught in the same trap, instead I get a gaggle of keyboard warriors who insist they still read through every letter of checkout page of the regular shop they’ve been doing for years, of course all while working 200 hours a week plus while caring for newborn triplets, existing on 10p a week as a single parent or whatever 🤦🏻‍♀️

Edited to say cross posted with previous poster so looks like Twitter is the route to go or Facebook if you don't have Twitter. That is a real scam. The order total above the checkout button shows you above the £40 but the total on the other side takes off the multibuys which drops it below and adds the delivery fees into the new total to make it over £46 with no line itemising this. Very sharp practice. Not sure who you should complain to about it but its not very nice. Maybe vote with your feet and go to Tesco or do a couple of comparisons to see which comes out best

I have an online shop with Sainsbury’s weekly, I know what the minimum spend is etc. there’s no such thing as hidden charges.

I don’t work for Asda but at another food retailer.
When you scan items into your basket it will show you the price for that individual product. It will then keep a running total which may get to £40 but when you go to checkout it will calculate any offers/discounts and it will adjust your final total.

OP, I have sympathy with the fact that you missed this. If you’re on a tight budget then discovering you’ve spent a load of unnecessary money must be infuriating.

However, this really is on you.

Getting huffy with other posters and insinuating you’re the only busy mum on here is just rude. You don’t have to spend an “inordinate” amount of time checking your receipt - it’s literally one line at the bottom, separated, and above the total. It’s clear as day.

Not looking at your final total is just madness if you’re watching the pennies. You could have missed offers, for example.

Also, you say the online team aren’t helpful but I’ve always found them to be brilliant whenever I’ve had a problem.

As PP have said, fewer shops sound like a better solution. Milk and bread both last longer than a couple of days and as such a “busy mum”, doing fewer shops would free up some time for you.

Yes like I said, this hasn’t happened to me with any other supermarket

As someone has said up thread I would be more worried for you doing larger more complex transactions if you are so distracted as that's where the scams set in...I dont think this is asdas fault but more a cautionary tale to check before you checkout. Those 3 seconds may have cost you hundreds.

Weirdly I noticed this yesterday too.

I thought I'd hit my £40 minimum shop and it was only when I closely looked through the checkout tally that where it used to give you the true total of what you've spent, it actually doesn't anymore although it looks like it and I could see the delivery charges (even though I pay for a delivery pass) and below £40 charges.

Asda are annoying me a little lately as their stock levels on certain things have been appalling for weeks saying either that it's in stock and you then don't get it or saying Out Of Stock for weeks on end, yet I can pick the same items up from a different supermarket, so it's definitely not a supply issue (unfortunately for me, I can only occasionally physically get out to do a shop elsewhere depending on when a carer can take me).

Also noticed that they've removed their Groceries section from the Cashback site, Quidco (although George etc is still on there) and also that quite a few of their offers don't work when ordering online (ie my husband wanted some Goodfellows deep pan pizzas and they were on offer for something like 4 for £4.98 but it was charging full price, when the offers usually tally as you're doing the shop.

Are the people who don't understand the problem actually ordering from Asda? It is genuinely a ridiculous way to show your basket total and completely different to the other supermarkets. I use most of them and they show your actual basket total. They didn't warn us they were making the change so it's completely understandable it's caught people out.

It seems to me that the supermarket can't win here. If they only showed the price of the items in the basket then when people with £36 of shopping got to the end and the minimum charges were added, so that the total jumped to £45, they would complain that these charges were being dumped on them at the last minute ("They lure you in with cheap prices and then make their money on these extras after you've spent all that time and don't want to cancel").

At least this way, the amount on the screen at all times is "What you will pay, in total, if you check out now", which is arguably the less misleading of the two possibilities. There may well have been legal input to this.

It's annoying to discover that you spent £45 on £36 worth of groceries, but kind of by definition you didn't think that £45 was too much for whatever it was you were getting.

But she's a busy mum, don't you know!

These charges are not hidden, they are clearly stated. They are just not stated on one website the same way they are stated on another website.

No as you would be aware before you paid as that figure tends to be in your face as you’re paying. That’s what every other retailer and supermarket does and no one has complained of feeling screwed over by them in comparison in this thread? That is £5 extra sitting on my credit card as well as £4 less food to feed our children with so yes it does matter 🤷🏼‍♀️

They aren't hidden!

They are in your basket until you meet the minimum spend on items.

You've obviously only looked at the total and assumed it was items and ended up not purchasing enough to qualify to drop the charges. They only make these charges because delivering such a tiny order won't be profitable otherwise. I suspect its not profitable with the extra charges but maybe helps them break even or make a little.

Lesson of the day.

I seem to do it back to front from everyone else, I always fill my basket first then pick my delivery slot and that shows the true price of the shopping, it changes once you book the slot 🤷🏼‍♀️

I know at Tesco there are some items/categories that don't count towards your minimum £40.

I understand you OP. The issue is that this is a recent change, and if, like me, you are doing smaller shops and stopping adding items when you’ve gone above £40 you don’t realise. I nearly got caught out by it as well.

PPs are missing that you thought you already “knew” the total was over £40 and that there were therefore no charges to check for, because your basket total said so.

Asda online shopping is dire at the moment, I’ll likely change.

The previous version had the basket total, then when you went in the basket any extra fees were at the bottom and also clearly shown in checkout. If you're shopping there with a delivery pass you'll know you need to spend £40 to avoid them, so usually you wouldn't have needed to check before you pay. It's now harder to know when you've reached £40.