Thursday 30 April 2015

Creative Complaining.

Once upon a time I bought a multipack of Walkers crisps on offer [naturally squeak squeak]. All was well until I got to the last packet which was full but sadly only full of air. Hardly important on a world stage but they had a freefone number on the back so I decided to just cheekily give them a ring and let them know. I thought it would be difficult to prove that the packet was empty but apparently every once in a while one of their packing machines goes into overdrive and zealously seals the odd empty packet. From the codes on the back that I read out to the lady from Walkers she was able to tell not only which factory had produced them but also which line and the specific machine. Normally they hoick them out but occasionally one slips through. I received a very pleasant letter from them and vouchers and they meanwhile were able to run a check on said faulty machine.

Last night I was chatting to a gentleman who in a similar vein made a light hearted observation. When he goes to the cinema he likes to buy himself a box of Smarties. On this occasion there were no orange ones which are the only flavoured ones these days apparently. He bought a second box which he emptied out at home to carry out his own research which resulted in a two page letter of formulae listing the probability of there not being a single orange Smartie in the box [he's a teacher]. Having sent if off to Rowntree [as they were then] he heard nothing. He drew that conclusion that the company perhaps hadn't seen the funny side....several weeks later the postman delivered a big parcel to him. There was no accompanying note just a big box full of orange Smarties! I like those sort of tales!

Arilx

4 comments:

  1. We complained once about opening a can of soup only to find it was empty. A few days later we accepted delivery of a pack of 24 cans of soup as compensation. It's worth complaining sometimes.

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  2. You can tell I'm catching up on reading your blog from the flurry of comments!! I do think complaining is a good thing (but also giving credit where it's due) I remember writing to tell Sainsburys that the name of their "Pineapple and Prawn cottage cheese" was indeed grammatically correct because there was one prawn in the entire pot. They were suitably apologetic and sent various vouchers. I also wrote to praise a supermarket for something. They were obviously so overcome that they replied, with vouchers, apologising for my disappointment in their product!

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  3. Brilliant! When I was at school, the sixth formers (the rest of us weren't allowed out!) used to go in the Co-op over the road and one day someone found that some of the chocolate had been in the window and had gone white. So they wrote off to the Cadbury's and got either vouchers or free bars. So, one by one, each and every sixth former went in and bought the same chocolate.... Unfortunately, by the time I got to be a sixth former, the Co-op had got wise to it.

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  4. Thanks for all your lovely comments- your tales have made me smile!
    Arilx

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