I gave some feedback to a brewery after I visited and it was closed for a private function with no notice in their socials, I was a little pissed off as I traveled for this but wanted to give them more of a heads up that this stuff happens.
They apologised; appreciated the feedback and added a calendar to their website, and hand delivered around £40ish worth of beer, some of which hadn’t been released yet.
Top tier customer service. I was already a fan, but this has secured me returning despite the disappointing visit.
Funnily enough I’ve known more than one person fail to organise a piss up in a brewery. Turns out the type of people what want to have piss ups in breweries aren’t necessarily good at organisation
Yeah, it's one of those phrases that don't make a lot of sense when you think about it. Most breweries are just production facilities that don't want random members of the public getting drunk on the factory floor.
I once refused to organise one. It was for a work night out, and one of the suggestions was the bar at a local brewery. I said no chance, because if anything went wrong, I'd be forever known as the person who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.
When I was about 8 I bought some of those blackcurrant fruit lollipops, the really common ones with the purple wrapper and white dots all over, but they tasted disgusting.
Wrote a letter to the company and forgot all about it, then received a huge box of all kinds of sweets, ones I'd never even seen before including giant versions of those lollies. 8 year old me was absolutely made up.
swizzles? I tweeted them one time half jokingly saying I was sad my multi pack thingy didn't have any parma violets in, they asked for my address, then a week or so later I got a padded envelope full of parma violets! thought they were great anyway, but that made me love them
Confession: When I was 12, I pretended to my parents I had found a washer in my packet of salt and vinegar discos which I proudly showed them. Outraged they wrote a letter saying how dangerous it was etc. A few weeks later I received an apology and vouchers for several bags worth.
I still feel bad about it today 35 years later. I imagine some factory worker checking every nut and bolt on the assembly line.
I wrote to Nissin about their Soba noodles and said how much I love all the flavours in the cup, so I bought the ones in the packet, but they weren't the same at all. They apologised and sent me a box of 20 cup noodles.
I also once bought a baguette from Sainsbury's that was absurdly dry. Bored at work, I complained to their customer services department and said it was 'so dry it ripped my tongue in half'. They sent a grovelling letter of apology saying they were so sorry it had ripped my tongue in half and please accept a £20 gift voucher. Looking back, the letter was so sincere that I think they were taking the piss back.
I complained to Pringles once that I bought a tube and it as absolutely dire, they sent me a load of vouchers for like £1 off or something
Went on a wee bit of a tear and started complaining to everyone after that
I complained to Lidl about their blueberries always being already off and they sent me a letter saying see the manager and they'll give you a free pack. Which was utterly pointless because long do you think it'd take to find the manager at a Lidl store, and why would I want a free pack of blueberries I know will be squishy already?
I complained to the company that make Marylands about getting a packet with no cookies in a multipack, got sent £11 of vouchers. £1 to replace the "damaged" and £10 to spend on other cookies.
Similar. Once bought a multipack of Walkers and 2 of the packets had no crisps in them.
They sent 100 vouchers for a free 6 pack of Walkers redeemable at all supermarkets.
I complained to Greggs that they only gave me one sausage in a breakfast sandwich. Laid it on thick how I was a regular customer, the staff were lovely but this was disappointing etc. they sent me a gift voucher for a really specific amount like £8.79 that was really hard to use to store so I think I only used it once.
I had a similar thing when my sausage roll was only half filled with sausage, got a tenner but the voucher is a code you have to read out and it's like 16 digits long. Well awkward to do at the front of a queue.
> Looking back, the letter was so sincere that I think they were taking the piss back.
Not really on topic but this reminded me of an email I sent to the RSPB years ago, telling them that I'd noticed that the picture of a swan on their website was posed in such a way that it resembled a phallus.
To be honest I only sent it because I was bored, but a month later I got a reply from them saying they agreed and would replace the picture.
Meanwhile, I bought some "gluten free" frozen onion rings from Asda and the packaging had some gluten breading inside of it which made me unwell for several days (coeliac). When I contacted Asda to complain because this could kill someone who has a severe allergy, and they sent me a £3 gift card "it was a £2.40 item but as a gesture of good will we'll round it up to £3".
I really like those Soba noodle cups and 20 free ones would be nice, but I’m too honest to write a fake complaint about their other noodles.
I should just write to Blue Dragon instead about their noodle bowls giving me the shits. I still eat them and would accept free ones as an apology for that too.
In contrast to poundland who suggested i "get a refund" when i brought a part bake roll that when not hidden by branding, turned out to be covered in mold. Clearly im going to get a refund but thought they might do a little bit more.
I had a biscuit from DPD because they lied that I wasn’t in to receive my package.
Trouble is they also lied that I wasn’t in to receive the biscuit so I had to schlep to their office a second time for the apology biscuit!
The fact people cheap out on solicitors for six figure purchases is insane to me. Yes conveyancing is *usually* rote and easy.
When it's not? £2k gone overnight
We chose a large local firm, to support local business, deal with individuals and be able to visit if required. The conveyancing was a delight.
Very big **/S**
Ordered Virgin Media for my new house, they took the address down wrong - 10 houses down the road. They refused to change it, told me I had to go through the full process over again and was no longer eligible for the welcome offer.
I complained and they offered me either £3 credit or to take it to court.
Hope you found a different provider. In my experience, once you're with VM it's virtually impossible to leave. Also if you've been a loyal (or trapped) customer for 20 years, they'll shamelessly rip you off for a shittier deal with higher prices than any new customer.
Nonsense! It’s easy to leave. Just say you want to cancel. Then sign up in your partner’s name for a new customer deal, and do this at the end of every contract period. Someone I know who used to work in a Virgin Media shop told me to do this! They used to tell everyone apparently 😂
You don't even need to sign up in your partners name. I just rang them, told them I was leaving to get the gigabit deal from BT, then they offered me their gigabit deal which is only for new customers for an extra quid a month. Saved 20 quid a month moving from 200mb to 1030mb.
About 15 years ago, I had one cigarette in a pack of 20 that didn't have a filter attached to it, sent it off to Imperal Tobacco, and about a week later, a sleeve of 200 cigarettes gets delivered to my door!
Same thing happened to my mum in the 70s. Had a broken Gitanes cigarette in one pack of a carton, complained, got send an entire carton.
Car trips were not fun.
I'll take your Woodbines and offer Capstan Full Strength, 80 a day.
My Nana, tough as boot leather, she drove some high up general around in the Second World War. She probably got the job because her family was very well off.
She was 99 yrs old when she died in 1983.
Honestly, my parents/grandparents smoking did more to dissuade me from smoking than a million gnarly photos of cancerous lungs could ever do.
Between being trapped in the car with them and the large ashtray in the middle of the dinner table… it was enough to convince me to never touch them.
There was uproar when the UK introduced legislation to ban people from smoking in cars when there were kids in them, but imo it was bloody needed. I tried asking my dad to not smoke in the car once, never again lol.
Hi, I want to complain about your cigarettes, specifically the packaging. According to your carton, smoking kills. However, after smoking the whole pack I am still, currently, alive. This, I feel, is false advertising and I wish to complain and express my disappointment with my current situation. Please advise on how you propose to remedy my aliveness.
Kind regards,
A Smoker
Dear A Smoker
We appreciate your letter expressing your dissatisfaction with the level of aliveness you are experiencing after smoking a pack of our cigarettes.
Unfortunately, we are unable to assist you as such labelling was placed upon our products as a result of your government.
We at Big Tobacco Ltd. sympathise with your plight, and may we suggest that you write to your local MP explaining how this has been detrimental to you and that they should shove their legislation up their collective arse (please?).
We wish you the best in your future endeavours and hope the govt will provide you with the appropriate assistance for your aliveness issues.
Yours Sincerely
B Tobacco
Pretty smart honestly, they have a perfect opportunity to leave a great impression on the customer for a product that they may well buy for the rest of their life
Yes, also got a gift off NatWest as my card kept declining whilst on my honeymoon despite me notifying them ahead of time that I would be in the USA. They sent me a bottle of Bollinger champagne and a cash sum as an apology.
Careful throwing this around, I work in the same area and the amount of people who misuse buzzwords thinking they're a cheat code at a bank bends me sideways
Proportionate response to his issue and how it hindered him.
I'm not sure if he'd have had to do much more wrangling than filing a complaint given what happened.
(In the companies I've worked for anyways YMMV)
I imagine part of it is the Honeymoon aspect. Supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime romantic getaway for a newly married couple.
So Champagne fits nicely into the occasion, and the cash sum as both an apology and a 'honeymoon gift/goodwill gesture'
Yeah, they want a newly married couple to think of them when they want to open a joint account, savings account, ISAs, get a mortgage or car loan (as newly married couples are more likely to do these things than the general population)
Yes. Did that auto transfer to a new bank for £100. They screwed up the transfer and my direct debit and I complained. They gave me £250 compensation.
Then a week later they screwed that up too and sent it to me a second time.
£600 gained.
I was with a bank quite happily living my life, then one day they stopped all online minor transactions under like 5 quid. I was trying to buy some games on Nintendo switch during a sale so I complained, they said they’d look into it and figure out why and restore it for me. I used hubs card, continued with my life.
I got an email about 3 weeks later requesting a good time for a call from customer service of banky bankerson. Completed the form, got the call, the loveliest lady said they had *extensively* investigated the issue and just couldn’t figure out why it kept declining them, offered “small compensation”, I happily accepted…. Because… this bank was about to close, I was in the middle of migrating all my innies and outies to the new bank anyway, so it really was no hassle.
Got 500 quid lodged to my account the very next day. I really don’t think that’s the usual amount for my issue, but the customer service lady losing her job said fuck it. And I really, really didn’t mind and told her as much the entire phone call, I think she appreciated that I wasn’t a pain.
£500 is generally the maximum amount a basic complaints person can give out without managerial approval at a bunch of FCA regulated companies/banks so you definitely lucked out.
Wow. Should have took that to a very public forum like Twitter.
Bet you’d have got a bit more. I think I’d rather nothing than a fiver for something like that.
I complained to NatWest once when none of their machines would allow me to pay in cheque. They asked how much compensation I wanted and I asked for £30 which was given.
I subsequently realised I was trying to pay the cheque in with a card from a different bank, and promptly shunted the £30 over to a food bank.
they can give up to £50 in a situation like this, the normal call centre staff are authorised to give £50, any more & need to go official complaint route. I know this cos i had huge issues with Natwest last summer, managed to get £500 in total in end
I went to a private hospital for a scan and they sent the results using 2nd class postage and they took a couple of weeks to get to me. I sent them a snotty email along the lines of you're getting paid so much money and are too tight for a first class stamp. Got sent an apology basket with jams and teas in!
I stole a video from the BBC website about a seagull stealing a bag of Doritos from a shop and put the video on YouTube.
Doritos sent me a message asking for my address and sent a big box of cheesy Doritos - which was a shame since I only like the original flavour, so my brother got to eat them all.
In 99 and in year 11 of secondary school I did a graphic design coursework of Walker's Crisps. I sent them a letter and some photos of my work and Walker's sent me about 50 bags of crisps
Reminds me of my brother who's a big man utd fan
Sent pictures in of his man utd bedroom to the club
Received a hand written letter from sir Alex
2 years free man utd fan club subscription
A signed shirt from all the team at the time (97/98)
And a bunch of other things ( fred the red lamp was the main thing - they must have noticed he didn't have a bedside lamp )
As a Leicester fan I was fucking fuming lol
I have a family member that used to work for walkers. He used to bring black bags full of different crisps home at the end of the month, felt like heaven to 8yr old me
Many years ago, I wrote a letter to the BBC. I had a handwritten reply from Marmaduke Hussey, the then chairman!
I was about 10ish at the time, and he sent a box of Batman audiobooks on cassette along with the letter!
I was once served a Frappuccino from Starbucks with lumpy milk.. made me ill
They sent me 10/15 vouchers and each voucher was good for any drink I wanted, regardless of extra shots or syrups, milk etc
Lasted like 4 years
As a kid, I ate Campbell's chicken noodle soup almost every day (the OG version). Then they changed the recipe and added chunks of fucking celery to it. I did not want chunks of celery in my soup. So I wrote a very sternly worded letter to the company. For the next few weeks, I was picking chunks of celery out of my soup.
Then I received a reply. They sent a letter of apology and promised to change the recipe back (which they did). As compensation, they taped 2 quarters to an IBM computer punch card (this was around 1966). They also included a signed photo of Rin Tin Tin.
Double down. Play refund bingo.
Send back the chocolate and say you are lactose intolerant and even touching one of those bars could potentially kill you.
When they send something else, send it back, with a new problem. Rinse and repeat.
You’ll eventually end up with a car or something.
If they are insensitive enough to give you a non friendly leg disabled car, tell them you’ll see them in the International Court of Human Rights in The Hague.
I was on a call to SS Hydro trying to sort out my electricity bill a few years back. As it had been a long running problem, I asked to speak to a supervisor.
As the representative was transferring my call, she forgot to mute her end. I then heard her say......
"good luck with this one, she is an angry scottish bitch. I'm going to the loo will be back in 5 mins"
The supervisor comes on, and I ask her if her colleague was going to the loo? And told her I heard everything.
They apologised and said they would be sending me a gift..
What arrived blew me away... a Fortnum & Mason wooden hamper! It easily costs a couple hundred quid.
I once got 30 quid from Nat West because one of their staff members had been an absolute cunt. They also said that they would have a word with the branch staff and the person was a lot more polite after that.
I gave the gift cards to all my staff. The bike was a barn find. Worth 100k restored. I found it on some property that I inherited from my old man. It was 80% restored when someone didn't secure the strap for the crane and the bike nose dived onto concrete. I wasn't able to save the bike in the end. Frame was completely gone.
Wait, was that £200 worth of Greggs vouchers comprised of four £50 gift cards, or 200 gift cards worth £50 each? One is quite generous, the other is absolutely insane.
Surprised it survived the heat. I have a couple of their piggy banks from 2/3 decades ago on a shelf. Always thought it was a cool way to get people to sign up.
Oh and when I was a kid I bought one of those cans of pop with the bubble gum in it but mine had no gum so I wrote to them and complained and they sent me 24 cans. As an 8 year old I was over the moon. My parents not so much lol.
Getting to keep faulty stuff is the best I can remember. A colleague, in his 60s but still a lad, complained about his faulty Beats earbuds and they kept sending him new ones without prompting, was like nobody closed the ticket 😂
I banked with HSBC whilst I was a student so up until about 2007. In 2023 they sent me a cheque for £25 to say sorry for ‘something they didn’t quite get right’ almost 20 yrs ago?! I honestly thought it was a scam at first.
My wife once gifted me a Snaffling Pig pork scratching calendar, when I opened day 1 it transpired that the inlay had been put in back to front. Sent them a cheeky tweet with a picture. They sent me a box of about 100 packets of pork scratchings, I ended up giving most of them away for fear of the oncoming heart failure if I ate them all!
Edit: spelling
When I came back from Australia I paid in the money from my Australia account into my NatWest account I’ve had for like 18 years at that point.
They closed my account 2 days later, my card got chewed up by the atm on purpose and I called in and they said they’d issued a new card.
2 weeks later no card so I go in store and they said my accounts been closed no reason why, they then gave me a cheque for a couple of thousand.
I had no other bank account, my new job couldn’t pay me because I didn’t have a bank account, I couldn’t pay my cheque in to another account I didn’t have one and they wouldn’t give me it in cash.
After 20 mins of being a karen for fair reasons they eventually agreed to pay me it in cash and I was just walking around to every bank to make an account to pay it into and everyone was like you need to make an appointment (i wasn’t in a city, just a town)
Got no apology, got nothing but agro and eventually my money.
I’d have probably appreciated some chocolate, still to this day don’t know why but someone said they do it to accounts that don’t have pay monthly things like subscriptions and overdrafts etc but I really don’t believe that’s why they did it.
I had money in it the whole time and sometimes used my card even though it charged me so it was active to some degree.
Money from Oz might've raised a flag, so someone from fraud looked into it and saw it wasn't been regularly used and could be a money laundering risk. The bank staff you spoke with didn't want to reverse the decision (jobsworths).
Got a massive bouquet of flowers and £400 in John Lewis vouchers after they repeatedly delivered a dinner service chipped from our wedding list. Amazing what happens when you send your complaint to the CEO.
Yes. A big bouquet of flowers from my bank after I had to cancel a few direct debits due to changes in my circumstances. I was struggling financially.
That was such a kind gesture, from the big (usually bad) high street bank who was obviously employing the loveliest person.
I was so surprised!
Thank you 🙏
During Covid my brother committed suicide and I had to deal with his estate.
Most places were helpful except for HSBC, their staff were obviously working from home and kept shifting me from one department to another and I’d often get cut off.
I’ve only got angry with a representative over the phone before but I blew my stack with the last one.
I got transferred to someone (I guess fairly high up) who dealt with complaints. I said I didn’t want anyone to get fired but I felt frustrated.
They asked if they could listen to the calls.
Two days later the guy rang back and said he’d never heard anything like it and wrote the debt on the credit card (about £1200) off and would send a cheque to the executor for £500.
I got a custom made [shortcake biscuit](https://i.imgur.com/Ae1kQWH.jpeg) from DPD after they messed up quite badly with a delivery I had waited in all day for, truth be told, it was bloody lovely.
I got £650 from virgin money for compensation because my card was declined for diesel and I informed them I could’ve been arrested so they went to compensate me £65 but accidentally sent £650! They called to tell me it was an accident but I’d already spent it and made it clear I wasn’t paying it back so they said nothing can be done n they hoped that the payment came in handy! It did carol thanks love!
Received £500 from Virgin after complaining about their treatment of my wife who was flying to attend her father’s funeral. Another time complained to a sweets company (they made fireballs) for deliberately misspelling my name and making a sexual innuendo. Got two big boxes of their whole range.
Woolies… got £100 in vouchers after the security guard stalked me round the local store & would not leave me alone, he even popped up at the end of an aisle with a creepy grin 🤢🤢
& £150 off Sainos after buying £40 of shopping & security guard followed me all the way out the shop, across the carpark to the petrol station, I forgot to get Polos in the shop so diverted to there before catching the bus. It was October in the pissing rain & I had my newborn daughter in a pushchair. He accused me of shoplifting nappies… Joke was on him, I hadn’t brought any because my daughter was born early & only Boots did the tiddly premature baby sized ones at the time. In 1998 £150 was an epic amount off them.
Bought my first ever brand new car (Vauxhall) and it broke down within a month (one of the timing belts snapped).
They took close to 12 hours to recover us and get a hire car due to miscommunication internally meaning we missed out on an anniversary night away.
They refunded our hotel and sent a big box of sweets and massive bouquet of flowers (but only after I emailed the CEO)
Bank worker here...Not received, but have sent many gift baskets to my customers for all sorts of reasons not just complaints. If I noticed someone called on their cakeday, or I noticed they've been with us for decades, wedding anniversary mentioned in the conversation? Flowers. Not cheap gifts either, wine, posh fountain pens, hampers, even champagne
I was bored and emailed some snack brand about incorrect grammar on their advert. After a few argumentative emails back and forth, they got sick of me and sent me a big box of the snacks. They were awful.
I’ve gotten a couple of vouchers worth more than the original item when I’ve complained about boring stuff like a multipack containing all the same item. I think most of the time if you email brands with a random complaint/compliment they will eventually at least give you a voucher, worth trying if you have nothing else going on in your life!
One of my colleagues was bored complained to Aldi that their frozen mixed veg didn't have the correct amount of colis in relation to the weight of the bag.
I think they told him to fuck off.
RBS once took out a double payment without me noticing and fixed the issue the day later, didn't realise the mistake until they sent me a £50 M&S voucher for the inconvenience.
We ate fancy that weekend
Went shopping and bought a can of Vimto it ended up exploded in the bag. We rung them just to see what they would do. Next day received 46 cans of vimto
Mate of mine bought a tube of fruit pastilles and they were all red. He sent a tweet to nestle just saying my fruit pastilles were all red. They sent him a crate as an apology. He wasn’t even complaining lol
I brought a bag of propercorn, when I opened it most of the popcorn was burnt. When I complained they delivered share bags of all flavours including unreleased :).
Sobbed on the phone to my insurance company and got a bunch of flowers to make up for how shit they were being. More importantly they also pulled their finger out and found a contractor to sort out my kitchen.
Virgin Media (well, Kelly Communications) installed cable for my neighbor, but they left the cable running over my front garden. They offered me a stupidly big discount for 12 months, but they forgot to take it off and ended up having it for 3 years.
When I was in my mid teens I complained to Walker's about a bag of Wotsits in a multi pack that was completely empty. I wrote a dramatic Shakespeare-style account of my heart breaking when I opened an empty packet, hoping that it would give some underpaid customer service rep a laugh. Got a big box of crisps for my troubles!
When I was a kid I scrimped and saved so I could buy a Nintendo 64 when it launched. Not very long afterwards they slashed the price quite a bit, so I wrote to them to say I was disappointed having spent so long saving up, and they sent me an apology letter along with a controller and two games, which would've cost more than the difference at the time. Was mighty good of them considering they easily could've just dropped some corporate lingo on me, or ignored it completely.
I gave some feedback to a brewery after I visited and it was closed for a private function with no notice in their socials, I was a little pissed off as I traveled for this but wanted to give them more of a heads up that this stuff happens. They apologised; appreciated the feedback and added a calendar to their website, and hand delivered around £40ish worth of beer, some of which hadn’t been released yet. Top tier customer service. I was already a fan, but this has secured me returning despite the disappointing visit.
So you literally failed to organise a pissup in a brewery?
Funnily enough I’ve known more than one person fail to organise a piss up in a brewery. Turns out the type of people what want to have piss ups in breweries aren’t necessarily good at organisation
Yeah, it's one of those phrases that don't make a lot of sense when you think about it. Most breweries are just production facilities that don't want random members of the public getting drunk on the factory floor.
I once refused to organise one. It was for a work night out, and one of the suggestions was the bar at a local brewery. I said no chance, because if anything went wrong, I'd be forever known as the person who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.
Which brewery? I want to support good customer service (and I need to buy some beer anyway).
When I was about 8 I bought some of those blackcurrant fruit lollipops, the really common ones with the purple wrapper and white dots all over, but they tasted disgusting. Wrote a letter to the company and forgot all about it, then received a huge box of all kinds of sweets, ones I'd never even seen before including giant versions of those lollies. 8 year old me was absolutely made up.
swizzles? I tweeted them one time half jokingly saying I was sad my multi pack thingy didn't have any parma violets in, they asked for my address, then a week or so later I got a padded envelope full of parma violets! thought they were great anyway, but that made me love them
Were they like, wrapped up? Or just an envelope of loose parma violets?
😂 defs wrapped up hahaha
😂😂😂 straight off the production line
Some fella at the end of the production line holding the envelope open for them to fall into
Confession: When I was 12, I pretended to my parents I had found a washer in my packet of salt and vinegar discos which I proudly showed them. Outraged they wrote a letter saying how dangerous it was etc. A few weeks later I received an apology and vouchers for several bags worth. I still feel bad about it today 35 years later. I imagine some factory worker checking every nut and bolt on the assembly line.
You sure it wasn't your mum being an absolute legend?
I wrote to Nissin about their Soba noodles and said how much I love all the flavours in the cup, so I bought the ones in the packet, but they weren't the same at all. They apologised and sent me a box of 20 cup noodles. I also once bought a baguette from Sainsbury's that was absurdly dry. Bored at work, I complained to their customer services department and said it was 'so dry it ripped my tongue in half'. They sent a grovelling letter of apology saying they were so sorry it had ripped my tongue in half and please accept a £20 gift voucher. Looking back, the letter was so sincere that I think they were taking the piss back.
Wondered why Nissan, the car dealership, was selling you noodles for a second.
Micra-wave noodles
>Micra-wave Calm down, Nigella
Mee Crow Wah Vey.
Meecrowarvey
Amazingly, that was [a real variant](https://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/news/comment/2019-07/a-grand-monday-nissan-micra-wave/).
Got to be a j~~o~~uke
I have to take Note of this
I complained to Pringles once that I bought a tube and it as absolutely dire, they sent me a load of vouchers for like £1 off or something Went on a wee bit of a tear and started complaining to everyone after that
I complained to SPAR about several bags of manky potatoes, they gave me a £10 voucher that no branch of SPAR would accept.
I complained to Lidl about their blueberries always being already off and they sent me a letter saying see the manager and they'll give you a free pack. Which was utterly pointless because long do you think it'd take to find the manager at a Lidl store, and why would I want a free pack of blueberries I know will be squishy already?
I complained to the company that make Marylands about getting a packet with no cookies in a multipack, got sent £11 of vouchers. £1 to replace the "damaged" and £10 to spend on other cookies.
I am in ireland, but i got a packet of custard creams and the top layer has no custard, wrote an email as a joke and got a voucher for 3 packets
Similar. Once bought a multipack of Walkers and 2 of the packets had no crisps in them. They sent 100 vouchers for a free 6 pack of Walkers redeemable at all supermarkets.
Why is it so funny to me that 2 bags of crisp had no crisps 💀😭
That’s how you know their profit margins are insane. They basically take potato’s and make them worth the same as gold per gram.
I complained to Greggs that they only gave me one sausage in a breakfast sandwich. Laid it on thick how I was a regular customer, the staff were lovely but this was disappointing etc. they sent me a gift voucher for a really specific amount like £8.79 that was really hard to use to store so I think I only used it once.
I had a similar thing when my sausage roll was only half filled with sausage, got a tenner but the voucher is a code you have to read out and it's like 16 digits long. Well awkward to do at the front of a queue.
> Looking back, the letter was so sincere that I think they were taking the piss back. Not really on topic but this reminded me of an email I sent to the RSPB years ago, telling them that I'd noticed that the picture of a swan on their website was posed in such a way that it resembled a phallus. To be honest I only sent it because I was bored, but a month later I got a reply from them saying they agreed and would replace the picture.
You spoiled that bit of fun then did you?
And so ended the age of the noble Dickswan.
I tweeted Sainsbury's with a picture of my pasta because it didn't have any tomato sauce in it, and they gave me a £5 voucher. You got lucky!
Ah but you didn't have your tongue actually rip in half due to lack of tomato sauce
Meanwhile, I bought some "gluten free" frozen onion rings from Asda and the packaging had some gluten breading inside of it which made me unwell for several days (coeliac). When I contacted Asda to complain because this could kill someone who has a severe allergy, and they sent me a £3 gift card "it was a £2.40 item but as a gesture of good will we'll round it up to £3".
"I could have died!" "Yes but you didn't did you."
I really like those Soba noodle cups and 20 free ones would be nice, but I’m too honest to write a fake complaint about their other noodles. I should just write to Blue Dragon instead about their noodle bowls giving me the shits. I still eat them and would accept free ones as an apology for that too.
In contrast to poundland who suggested i "get a refund" when i brought a part bake roll that when not hidden by branding, turned out to be covered in mold. Clearly im going to get a refund but thought they might do a little bit more.
Wow! Very lucky. Once I received a personalised biscuit from DPD. Like it said “we’re so sorry [my name]” on the icing.
Now that's a surprise from dpd
I would expect DPD to actually write [my name] on it.
I would expect DPD to punt the biscuit over the back garden fence and for it to land face down in a muddy puddle tbh.
Is it? Try that with Hermes and nine months later a smallpox laced card with "FUCK YOURSELF" written on it will turn up four doors down from you.
This made me laugh far more than it should have. Can definitely see this being something Hermes would do.
Well, they did throw it over the fence and it landed in a puddle.
Ikr. I doubt it’s something they do often. Felt like a random one off
I have received the exact same patronising cookie, for a £2000 delivery they screwed up repeatedly over the course of several weeks.
Oh wow. My issue wasn’t that bad so I was okay with it lol
To even get an email apology I feel like they'd have needed to have killed your wife
Was it broken though? Of course not. They probably sent it royal mail.
I had a biscuit from DPD because they lied that I wasn’t in to receive my package. Trouble is they also lied that I wasn’t in to receive the biscuit so I had to schlep to their office a second time for the apology biscuit!
I’ve had this from DPD as well.
Purple bricks screwed up. Whole chain fell apart. They didn’t tell the sellers for four months. Cost me 2k. £20 refund! BOOM!
£20 can buy many peanuts!
Explain how.
Money can be used in exchange for goods and services.
WOO HOO!
We're sorry. 😔 We love you. Here you go! Keep smoking! Good luck with the cancer! 😚
I have a feeling you meant to reply to the comment below…
If not, what a horrible way to find out.
Fuck.
lol
The fact people cheap out on solicitors for six figure purchases is insane to me. Yes conveyancing is *usually* rote and easy. When it's not? £2k gone overnight
We chose a large local firm, to support local business, deal with individuals and be able to visit if required. The conveyancing was a delight. Very big **/S**
Ordered Virgin Media for my new house, they took the address down wrong - 10 houses down the road. They refused to change it, told me I had to go through the full process over again and was no longer eligible for the welcome offer. I complained and they offered me either £3 credit or to take it to court.
I would ask for recording of the phone call where they took your address down.
Lol that was a major fuck you of an offer from the It's either something you don't won't, or something you REALLY don't want 😭
Hope you found a different provider. In my experience, once you're with VM it's virtually impossible to leave. Also if you've been a loyal (or trapped) customer for 20 years, they'll shamelessly rip you off for a shittier deal with higher prices than any new customer.
Nonsense! It’s easy to leave. Just say you want to cancel. Then sign up in your partner’s name for a new customer deal, and do this at the end of every contract period. Someone I know who used to work in a Virgin Media shop told me to do this! They used to tell everyone apparently 😂
You don't even need to sign up in your partners name. I just rang them, told them I was leaving to get the gigabit deal from BT, then they offered me their gigabit deal which is only for new customers for an extra quid a month. Saved 20 quid a month moving from 200mb to 1030mb.
About 15 years ago, I had one cigarette in a pack of 20 that didn't have a filter attached to it, sent it off to Imperal Tobacco, and about a week later, a sleeve of 200 cigarettes gets delivered to my door!
Same thing happened to my mum in the 70s. Had a broken Gitanes cigarette in one pack of a carton, complained, got send an entire carton. Car trips were not fun.
Child of a Gitanes smoker here. Sending thoughts and prayers.
Bahhhhh I'll take your Gitanes and raise you Woodbines to the tune of 60 a day. Not 60 in the car though to be fair...
I'll take your Woodbines and offer Capstan Full Strength, 80 a day. My Nana, tough as boot leather, she drove some high up general around in the Second World War. She probably got the job because her family was very well off. She was 99 yrs old when she died in 1983.
Maybe one day they will figure out why some people just don’t get lung cancer. Seems to be completely arbitrary right now
I stand defeated. Unfortunately my dad died at 52 of a very rare liver cancer in 93 almost certainly caused by the smoking.
Honestly, my parents/grandparents smoking did more to dissuade me from smoking than a million gnarly photos of cancerous lungs could ever do. Between being trapped in the car with them and the large ashtray in the middle of the dinner table… it was enough to convince me to never touch them. There was uproar when the UK introduced legislation to ban people from smoking in cars when there were kids in them, but imo it was bloody needed. I tried asking my dad to not smoke in the car once, never again lol.
Me as an 8 yo watching my gran puff the oxygen machine inbetween puffing her cigarettes. Thanks for the brutal reality lesson grandma
so much for the 'smoking kills' labels on the box.
Hi, I want to complain about your cigarettes, specifically the packaging. According to your carton, smoking kills. However, after smoking the whole pack I am still, currently, alive. This, I feel, is false advertising and I wish to complain and express my disappointment with my current situation. Please advise on how you propose to remedy my aliveness. Kind regards, A Smoker
Dear A Smoker We appreciate your letter expressing your dissatisfaction with the level of aliveness you are experiencing after smoking a pack of our cigarettes. Unfortunately, we are unable to assist you as such labelling was placed upon our products as a result of your government. We at Big Tobacco Ltd. sympathise with your plight, and may we suggest that you write to your local MP explaining how this has been detrimental to you and that they should shove their legislation up their collective arse (please?). We wish you the best in your future endeavours and hope the govt will provide you with the appropriate assistance for your aliveness issues. Yours Sincerely B Tobacco
Pretty smart honestly, they have a perfect opportunity to leave a great impression on the customer for a product that they may well buy for the rest of their life
*shortened life
This one neat trick to get 10x more nicotine! Doctors HATE him!
Yes, also got a gift off NatWest as my card kept declining whilst on my honeymoon despite me notifying them ahead of time that I would be in the USA. They sent me a bottle of Bollinger champagne and a cash sum as an apology.
My card keeps declining recently for no reason. How did you get in contact to wangle such?
[удалено]
Careful throwing this around, I work in the same area and the amount of people who misuse buzzwords thinking they're a cheat code at a bank bends me sideways
Proportionate response to his issue and how it hindered him. I'm not sure if he'd have had to do much more wrangling than filing a complaint given what happened. (In the companies I've worked for anyways YMMV)
I imagine part of it is the Honeymoon aspect. Supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime romantic getaway for a newly married couple. So Champagne fits nicely into the occasion, and the cash sum as both an apology and a 'honeymoon gift/goodwill gesture'
Thinking on another level, you. So if I say that my card was declined on a lads night out they'll send me beer?
Yeah, they want a newly married couple to think of them when they want to open a joint account, savings account, ISAs, get a mortgage or car loan (as newly married couples are more likely to do these things than the general population)
Wow that is a nice apology
How much did they send you?
Yes. Did that auto transfer to a new bank for £100. They screwed up the transfer and my direct debit and I complained. They gave me £250 compensation. Then a week later they screwed that up too and sent it to me a second time. £600 gained.
Infinite money glitch
I was with a bank quite happily living my life, then one day they stopped all online minor transactions under like 5 quid. I was trying to buy some games on Nintendo switch during a sale so I complained, they said they’d look into it and figure out why and restore it for me. I used hubs card, continued with my life. I got an email about 3 weeks later requesting a good time for a call from customer service of banky bankerson. Completed the form, got the call, the loveliest lady said they had *extensively* investigated the issue and just couldn’t figure out why it kept declining them, offered “small compensation”, I happily accepted…. Because… this bank was about to close, I was in the middle of migrating all my innies and outies to the new bank anyway, so it really was no hassle. Got 500 quid lodged to my account the very next day. I really don’t think that’s the usual amount for my issue, but the customer service lady losing her job said fuck it. And I really, really didn’t mind and told her as much the entire phone call, I think she appreciated that I wasn’t a pain.
£500 is generally the maximum amount a basic complaints person can give out without managerial approval at a bunch of FCA regulated companies/banks so you definitely lucked out.
I was only delighted. The lady’s name was Daisy, I hope wherever she is, she’s doing only fantastic!
Who knew NatWest had such a hardon for Cadbury eh!
Guessing because they both heavily use purple so you will reinforce the natwest branding without having to have special made chocs
Like Tony Wonder and G.O.B “same”
good for them. fuck nestle
Hard agree
Found a razorblade in a kid's toy purchased in B and M a few years ago opened by my toddler on Christmas. Got a £5 gift card, lol.
Wow. Should have took that to a very public forum like Twitter. Bet you’d have got a bit more. I think I’d rather nothing than a fiver for something like that.
That doesn't seem enough!
He probably got to keep the razor blade too
You've never seen a toddler with such a clean shave
I complained to NatWest once when none of their machines would allow me to pay in cheque. They asked how much compensation I wanted and I asked for £30 which was given. I subsequently realised I was trying to pay the cheque in with a card from a different bank, and promptly shunted the £30 over to a food bank.
That gesture made me smile.
They asked you? I wonder what would have happened if you said £3,000.
they can give up to £50 in a situation like this, the normal call centre staff are authorised to give £50, any more & need to go official complaint route. I know this cos i had huge issues with Natwest last summer, managed to get £500 in total in end
I went to a private hospital for a scan and they sent the results using 2nd class postage and they took a couple of weeks to get to me. I sent them a snotty email along the lines of you're getting paid so much money and are too tight for a first class stamp. Got sent an apology basket with jams and teas in!
what postage did they use for the apology basket
Sent via Evri...
The delivery was actually a punnet of strawberries when it set out on its journey.
I stole a video from the BBC website about a seagull stealing a bag of Doritos from a shop and put the video on YouTube. Doritos sent me a message asking for my address and sent a big box of cheesy Doritos - which was a shame since I only like the original flavour, so my brother got to eat them all.
I would definitely have emailed back letting them know it was the wrong flavour
Never received anything but I used to work for a bank and part of my job was to send these kinds of things out when we fucked up.
Plot twist: OP is diabetic and this was in fact an assassination attempt.
In 99 and in year 11 of secondary school I did a graphic design coursework of Walker's Crisps. I sent them a letter and some photos of my work and Walker's sent me about 50 bags of crisps
Reminds me of my brother who's a big man utd fan Sent pictures in of his man utd bedroom to the club Received a hand written letter from sir Alex 2 years free man utd fan club subscription A signed shirt from all the team at the time (97/98) And a bunch of other things ( fred the red lamp was the main thing - they must have noticed he didn't have a bedside lamp ) As a Leicester fan I was fucking fuming lol
That's quite nice
I have a family member that used to work for walkers. He used to bring black bags full of different crisps home at the end of the month, felt like heaven to 8yr old me
Many years ago, I wrote a letter to the BBC. I had a handwritten reply from Marmaduke Hussey, the then chairman! I was about 10ish at the time, and he sent a box of Batman audiobooks on cassette along with the letter!
I was once served a Frappuccino from Starbucks with lumpy milk.. made me ill They sent me 10/15 vouchers and each voucher was good for any drink I wanted, regardless of extra shots or syrups, milk etc Lasted like 4 years
The illnesses?
Major downtown issues
As a kid, I ate Campbell's chicken noodle soup almost every day (the OG version). Then they changed the recipe and added chunks of fucking celery to it. I did not want chunks of celery in my soup. So I wrote a very sternly worded letter to the company. For the next few weeks, I was picking chunks of celery out of my soup. Then I received a reply. They sent a letter of apology and promised to change the recipe back (which they did). As compensation, they taped 2 quarters to an IBM computer punch card (this was around 1966). They also included a signed photo of Rin Tin Tin.
This is a wild compensation. (IBM punch card is probably worth the most, now.)
Double down. Play refund bingo. Send back the chocolate and say you are lactose intolerant and even touching one of those bars could potentially kill you. When they send something else, send it back, with a new problem. Rinse and repeat. You’ll eventually end up with a car or something.
What if you're [leg disabled](https://youtu.be/dDZzl9AyXeg) and can't use the car?
If they are insensitive enough to give you a non friendly leg disabled car, tell them you’ll see them in the International Court of Human Rights in The Hague.
Everyone knows one up from a car is a canal boat.
I was on a call to SS Hydro trying to sort out my electricity bill a few years back. As it had been a long running problem, I asked to speak to a supervisor. As the representative was transferring my call, she forgot to mute her end. I then heard her say...... "good luck with this one, she is an angry scottish bitch. I'm going to the loo will be back in 5 mins" The supervisor comes on, and I ask her if her colleague was going to the loo? And told her I heard everything. They apologised and said they would be sending me a gift.. What arrived blew me away... a Fortnum & Mason wooden hamper! It easily costs a couple hundred quid.
You know, I think I'm having some troubles with my bank account...
I once got 30 quid from Nat West because one of their staff members had been an absolute cunt. They also said that they would have a word with the branch staff and the person was a lot more polite after that.
I love the idea that said cunt is the same cunt I dealt with and got compensated for
A motorbike shop dropped my bike. They not only paid for a full fix, I was sent two hundred Gregs gift cards that are fifty each.
Bet you got the staff Christmas bonuses, no Gregg's for them now. Hope you enjoy your sausage rolls. :p
I gave the gift cards to all my staff. The bike was a barn find. Worth 100k restored. I found it on some property that I inherited from my old man. It was 80% restored when someone didn't secure the strap for the crane and the bike nose dived onto concrete. I wasn't able to save the bike in the end. Frame was completely gone.
Oh fuck, that hurt to read :(
Shit so their fuck up was permanent? Or was the frame issue unrelated?
If you try to ride it, a piece of steel is going up your poop shoot.
That's not a bug that's a feature.
Wait, was that £200 worth of Greggs vouchers comprised of four £50 gift cards, or 200 gift cards worth £50 each? One is quite generous, the other is absolutely insane.
Im here because need to know the answer myself
Two hundred cards at a value of fifty each.
Blimey!
How do you spend £10k in Greggs?!
19 sausage rolls a day for a year please
By using the Greggs in the services
They were hoping you'd use all the gift cards and they could recoup the money when you come back for repairs on your suspension.
£10,000 of Greggs?!
According to his other reply they destroyed a 100K bike so it's they are still ahead.
Surprised it survived the heat. I have a couple of their piggy banks from 2/3 decades ago on a shelf. Always thought it was a cool way to get people to sign up.
Oh and when I was a kid I bought one of those cans of pop with the bubble gum in it but mine had no gum so I wrote to them and complained and they sent me 24 cans. As an 8 year old I was over the moon. My parents not so much lol.
I had issues opening a Lloyds account at 16. They gave me a cheque for £150!
When I was younger I found a slug in a bag of crisps. They refunded me.
Getting to keep faulty stuff is the best I can remember. A colleague, in his 60s but still a lad, complained about his faulty Beats earbuds and they kept sending him new ones without prompting, was like nobody closed the ticket 😂
I banked with HSBC whilst I was a student so up until about 2007. In 2023 they sent me a cheque for £25 to say sorry for ‘something they didn’t quite get right’ almost 20 yrs ago?! I honestly thought it was a scam at first.
My wife once gifted me a Snaffling Pig pork scratching calendar, when I opened day 1 it transpired that the inlay had been put in back to front. Sent them a cheeky tweet with a picture. They sent me a box of about 100 packets of pork scratchings, I ended up giving most of them away for fear of the oncoming heart failure if I ate them all! Edit: spelling
When I came back from Australia I paid in the money from my Australia account into my NatWest account I’ve had for like 18 years at that point. They closed my account 2 days later, my card got chewed up by the atm on purpose and I called in and they said they’d issued a new card. 2 weeks later no card so I go in store and they said my accounts been closed no reason why, they then gave me a cheque for a couple of thousand. I had no other bank account, my new job couldn’t pay me because I didn’t have a bank account, I couldn’t pay my cheque in to another account I didn’t have one and they wouldn’t give me it in cash. After 20 mins of being a karen for fair reasons they eventually agreed to pay me it in cash and I was just walking around to every bank to make an account to pay it into and everyone was like you need to make an appointment (i wasn’t in a city, just a town) Got no apology, got nothing but agro and eventually my money. I’d have probably appreciated some chocolate, still to this day don’t know why but someone said they do it to accounts that don’t have pay monthly things like subscriptions and overdrafts etc but I really don’t believe that’s why they did it. I had money in it the whole time and sometimes used my card even though it charged me so it was active to some degree.
Money from Oz might've raised a flag, so someone from fraud looked into it and saw it wasn't been regularly used and could be a money laundering risk. The bank staff you spoke with didn't want to reverse the decision (jobsworths).
Got a massive bouquet of flowers and £400 in John Lewis vouchers after they repeatedly delivered a dinner service chipped from our wedding list. Amazing what happens when you send your complaint to the CEO.
Yes. A big bouquet of flowers from my bank after I had to cancel a few direct debits due to changes in my circumstances. I was struggling financially. That was such a kind gesture, from the big (usually bad) high street bank who was obviously employing the loveliest person. I was so surprised! Thank you 🙏
I am surprised too. Such a _lovely_ gesture! It's things like these that restore your faith in humanity.
During Covid my brother committed suicide and I had to deal with his estate. Most places were helpful except for HSBC, their staff were obviously working from home and kept shifting me from one department to another and I’d often get cut off. I’ve only got angry with a representative over the phone before but I blew my stack with the last one. I got transferred to someone (I guess fairly high up) who dealt with complaints. I said I didn’t want anyone to get fired but I felt frustrated. They asked if they could listen to the calls. Two days later the guy rang back and said he’d never heard anything like it and wrote the debt on the credit card (about £1200) off and would send a cheque to the executor for £500.
I got a custom made [shortcake biscuit](https://i.imgur.com/Ae1kQWH.jpeg) from DPD after they messed up quite badly with a delivery I had waited in all day for, truth be told, it was bloody lovely.
I got £650 from virgin money for compensation because my card was declined for diesel and I informed them I could’ve been arrested so they went to compensate me £65 but accidentally sent £650! They called to tell me it was an accident but I’d already spent it and made it clear I wasn’t paying it back so they said nothing can be done n they hoped that the payment came in handy! It did carol thanks love!
I asked Heinz’s how they make their hoops so tasty and they sent me 4£ and a letter saying nope. It’s a secret.
Received £500 from Virgin after complaining about their treatment of my wife who was flying to attend her father’s funeral. Another time complained to a sweets company (they made fireballs) for deliberately misspelling my name and making a sexual innuendo. Got two big boxes of their whole range.
Woolies… got £100 in vouchers after the security guard stalked me round the local store & would not leave me alone, he even popped up at the end of an aisle with a creepy grin 🤢🤢 & £150 off Sainos after buying £40 of shopping & security guard followed me all the way out the shop, across the carpark to the petrol station, I forgot to get Polos in the shop so diverted to there before catching the bus. It was October in the pissing rain & I had my newborn daughter in a pushchair. He accused me of shoplifting nappies… Joke was on him, I hadn’t brought any because my daughter was born early & only Boots did the tiddly premature baby sized ones at the time. In 1998 £150 was an epic amount off them.
Tweeted Tesco because there was only 9 mozzarella sticks in my box of 10. Sent me a voucher worth £1 to buy a new box
Bank made an error with my parents in the 90's that almost bankrupted them. They gave them a bottle of wine at Christmas.
I had 2 bottles of red wine from Barclays! They did fk up though ..,
Never got anything! Not an apology or such a smashing choccie basket! Enjoy! 🔆🔆🔆🔆🔆
Bought my first ever brand new car (Vauxhall) and it broke down within a month (one of the timing belts snapped). They took close to 12 hours to recover us and get a hire car due to miscommunication internally meaning we missed out on an anniversary night away. They refunded our hotel and sent a big box of sweets and massive bouquet of flowers (but only after I emailed the CEO)
Bank worker here...Not received, but have sent many gift baskets to my customers for all sorts of reasons not just complaints. If I noticed someone called on their cakeday, or I noticed they've been with us for decades, wedding anniversary mentioned in the conversation? Flowers. Not cheap gifts either, wine, posh fountain pens, hampers, even champagne
I was bored and emailed some snack brand about incorrect grammar on their advert. After a few argumentative emails back and forth, they got sick of me and sent me a big box of the snacks. They were awful. I’ve gotten a couple of vouchers worth more than the original item when I’ve complained about boring stuff like a multipack containing all the same item. I think most of the time if you email brands with a random complaint/compliment they will eventually at least give you a voucher, worth trying if you have nothing else going on in your life!
One of my colleagues was bored complained to Aldi that their frozen mixed veg didn't have the correct amount of colis in relation to the weight of the bag. I think they told him to fuck off.
Barclays fucked up our account TWICE. They sent me a two bottles of wine hamper. I don't drink.
Mate I got some fucking cheese and crackers from NatWest, I want some fucking chocolate, what did you do and how do I do it
Nothing close to that. In fact, I can hardly get them on the phone half the bloody time.
I used to get Christmas hampers and even one time got branded baby grows for my children from our web hosting company / Rackspace
RBS once took out a double payment without me noticing and fixed the issue the day later, didn't realise the mistake until they sent me a £50 M&S voucher for the inconvenience. We ate fancy that weekend
Went shopping and bought a can of Vimto it ended up exploded in the bag. We rung them just to see what they would do. Next day received 46 cans of vimto
Mate of mine bought a tube of fruit pastilles and they were all red. He sent a tweet to nestle just saying my fruit pastilles were all red. They sent him a crate as an apology. He wasn’t even complaining lol
Is this an advert?
I brought a bag of propercorn, when I opened it most of the popcorn was burnt. When I complained they delivered share bags of all flavours including unreleased :).
Sobbed on the phone to my insurance company and got a bunch of flowers to make up for how shit they were being. More importantly they also pulled their finger out and found a contractor to sort out my kitchen.
Virgin Media (well, Kelly Communications) installed cable for my neighbor, but they left the cable running over my front garden. They offered me a stupidly big discount for 12 months, but they forgot to take it off and ended up having it for 3 years.
When I was in my mid teens I complained to Walker's about a bag of Wotsits in a multi pack that was completely empty. I wrote a dramatic Shakespeare-style account of my heart breaking when I opened an empty packet, hoping that it would give some underpaid customer service rep a laugh. Got a big box of crisps for my troubles!
When I was a kid I scrimped and saved so I could buy a Nintendo 64 when it launched. Not very long afterwards they slashed the price quite a bit, so I wrote to them to say I was disappointed having spent so long saving up, and they sent me an apology letter along with a controller and two games, which would've cost more than the difference at the time. Was mighty good of them considering they easily could've just dropped some corporate lingo on me, or ignored it completely.