Tesco Clubcard vouchers and issues redeeming them appears to be a common problem. One of my followers sought my advice on how to resolve a problem she was faced with.
BACKGROUND
“I wondered if you’d ever had any complaints come your way about the Tesco Clubcard vouchers and redeeming it. I’m furious with them. I won’t bore you with the details but I’ve basically lost about £120 thanks to a very stupid oversight on my part but they’re saying they won’t refund me.
Just wondered if you had ever come across this before because if so, I might fight them for it. Just not sure whether I have leg to stand on because it WAS my fault but the I’m sure the system is designed to stop you redeeming them correctly.”
ACTION
I have come across loyalty points and complaints before, funnily enough, and it was something I was asked about after I appeared in the Daily Mail.
Tesco Clubcard loyalty points are set up to entice you to remain loyal to Tesco and reward you for doing so.
Personally, I would fight it and escalate it by requesting that discretion is applied in this instance.
TESCO CLUBCARD VOUCHERS AND THE CONSUMER RIGHTS ACT 2015
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 has a fairness test and any terms and conditions that are not clear and / or tilted against consumers is considered unfair and unlawful. It’s fair to say that if you have been caught out by unclear terms and conditions, others have as well.
S62 (1) Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that an unfair term of a consumer contract is not binding on the consumer.
If the system is designed to stop you correctly redeeming the points and others have had the same problems (which can be evidenced by similar complaints), that is sufficient evidence to support your claim for a full refund.
You tried to redeem the points in line with flawed terms and conditions which are not legally binding, and a Small Claims Court would agree.
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Play on the loyalty aspect of your custom and how disappointing you feel about being treated so badly.
Supporting it with evidence of others being caught out should hopefully swing it, and cross-referencing it to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is a belt and braces tactic to reinforce your claim.
Do escalate it and don’t give up until you get a full refund it.
£120 is a lot of money and it’s completely unacceptable that you find yourself out of pocket due to Tesco’s systems which are not fit for purpose.
SMALL CLAIMS COURT
If you do take a case to the Small Claims Court, factor in all costs and time spent. These are referred to as consequential losses. A Court would accept £15 an hour for your time spent on a dispute. Time is money.
The Small Claims Court is always the last resort. You have to demonstrate that you have exhausted all options throughout the complaints process.
CONCLUSION
The main gripe with customers is not the complaint itself but how it is handled (often badly) from the outset.
This leads me on to the importance of great customer service and how to encourage customer loyalty.
Tesco could have handled this much better and have probably lost a loyal and big-spending customer for life.
A better trained staff member would have seen this as a great PR opportunity to do the right thing and turn a bad experience round, knowing that this is not a one-off and a cursory Google search has raised similar issues.
It is easier and cheaper to retain an existing customer than it is to find new ones. Not only that, but once they are gone, they are gone for good in the majority of cases.
Silent losses is a problem that retailers need to be aware of. A lot of customers simply walk away and vote with their feet without explaining why, although they are more than willing to share a bad experience with friends and family.
One bad experience can go viral in minutes via social media and consumers are more inclined to take to social media and use various platforms to air their grievances.
What are your thoughts on this? Have you had problems redeeming Tesco Clubcard vouchers and loyalty cards?
Used £75 worth of Tesco clubcard points to book through Irish Ferries for a ferry that was cancelled by them. The alternative times offered were a ferry travelling very early in the morning or late at night both of which would have meant a 4 hour drive in the early hours or booking into a hotel so we opted to cancel the booking and used another company to get home. Irish Ferries have refunded the non Tesco payment but given us a ‘cancellation credit’ valid for a year for the Tesco payment. We are extremely unlikely to use this after a pretty awful experience. I have contacted Tesco who said the money has been passed to Irish Ferries and there is nothing they can do. Irish Feries say that there isn’t a system to send the money back to Tesco. Have found the Clubcard staff don’t return calls and also quite rude and unhelpful. Clubcard isn’t what it used to be unfortunately. Can I quote the Consumer Rights Act here amd email the CEO. Thanks for the advice.
I have tried getting my card working again I was told that they would reopen it. Second time they said they would post me a new one, that’s over two month and not received any.
I have had a recent issue with Tesco Clubcard vouchers that I redeemed to a Hotels.com voucher giving me 3 times their value. I know now that is was my fault as i didn’t read the terms and conditions properly. I redeemed all my voucher on to one code to later realise that I couldn’t use one code for booking multiple rooms ( I should have exchanged the vouchers into separate codes). So when I made my booking I could only book one room with my voucher and I lost the rest of it. I ended up losing £120 worth of vouchers. When I rang Tesco customer services they were very unhelpful and stated that once you redeem your voucher and even if it’s not for the full monetary value of the vouchers there is no way of getting the remaining vouchers back!! I know it was my own mistake but surely Tesco could just give customers back their unused vouchers back ?? All they would have to do is issue another code ?
It’s very annoying and upsetting to realise how unhelpful and unsupportive they were in this instance as I’m a loyal customer to Tesco and have been for a number of years. Is there anyway of getting these back ?
We’ve just lost£238 because of lockdown we had used vouchers to book a stay with hotels.com via clubcard boost. Apparently you cannot change the date if you change the vouchers into a booking with hotels.com. Tesco said it’s in the terms & conditions. Yet previously when you could change then to Red days I had changed dates because of an operation, but as we are in lockdown we have been told we have lost or vouchers. Hotels.com lied as they said the vouchers would go back to my Tesco clubcard , & Tesco have done nothing. Thanks Tesco every little helps
So, I went to use my Clubcard vouchers to buy 2 English Heritage memberships. I totalled how much they would be together and purchased a voucher code to cover the full amount. Armed with the code I purchased the first membership – a student ticket. II then went to purchase the second membership for me, an adult membership, using the same code and was told that it had already been used. Technically yes, but there was still £63.50 unused on the code, more than enough to pay for the second membership of £63.
I contacted Tesco and was told sorry, terms and conditions state to make more than one purchase you need to order more than one code. So I’ve lost £63.50. My mistake, I should’ve read the t&c’s before making the purchase but Tesco’s system allows you to buy far more than the cost of one ticket and I really didn’t think I was making such a costly error. I’m very upset with Tesco, not only because of their inability to offer any kind of help despite their ‘every little helps’ slogan but because of the insincere apology that they offered. They told me that it was okay really as my 5 year old son could go in for free with the holder of the first membership ticket I bought which really isn’t the point and not really a viable option. I feel that, although it was my error in not reading the t&c’s, Tesco have stolen my money, my £63.50 as I have absolutely nothing to show for it other than a voucher code I’m unable to use and an empty apology.
Tried to cash in my points to pay phone and they had disappeared then a message said recheck on 18 th may still nothing!
I have the vouchers which still valid I could not redeemed. I asked them why i can not reframe they told me that to their record they already redeemed. which I have not done
I’ve been getting points added via the customer service desk, but they haven’t been added on. It might be CV19 related, though.
I lost about £20 or £30 (can’t remember for sure) in not spending clubcard vouchers in time and didn’t receive any kind of reminder that they were due to expire which surprised me as sometimes they do seem to send reminders and sometimes they don’t. In my case, they did refund the points back to my account which I was grateful for so maybe it depends on the amount etc.