“ASDA CAR PARKING SCAM
Went to the Hemel Hempstead branch of Asda. Parked the car and paid £2 for a pay-and-display ticket with attached refund voucher to obtain refund of the £2 if spending more than £5.
At the checkout, as I was paying by credit card for my shopping I gave the refund voucher to the checkout lady after she had scanned all items and entered my pin. The till receipt showed that the £2 refund was not given so pointed this out to the checkout lady. Response was "Sorry we do not give cash refunds for parking vouchers" to which I inquired that if that was the case then why was the £2 not credited against the shopping bill. Response - payment had already been applied to the card before the checkout lady had seen the refund voucher and if I wanted the £2 refunded I would have to go back and purchase more items to a minimum value of £2 to apply the refund voucher against.
I Went to speak to the in store Customer Service who stated that this was the policy of the car parking company (Parking Eye). I found this hard to believe as the parking company would be instructed by the land owner/lease holder (Asda). I subsequently spoke to another more senior staff member who stated that this non cash refund arrangement was an agreement between Asda Head Office and Parking Eye as previously there was a long queue of customers at the Customer Service point requesting a refund of the parking charge. I asked as to why the checkout staff do not ask for the refund voucher prior to completing the transaction at the point of sale thus enabling the £2 to be credited to the final bill. Response - checkout staff are not trained or required to do so.
So here is the scam:-
1. Park car and purchase parking ticket with a refund if purchasing goods to the value of £5 or more
2. At checkout provide refund voucher
3. Where paying by credit/debit card "Oops sorry sir I have applied payment and cannot give you a cash refund. You will have to purchase more goods to the minimum value of £2 to obtain refund"
4. The choice the customer has is either walk out and forfeit the £2 (Parking Eye win) or re-enter the store and purchase more goods to the minimum value of £2 to obtain a refund (Asda Win).
5. There is no prompt from the check out staff to ask the customer for the refund voucher at the correct point in the checkout process (as staff are not trained or required to do so BUT are trained in the application of the scam) so that the refund can be applied as a credit to the bill.
So there you have it. A WIN-WIN situation for Asda and Parking Eye and a LOSE-LOSE for the customer. Is it no wonder that Asda can undercut the competition.
Query to Asda – Is this a local store initiative or is this scam sanctioned at the corporate level?
First time I have ever shopped at Asda and it will certainly be the last.”
“Prompted by Asda e mail, first time shop £10!discount, got to pointnof paying, still no prom code box, full amount taken, phoned customer service, they have credited Asda account so i didn't really get my £10 as I have to shop with them again with a minimum spend of £49, food arrived but short of 1 item, account credited rather than money given back, can't see my shoppining inking either Asda anymore”
“I arranged a late night delivery which failed to arrive. When I contacted the so called customer services they offered to re deliver the following day but wanted to charge me £6 .
It should have been free for the inconvenience or at least att he original delivery fee!
Needless to say I cancelled the order. I will get my xmas booze elsewhere!”
“It's been probably 5th time I order ASDA home delivery. I only order it from ASDA because they do not limit still/sparking water amounts when other online grocery shops does limit those in quantity.
So the first thing next day after I made the order - I've got the email about items which were unavailable to fulfill/our of stock. Guess what? All the core items I needed the most are not available and I realized that I will be only received all add-on items which allowed me to reach 40 pound minimal delivery sum... GREAT
Then second thing: delivery was scheduled from 3 to 5 pm on Sunday, now it's already 5:15 when I'm writing this review. When it will arrive? God knows.
I wonder ho many items which should arrive won't be there? ASDA - the mood killer. It was the last time I did use you, I promise.”
“I bought a few items online to try their OnlineGrocery service.
Result?
The 1st time the delivery failed (not my fault!).
I had to book another slot for additional charge...
Already disappointing but here comes the best.
I was CHARGED TWICE for the same order.
And after 3 months of complaints with the customer service, I still received NO refund.
Unacceptable.”
“Worst service ever! Took payment for my order, but due to 'technical difficulties' the leeds branch cancelled all orders. So I am 4 months pregnant and have 2 children to feed, yet no money left and no groceries I've paid for! Been told they would call me and still heard nothing!”
“Very bad customer service in my new local asda stone court.very very disappointing.i order by click and collect .went to pick my order show them my card the one I paid with,give them my order number but made the big fuss about my name on the card it doesn't have my married name on it.show them my id and everything.but no sorry or any applogy and staff were rude.very shamful.....”
“Asda Directs customer service is an absolute joke
I ordered 3 items with a delivery date of the 26th September This was for some reason then split between 2 couriers, Yodel and Hermes.
The Yodel delivery came much quicker than this, which is by no means a bad thing. However the process seemed to fall down a little bit. At 13:31 I got both a text and an email from them to say that my order would be delivered between 9:00 - 13:00. The notification after the fact meant I was unable to have anyone in to sign for the items. The courier left one item in my porch and the other larger one with a neighbour.
However the 3rd item (Wyndham Brushed Aluminium 2 Seat Dining Bench) was being sent by Hermes who I can see received this item on the 23rd. it then sat in there hub for 3 days which seemed a bit odd, but I was aware that it wasn't due to be delivered until the 26th
on the 26th I phoned them up early morning to get confirmation that it would be delivered as I was concerned that the tracking hadn't been updated and was told it was definitely going to turn up and to stay in all day. Needless to say it didn't turn up.
After contacting them on various different medias I finally got a call back to say that it had been lost and that they were refunding me and I need to reorder the item.
I expressed that this was unacceptable and you need to resend the order, apparently this isn't their policy and I need to reorder.
I also voiced my concern that it might no longer be available or the price may have gone up as it was a clearance item. The person I called checked and said it was still available at the same price.
We'll I've just been on to re-order immediately after that phone call and the item is no longer available.
I'd requested to speak to a manager and was told one would have to phone me back, which would happen in 2-3 hours. The call never came.
I sent them a Facebook message later that day and when they failed to respond I posted the message to one of their posts. Which the following day received a reply telling me to message them direct. I highlighted that I had already done this, but messaged them anyway to which I had no reply. I then attempted to contact them on Twitter as well. After giving up this avenue and trying to call them again I found that whenever I gave them my order number and name I would be promptly disconnected.
The lost item was part of a set of garden furniture of which I now have no way of contacting them to arrange for the rest of it to be returned.
This is absolutely disgusting behaviour from such a large company, I can’t believe they would act in this way. The lost delivery could have easily been resolved but the way they dealt with this is shocking.”
“Very unhappy with asda customer service as i have phoned them 4 time in as many weeks regarding a dobble payment being taken for one shop last month and it takes forever to get someone on the phone and when u do they give you the run around this matter has still not been sorted would not recommend anyone use asda online shopping very poor service.”
“Very unhappy with asda customer service as i have phoned them 4 time in as many weeks regarding a dobble payment being taken for one shop last month and it takes forever to get someone on the phone and when u do they give you the run around this matter has still not been sorted would not recommend anyone use asda online shopping very poor service.”
“Very unhappy with asda customer service as i have phoned them 4 time in as many weeks regarding a dobble payment being taken for one shop last month and it takes forever to get someone on the phone and when u do they give you the run around this matter has still not been sorted would not recommend anyone use asda online shopping very poor service.”
“Shopped with them for 17 months - no probs though two-hour slots got more unpredictable and substitutions/missing items commoner. Delivery men were lovely but ASDA's Customer "Service" non-existent.
Discovered last week that my order had been cancelled. ASDA don't want customers contacting them, apart from the call-centre operatives in South Africa, most of whom speak limited English and have no power to do anything but tell you what's on their screen, which is what's on yours but after much effort got through to HQ in Leeds
There rude, unpleasant females told me a string of lies - my card had been rejected because I didn't have enough money in my account - funny that the bank has several times rung us to say we're keeping too much in it - because my bank was too slow in replying to requests for payment - I suspect both statements are libellous - or because there was a computer problem that was delaying deliveries. Eventually I got a ( patently insincere) apology but the same cancellation happened twice more, by which time I'd set up accounts with two other chains, neither of whichhad any problem with the same card/bank account.
I told ASDA we're both pensioners, I'm mobility-impaired and my husband, in his late 80s, can't do much. ASDA were happy to leave us with no food over a weekend. To hell with ASDA and with their CEO, Andy Clarke.”
“Please can someone explain to me why customer services closes at 10.PM for a (large retail) Asda store opened 24 hrs? I bought 2 pair of school shoes for my son from my local Asda store in Pentwyn, Cardiff 2 days ago at 2 am. They were the wrong sizes so decided to go back the next day when the kids are in bed, to exchange them at midnight. The till assistant refused. They wanted me to buy the second set with the right side and then come back the following day to ask for a refund when customer service is open. Whats even sad, is the fact that the staff was very rude with her attitude and couldn't understand my frustrations knowing fully well that other Asda stores have customer services open 24 hrs. Now stuck with 2 shoes thats too big for my son and wont be able to exchange it until the weekend when i will be able to go in to see customer services. They might as well be closed.
I was so crossed i went to complain online then found out their website was a complete joke. No where to complain, the web page kept opening new home pages. Rubbish!!!
Why is the store open 24 hrs if customer services is not open? Not good.”
“Very disappointing customer service, I pre ordered 53 packets of cookies well in advance. I saw the order details put into the order book myself, when Isent to collect them, they had not been ordered, the staff couldn't have cared less, very rude, 'To bad, we can't do anything about it now' . This was at the Middlebrooke store, Bolton. I would not recommend them. You cannot rely on them, I certainly will think twice before I shop at Asda again.”
“Awful service!! worst home delivery of all supermarket chains!! We ordered groceries on
scheduled to be delivered on Thursday 17th September 8-10 PM slot order#17691245785
and STILL awaiting delivery of same while writing this on 21st September.
What is apalling is the way ASDA representatives have acted in this whole matter, we have called
them everyday since Thursday enquiring order status but all we get is recited response from their
rude customer care and NO action. Every single time we have called complaints department they have
been casual about this and end up saying store manager will call us but to our dismay this store
manager is nowhere to be found or never gets in touch. How can one of the major chains in
supermarket be so unprofessional!!!
We have used other supermarket chains Tesco, Morrisons etc and they have been so good with
constant delivery information or prior notice about delivery status if it is getting late for 5 mins etc.
This is last time we are ordering anything for delivery from ASDA.”
“I have never dealt with a company this bad at customer service. i ordered a rug from asda direct and the website stated that click and collect wasn't available so it could only be delivered to my address (for £8.95!). So I waited at home all day on the date they gave me but it didn't appear. A week went by and still nothing so they refunded me and gave me a £5 evoucher. I decided to try again and ordered the same item again. They stated it was going to be delievered on Friday but surprise surprise it didn't arrive. It's now the following Monday and still nothing. I have used their online contect form to keepasking where it is but the only response I get is "it's on it's way, everything is fine". Everything is certainly not fine!!! What I don't understand is why the website states this item is a 48hour delivery item when they use Hermes which only works on a 5day delivery basis. Hermes tracking facility is worse than useless. I will never use Asda again!”
“Sadly the Isle of Man is not recognised. The IOM has same postal rates and is part of GB but not part of Asda's delivery territory . I was told to use International Delivery but the Isle of Man does not exist. I could send it to many countries but not an island off the coast of England!
Hey-ho . Perhaps management would check it out.
The telephonist was courteous.
Maybe the company does not know where the IOM is?”
“Waited for a refund from a home delivery, we hadn't received items and the substitutes we had were the complete opposite to what was ordered.
We were told by cs that it would take 3-5 days for a refund.....7-8 days nothing so we called cs and over an hour on the phone (mostly on hold) we were told someone will call back, surprise they didn't. We called again asking for a manager and was told someone will call back, we demanded to speak to one then and there, the manager said we didn't get a refund because someone was supposed to call to discuss refund!?!
He said he will pay this into the account along with compensation.
Well we waited and after 2 weeks and 5 hours waiting and talking on the phone the refund was in the bank!! Woo...but no sorry compensation.
So another 40 min wait on the phone with the cs umming and uhhhrrring they said they will call back, you guessed it within 2 hours but this didn't happen, so another phone call to them and the excuse was the previous person did not log it on properly. They are taking the mick ! Conveniently no manager was available. BS.
So waiting again for the phone calls that will never arrive or the money.
A big company like asda should be ashamed of themselves. It's a disgrace.”
