Tesco Promise

Tesco promise to refund 20p to all Tesco Metro customers buying these onions today

Another very annoying trip to Tesco. 

I avoid their stores like the plague now. So many of the displayed prices just don't match the price Tesco charge at the checkout.

Today I needed onions.

Loose they were 99p per kg. 

The  bag above weighs 1.2kg and costs just 1p more - £1.00. So an extra 20% for 1p.

Or so I thought. But at the checkout they scanned at £1.20. The cashier refused to believe they were displayed at £1.00 and said I would have to go to customer services.

Other shops like Sainsbury's and Waitrose don't do this when they make mistakes. But then these supermarkets are gaining new customers. 

Tesco is losing customers, lots of them. They have just had the worst trading year in recent history. The Big Price Drop turned into the Big Price Flop. Shoppers simply don't trust Tesco prices any more.

So I went to see the deputy manager (Andrew, according to his badge) to complain that Tesco had stolen 20p from every single customer who bought from the large display of onions today.

I pointed out they use CCTV and a security guard on the door to catch customers who steal, but no one is protecting the customers when Tesco steals from them.

'What do you want me to do?' he asked. 

'You have the clubcard details of every single customer who bought the onions today, I would like you to write to them all and apologise for stealing from them, and refund the 20p'.

'I will facilitate that happening' he promised. 

Of course I have no way of telling whether Tesco will keep their promise.

A few years ago I bought wine - buy 6 save 25% - on promotion in Sainsbury's. In my local store a systems error meant the discount was incorrectly calculated in Sainsbury's favour. When I wrote to complain, Sainsbury's said they would write to all the other customers who had used Nectar cards and been over-charged. They sent me £30 in vouchers by way of apology. 

A few weeks later I received another £10 voucher and a letter of apology which had been sent to all the customers who had been over-charged. So yes Sainsbury's kept their promise and did trace all the affected customers (or they went to very elaborate lengths to make me believe they had, but I really doubt that).

So if you get a letter and a refund from Tesco because you were over-charged for onions please do let me know.

I'm not holding my breath.

Now I plan to facilitate doing my shopping elsewhere again. 

*I've emailed this post to Tesco Chief Executive Philip Clarke.  

To add further insult I entered the details from my receipt into the tescopricepromise.com website. 17 hours later Tesco emailed to tell me my shopping would have been 68p cheaper if I'd gone to Morrisons instead. If I can be bothered I can even print out a voucher for the 68p - but then I'd actually have to shop in Tesco and I don't plan to do that anytime soon.

Update 3 October. In the last 7 days I've received 2 standard 'holding' emails from Tesco's Chief Executive's team saying they are 'investigating'. Today Tesco announced their first fall in profits for 18 years - a fall of 11.6%. A disastrous result for any company, especially one which continues to lose shoppers' trust so fast.

Just received this hilarious reply. No wonder Tesco is in such dire trouble - this is the 'official' response.

Dear sir,

It just came in my attention about the issue of the product you bought

from ealing tesco metro and there was price differance of 20p for the product.

  Thx for your recent information what happen on that day and we are inprocess

to send apology with the overcharge to all the customer who bought onion

on £1.20 on that day...

  Also the issue has resolved as it was system error.. as the team is working

on such kind of price errors, and making sure that it wont happen again.

as this is not tesco's normal standerd where we pride ourselves on customer service

and work hard to ensure our customers have a pleasant experince when shopping

with us, but on this occation it didnt happen.

    We do apologise on this matter to all effected customers. we appreciate the time

you have taken to let us know about the issue you had while shpping with Tesco's as

customer feedback helps us improve our service .

   Also if u can provide your address via email or

contacting the store will help us to send our apology and goodwill to you quicker.

   I hope you will feel able to give us another chance to serve you better in future.

Kind regards