Company’s failure to compensate costs them a customer

LIKE your letter writer (Yorkshire Post, January 17) I, too, will not be shopping at Morrisons again!

On December 10 I was shopping in the Morrisons supermarket in Wetherby. I picked up a plug-in room freshener which was later found to be inadequately sealed in its packet. One bottle fell out of the package and to the floor, smashed and splashed on to the patent leather toe cap of my most comfortable shoes and on to my trousers. The patent finish came off on to a paper tissue. I was very upset!

An employee and I checked all the remaining packets on the shelf and every one was faulty.

The assistant at the Customer Service desk called for the deputy manager who saw (and smelt) the damage. I really did smell!

We completed the paperwork and he said it would have to go to head office.

There was no reply to my comment that someone needed to go to the shelf with a roll of tape to prevent the same accident re-occurring. I also suggested they needed to alert other supermarkets in case there was a general problem with the product.

On Sunday, December 22, I was contacted by telephone and asked to take my shoes 
and trousers to Wetherby because they were needed at head office.

I refused because I was not going to be in Wetherby until after the New Year. I was told I would need proof of purchase of the shoes and the trousers.

Because I was the innocent victim of the incident and because the deputy manager had seen, and smelt, the damage and the total replacement cost was £95, I really thought that common sense and customer service would prevail. Especially as none of this was my fault.

I received a letter dated December 30 apologising for the unfortunate incident.

This crossed with a letter I sent to the chief executive asking why I was being so inconvenienced and why I had to send my belongings to Morrisons when the deputy manager had already seen the damage?

I then received a Freepost padded bag asking me to send my shoes and trousers to them. They also asked for the 
product packaging, which I had kept.

I have just received another letter from someone else at Bradford saying they needed to see receipts for my shoes and clothes – and that a bank statement with all the personal details blanked out would be good enough! This would satisfy the insurers.

What about customer relations and my privacy? Why do Morrisons need to claim on insurance for articles with a value of under £100?

Why isn’t the deputy manager’s word and report enough?

For goodness sake – it is not my fault that Morrisons had faulty products on the shelves.

Enough is enough and after 38 days of waiting I am no nearer to getting £95 compensation to cover the damage.

This figure should be doubled for my distress and time lost.

For those old enough to remember it is like the story of a “ha’porth of tar which lost the ship”. This customer is voting with her feet.

From: Andrew Mercer, Guiseley.

WHEN I asked about the long queues at the checkouts at Morrisons in Guiseley when so many tills were not manned, and when so many staff appeared to be wandering around doing very little, I was told that the supermarket did not have enough trained cashiers.

Why not?