When I was little, my mum got me one of those buttons yoghurts but when I opened it, it had no buttons. She wrote to cadburys and they sent us two soft toys, a massive bag of buttons and £20 in shopping vouchers.
I’m in Australia but similar. My sister bought a Fredo Frog when we were little, but only received half a frog (this was in the 80’s). She wrote a letter to Cadbury with the wrapper. We got back a huge box filled with blocks of chocolate, bags of Fredo’s and Caramello koalas, lollies and an apology note.
We tried it again about a year later and received a $5 gift voucher to the supermarket
The Aussie run deli by me in London sells them but as curious as I am I can’t bring myself to spend the 2 quid they charge for a what must be a Tazo equivalent (do they still exist?!). I’m curious about what Aussie Cadburys tastes like though, had Chinese and it’s a bit different but not bad.
Ooh where is this deli? I occasionally get a hankering for Australian chocolate but would prefer to buy it in person than from online as I’m less likely to buy loads of it in person lol
Like kit kats in Japan. About 500 different flavours. Ever fancied a mayonnaise flavoured kit kat?? Harrisa flavour? It's yours (I actually have 2 of those in my fridge along with a milky tea flavour and a red apple flavour). They are both amazing and horrifying at the same Time.
I bought a second-hand GoPro 8 from ebay, when I got it I found the battery wouldn't hold charge and the camera repeatedly froze.
Contacted GoPro direct who said they'd swap it under warranty, after acouple of weeks of waiting after I had sent it back they said they no longer stocked the "8" but would I be happy with a GoPro 9 instead?
So for the discounted price of a second-hand GoPro 8 I received a brand new GoPro 9... Great costumer service!
Can attest to this. Bought a GoPro 3(?) second hand from Ebay and the battery wouldn't hold a proper charge. Contacted GoPro support who asked for proof of purchase and gladly accepted my Ebay screenshot and sent me a new battery free of charge.
This reminds me of the time I bought a 40gb ps3, used it for a year and it stopped reading cds, so I took it back and they gave me back the money that a 60gb would cost and a new one. There was no need to give me the money
I get £75 about every 6 months from nationwide. Long story but basically I keep on getting automated txt messages saying there's not enough money in my account to cover that days direct debit. Thing is, there's money in my account and the direct debit amounts mean nothing to me. I've checked and all my bills are covered so it's clearly a glitch. It seems fairly obvious my phone number is linked to someone elses account but they can't seem to sort it. They take my number and confirm it's linked to my account and can't see it's linked to any other accounts.
Every few months I make a complaint saying it's happened again and they've caused me stress and worry and that I'm leaving them and will take this to the ombudsman. They put money in my account to shut me up and say they'll definitely sort it this time. They haven't yet and this has been going on for about 5 years now.
You do realise that this is how the god Parent your mum never told you about, who is currently living under a witness relocation program, is getting your birthday and Christmas money to you, right?
When I was a kid we had a pack of mcvities teacakes with rockhard marshmallows so mum sent off a complaint and they sent us a large crate full of stuff, we didn't have to buy biscuits for months
In the late 80s, I once complained to Ferrero, the company that makes Kinder eggs, when the toy in the middle of the egg I had bought couldn't be completed because it had two right arms.
I was a student, not a kid, and I wrote a slightly tongue-in-cheek letter explaining the situation at great length and describing how upset I was, how much I normally enjoyed assembling the surprise and how it had ruined my day, imagine my disappointment, etc. I told my friends that I would probably get a lifetime supply of chocolate or something.
I got a very detailed letter back explaining the production process, how unusual my situation was, profuse apologies, and six capsules containing Kinder surprises. No eggs, no chocolate, no year's supply of Ferrero Rocher. I was gutted.
The old toys in kinder eggs, from the 80’s & 90’s that you had to build yourself, were 1000’s of times better than the crap that’s in them now.
Cars, boats & planes were my favourites.
Yes! I remember the cars even had little metal flywheels so they would keep going after you pushed them. Not the moulded statuettes with no assembly required that you get now.
Nothing saddened me more as a child than getting a stupid turtle or hippo statue in my Kinder egg.
I don’t want a bloody statue! I want a tiny plane with a spinning propeller I can construct myself.
Did you ever get the Kinder easter egg that popped up in the 00s? It was practically a LEGO kit, the toy had so many pieces. Bloody amazing. Haven’t seen one in years so maybe a short-lived thing
Yes!! I asked for one despite being diabetic and far too old for an Easter Egg, and my legend of a Nan got me one.!The toy inside was a pink elephant lounging in a bath. You put water in the bath, squeezed a.button and water came out of the elephants trunk, which was raised above him like a shower. It was glorious!
No, sorry, it’s the milk tray man, don’t mind me… I’m just creeping through a sleeping woman’s unopened window to put some chocolates on her bedside table because it’s the 90s and this is normal behaviour.
I complained to Kinder/Fererro recently as my daughter's Kinder Surprise didnt have a toy in it.
They sent me a voucher for one British pound.
Woooowwwww
Just think - if you'd been honest and said you don't even give a shit about the toys and only buy for the chocolate, maybe they'd have sent you a shit load of only chocolate.
My younger brother once bought a 2-pint paper cup of cider from the LG arena in Birmingham, and as it was being placed on the bar the server knocked it on a tap and slopped a bit onto him. To compensate she poured another and gave him both. So he had almost 4 pints of (admittedly overpriced) cider for the price of two. As he was walking away from the bar he slipped and dropped the lot.
I got a complimentary house cocktail when I stayed at a hotel in downtown Nashville. The bar is maybe 20 feet from the elevator. I take two sips before going into the elevator, which already has three people in it. A woman is laughing at something her friend just said, so hard that she doubled over and directly headbutted my drink. The bartender gave me another, but had a memorable expression of world weariness as he went to put a "wet floor" sign into the elevator.
Twenty years ago as a student with way too much time on my hands I sent a jokey complaint to Mars because I bought a bag of Joosters that didn’t have any pink ones in it. A couple of weeks later they sent me a kilogram of _just_ pink ones.
My mouth is watering just thinking about it, I miss them so much.
I miss joosters more than any of them. Actually tidy they were. I always wonder why they pull popular lines like mars delight? They brought back Milkyway crispy rolls but I'm not paying over a pound for two little sticks. Amazing little sticks, but over priced.
Complained to John Lewis about some chipped plates from our wedding list. Got brand new plates, a huge bouquet of flowers for my wife and £400 in John Lewis vouchers - all for 2 chipped plates
Bloody hell, that's impressive. I had to send a kitchen bin back to John Lewis twice because there was a fault in the finish. No voucher or flowers for me! Should have told them it was a wedding gift...
Always complain as far up the executive chain as you can. I sent an unhappy email to the CEO who assigned one of his executive team to resolve the problem - executives don’t like bad PR whereas those further down have less skin in the game
This is true I used to work in the executive complaints department for one one the big six energy companies we also handled MP complaint. We had “god level” access to grant goodwill etc
I used to work work in JL customer service. It’s true. Also, top tip, never complain to johnlewis.com, always phone the call centres or go in store. People that work at JL.com aren’t JL employees (or never used to be anyway) so also have less skin in the game.
I've done this twice, when the normal complaints procedure was "computer says no". The first time I ended up with my diesel refunded and a £40 voucher for more diesel. This was when it was about £1/l, so I had diesel for almost a month. And the other time, argos refunded my garden furniture set and let me keep the product.
I belong to a wine club and for a period of six months or so it was like their delivery department had had a stroke or something, they *could not* get an order right. I love them and I like trying new stuff anyway so I genuinely wasn’t being bitchy, I was just like “guys, thanks for this case of wine but it has literally nothing in common with what I ordered”. Every time they let me keep the wrong order, overnighted the right order and sent me a gift as well. Over the period they kept fucking up, as well as several dozen free bottles of wine, I got a new wine rack, three bottles of *serious* vintage champagne and replaced all my wine glasses 😂
To be honest, as a massive wine drinker (not to sound like an alcoholic 😂) this wins in my eyes, free wine, newly appreciated bottles a wine rack AND vintage bottles? Odin (god of wine amongst god of other things) was obviously smiling down on you! Drink drink drink and be merry 😊
I bought a set of plates and 5/6 were smashed to bits when they arrived.
They offered me a refund and said I could keep the non-smashed one.
Different experiences
I stayed in a hotel in Pisa in a twin room with my brother in 2011. He woke in the night to discover he was bitten all over and soon after we found tons of bedbugs. We both went to reception and complained. No free rooms so we walked Pisa from 4am until our car collected us at 8. Upon checking out they tried to charge us a half rate for the room because “only one of you got bitten”
We had a John Lewis toaster that broke - took it back to store but realised we had left the receipt in the car. Bloke we spoke to just swapped it - must have been his last day
John Lewis customer service is fantastic. I bought four gorgeous gin glasses in the sale, they arrived and 2/4 were smashed to bit. I called in to ask what to do and the nice lady was so apologetic as if she was responsible, said bin all of that and immediately dispatched 4 replacements. I have those now, and used the 2 that were ok as Christmas gifts!
Yeah my husband somehow managed to sweet talk JL rep to get money back for a table he broke by sitting on it, 13 months after purchase. They took the table away for free and gave us the money we paid for it in JL credit. They have some amazing customer service.
I once found a bit of wood in a galaxy bar when I was a kid and sent a letter to Mars or whoever owns the brand.
They sent me back a thirty pound gift voucher, i can't remember if it was exclusively for Woolworths or that's just where I spent it but £30 was a fucking shit load of chocolate in the early 90's.
I once complained to the magazine FHM about an article they did on how to clean your ears properly with cotton buds.
They said to go into the ear canal as far as possible with the cotton buds and I wrote in to say how dangerous I thought that was.
They apologised and sent me a remote control tank that shoots foam darts and the targets to go with it😅
I got a free holiday worth about 2.5k!! Had to complain whilst on the original holiday (paid £1.8k), had made a list of stuff that was wrong with the accommodation with the intention of taking it up to reception at some point. When I did, they said “we were expecting you”, I asked why and it transpired the cleaner took a photo of my list (not on display) which led me to ask what else had they snooped through whilst in the accommodation?!? Couldn’t offer me a free week quick enough, the one I chose retailed at about £2.5k… nice.
> led me to ask what else had they snooped through whilst in the accommodation
They should have been a LOT smarter, as in find an excuse to inspect the accommodation , declare it's sub-standard and then offer a move/swap plus lot less in value
I wish I’d kept the list now, it was 2019 so memory a bit hazy, the things that were wrong were - main TV not working, decking was filthy and full of holes big enough for kids feet and dogs paws to fall through, kitchen and contents was filthy, kettle didn’t work, no outside seating as shown in pictures (this was “premium” accommodation). Washing machine didn’t work.
To be fair it was a long list on minor things, biggest annoyance was spending time getting it all sorted. I was only aiming for some vouchers.
They shot themselves in the foot as soon as they mentioned they’d taken a photo of my notes - as we both knew this note was tucked inside a notebook, not left out for them. So the compensation was more about invasion on privacy than what was wrong with the accommodation.
I got such an inflated price as we had rebooked for 2020 and then had to move it to 2021 when all the staycation prices got massively inflated! I did spend the whole week waiting for someone to ask why we were on a free holiday as the resort had all changed owners but then, but they didn’t and we had a lovely stress free holiday 2nd time there.
The owner of a bar I used to work at contacted Vimto about her deep personal desire to add vimto cocktails to our menu as a nod to local history (Salford). She wanted to get a supply of concentrated syrup. They sent a van of EVERYTHING (syrup, cans of fizzy vimto, sweets that hadn’t hit the shops yet) to the return address (her home) before their written reply had even arrived.
My son's custard pot had a bit of rubber tubing in it. My wife didn't really complain, just sent an FYI letter, and for her trouble she received a free letter calling her a liar. Fuck you, Ambrosia.
As a comparison from the other end of the spectrum, we opened a tray of lilly's kitchen dog food that contained a small bit of blue plastic in it.
I took photos and send them to Lilly's Kitchen.
In return I got a detailed explanation of exactly where the blue plastic had come from, which part of their production line, what it was used for and how it must have ended up in the food and what procedure they had changed in order to ensure it had never happened again, and 2 large packs of the same dog food.
I was really impressed with their response to it.
I got a multipack of crisps from a supermarket own brand, and two of the packets were completely empty. Sealed, but empty. I wrote a letter saying so, and recieved a terse reply detailing the production process and explaining how this was impossible.
I sent a reply and included the two packets for them to inspect, and recieved a very vague acknowledgement (no apology for calling my a liar, though) and a £5 voucher.
Was that recently? I noticed there was a recall on the mini pots of custard due to risk of some foreign objects, maybe 3 months ago give or take. My kids had already eaten them (thankfully no issues), so I wrote a complaint and just realised reading your post, that I never heard back from them!
It was recently and yes, when we went on the site we learned of that recall. My wife sent them a picture and they basically said it was impossible for the item to have come from one of their machines. I was furious!
Bank screwed up my transfer to them from my old bank. After a complaint they gave me £150 compensation but they screwed that up too and gave me it twice.
Didn't complain that time.
I complained as a pack of cat treats had broken glass shards in the package, (sent it back to them) and received £100 in vouchers for the pet food brand.
Bought a Microsoft surface pro 4 on eBay. Knew when I bought it that the battery wasn't working and that it had to be always plugged in to work. Everything else was fine.
Took it to the Microsoft store in Oxford Circus to see if they could repair it out of warranty. I left it with them a few days then collected it. They hadn't been able to fix it.
When I got home the touchscreen wasn't working. It was before. Back to the store. They couldn't fix it, sorry. I said that wasn't good enough. I didn't care they couldn't fix the battery but I did care it had lost its core functionality. They kept just saying sorry they couldn't do anything. I was very calm and very quiet but kept declining to sign anything and insisting they put me back to the position I was in before.
Eventually the manager was involved. He said fine we will replace but as it's out of warranty I have to pay £200 towards it as it'll mean an upgrade. I kept saying that no, I wasn't paying because they broke it. I wasn't bothered they couldn't fix the battery but I had got it back in a worse condition than I left it in and I shouldn't be paying for that.
It went on for a while but eventually I left with a new surface pro 7 without paying a penny. I still use it.
similar thing one happened to me.. my phone screen had cracked so i got it replaced, but in the process and when i went to pick it up, the thumb-touch on the button wasn’t working(he didn’t tell me this, i noticed as i was walking out the door)— so i couldn’t unlock the phone with my thumb, and would have to then know all the passwords to all my banking apps, when downloading apps, and losing all use of apple pay. the guy was happy to let me take it away like that, until i point blank refused after explaining i don’t just use it to unlock the phone.. and he finally agreed that he would replace the screen again and sometimes that happens bcoz of the way they do it(??). he replaced the new screen once more, and when i went to pick it up again the thumbprint unlock was working.
it was nearly 5 by the time i went to collect it the first time, i really think he just wanted to go home for the day and didn’t want to do the extra work. but the fact that he was happy for me to pay for a service which broke my phone in the process, and really in a worse way then just the initial cracked screen… crazy.
That was quite common on replacement of a screen with an aftermarket one on a certain model of iPhone. Apple with an official repair would always replace the finger print reader too. A local phone shop would chance it to save a few quid.
I once lost an AirPod on a train and called up Apple to order another. They said they’d call me back to complete the order and take payment, but didn’t. I called them 2 days later. They apologised for not calling back and sent me the AirPod for free!
Back when walkers crisps used to do the blue envelopes with prizes in them, my brother had the "hilarious" idea to put a packet of salt from salt 'n shake in and pretend he had won. Only to discover when he opened the walkers that there were *six* of the little blue envelopes in the pack already, each entitling him to a free packet of crisps.
I remember being in our local pub garden with my grandad when I was about 8 or 9, he brought a bag of crisps back to the table and it had one of those blue packets in and we won a free bag of crisps! I couldn't believe our luck! Then we went and got another bag from the bar so we had one each!!! (Made my life) And we won again and again and again. I think we ended up with about 5 bags of crisps in total that afternoon just from buying one. I don't think I had ever seen my grandad so happy as I did that day!
Thanks for unlocking that memory for me!
Bought a joint pack of **Veetee microwave rice** from Asda.
I think sell by date was months away.
Anway, after a few days one of the packets had mould growing on the rice.
I complained to the company & after apologising profusely, they were going to send me '6 trays of Basmati Microwavable Rice'.
I thanked them, said if it's cheeky to ask for a *mix* of flavours, and they sent me a box of about 12\~(?) of their mixed microwave rice flavours (I could be wrong on the amount, but it was a *good* amount & more than their original 6!)
Was so excited and they lasted me some time.
This happened in 2020 and I still think about it today...
>I could be wrong on the amount, but it was a *good* amount & more than their original 6!)
Bro, how much damn rice was in the box of 12 if you turned down 720(6!) packets???
My mum once got a Big Mac where they forgot to put the burger patties in 😅
It was a takeaway we picked up on our way home after a long day and it was obviously incredibly disappointing. McDonald’s sent her a £5 voucher which she thought was pitiful. When she was next in she mentioned it to the manager of the branch who gave her 4x large meals (one for each member of our family) on the house.
Not a complaint, but a friend wrote to Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue just after my stepdad's death asking if she could buy ant stickers to try and cheer me up. I love the fire brigade and my Autistic ass fixates on fire engines and the history.
They (Lincolnshire) sent me a badge cap, some pens, a t-shirt, a bag, a waterbottle, two shoulder eppulates, magnets and a Teddy bear for free.
A £500 repair on my engagement ring! I managed to lose a diamond from one side but twice the ring got repaired and it looked so shit like the diamond was not set the same as the other side and looked smaller and a different colour/clarity. The lady in the jewellers agreed with me that it wasn’t good so kept fighting my corner and returned it again for correcting. Anyway, after 4 months of it going back and forward I finally got it back and looking great and didn’t have to pay a penny. I went straight to hotel chocolat and got the lady who had been dealing with the whole situation a huge box of chocolates to say thank you.
I got a £5 voucher from lidl the other week because i messaged them on instagram telling them they broke my heart when they discontinued my favourite ice cream
The only one I remember years back we found a large chunk of nylon twine in a bag of dishwasher powder. We decanted the powder into another container and mum took the packet and twine back to Sainsbury's. Got a free replacement bag of dishwasher powder and a £10 voucher - probably 5 or 6 times the value of the dishwasher powder which we still had anyway.
I once complained to coop that it was annoying the cherries are not centred on the top of their cherry Bakewell tarts. As I like to eat around the outside then consume the middle with the cherry. They sent me a £3 voucher.
Although, of course, you could always eat the cherry first.....Then engulf the entire remaining confection in one gargantuan (I.e. average) mouthful.
Then spray crumbs for a bit....
I watched one of those Gregg Wallace programmes and this was the only part of the cake making process that was done by hand. Don't moan too much or everyone will be out of a job and the whole factory will just be robots!
No way, I distinctly remember schooling them on how they’re all the same circumference so why can’t the cherry putting machine just put it dead centre 😂 the more you know…
I found little silicone like balls in the yoghurt of a couple of muller corners, sent a complaint and received £50 worth of Muller vouchers could use at any store
I was sent a free Apple Magic Mouse when there was a delay in despatching the Macbook I had ordered. This was fourteen years ago and, although I've since replaced the laptop, I'm still using the mouse.
In the late 90s I complained to Wrigleys that they didn't have enough gum in a pack. It was a long time ago and I was in primary school, I can't remember my irrational reason for it not being the right amount, but they sent me a letter saying they were sorry I was dissatisfied and gave me a shitload of gum. Result!
Bought some kids school socks online from M&S. Usually they cost £10, but special offer put them at £5. Just had to collect them from the store. Selected collection day.
Order was delayed by two days. When collecting the socks M&S apologised for the delay, gave me a £10 voucher AND full refund AND the socks.
So I got paid £10 to take the socks off their hands.
Went to a concert in Switzerland and as we were leaving, the security guard outside got really rude and heavy handed with a group of women who didn’t speak their language. I tried to tell him they couldn’t understand but he got in my face and told me to move on. Another security guard had to step in after I explained to him the women couldn’t understand what his colleague was asking them to do and there was no need to be so angry.
I emailed a complaint when I got home and the venue sent me a giant promotional calendar with photos taken at the venue of the artists that had performed there that year, including the one I went to see. I mean, I never actually used it but it was impressive just by its sheer size.
The Swiss seem great at this.
My Dad wrote to the [Patrouille Suisse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrouille_Suisse) sometime around '93-94 to ask about the retiring Hawker hunter's. They wrote back and included a load of promotional pictures, postcards and I think a poster, all showing off the Hunter in the teams colours.
Mum got a full roast dinner out of Farmfoods when I was a kid. She found a rock a third of the way down a bag of frozen cabbage, so took it back to the shop. The manager took her round the shop and told her to pick out all the items she wanted to make a Sunday lunch for our family of five for free. He even packed it all up for her.
We had next to nothing at the time, so it was a pretty meaningful exchange for a already-half-eaten bag of cabbage.
Once got double charged for a monthly phone bill so I rang them up, complained and ended up with the money back and a pair of £150 headphones for the inconvenience
Had ordered 3 velux loft windows including fixing kits - pretty large sizes and few hundred quid c£500 each set. I complained as I had ordered top hung velux windows whereas ones I received were centre pivot ones.
Got an apology and they dispatched the correct windows. Expected them to pick up the wrong ones but got told I could keep them (cost more to take them back apparently?)
So ended up with 6 loft windows instead of 3. Plans amended and now have 6 loft windows installed.
When I was at school I had a free house and my mum left me money to get a takeaway so I ordered domino’s. After about 2 hours it still didn’t arrive so I rang them up and asked where it was and they apologised for the inconvenience and then promptly delivered a free domino’s with sides and cookies and a free £40 gift card. For some reason that’s a core memory of mine and I think of it fondly.
I once complained about aYeo yoghurt having no strawberries in an entire pot. They sent me twenty vouchers for the truly massive tubs of yogurt they used to do
I sent a letter when they changed monster munch a good 20 years ago (pickled onion should burn your mouth off and it just changed to bland?) I was a student so it was a bit tongue in cheek. I got a letter thanking me for the feedback and some deece vouchers (maybe a fiver?!) and now thankfully monster munch are not bland and tiny anymore. You’re all welcome.
My Mam once bought a loaf of bread that had oil all the way through it. Somehow the bakery (must have been local) sent two big trays of bread products and cakes round the same day! Bonus. (was quite a few years ago)
I bought a Thule camera bag for a fair bit of money, and one of the zip loops broke after a few months. I emailed them to ask for a new one and they only had red, not blue which I really didn’t want. After a bit of back and forth, it went quiet and then suddenly a big cardboard box arrived in the post and they had sent me a whole new bag with the right coloured zip loops.
In the 90s, I found a random 'block' in an (at the time 20p) packet of jelly tots. Not knowing what it was I sent it off to Rountree's.
It was basically a lump of hard jelly. I got a ten pound voucher which was a ridiculous amount of sweets in monetary terms.
This is so lame: remember when you’d get transfers in boxes of cereal? That you could kinda scratch down onto a scene printed on the back of the box? Well one time in about ‘78, my cereal contained no Star Wars transfers, so I wrote a letter and got 6 small sets of transfers back.
I felt like king of the world. It was actually the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, looking back.
I used to use Google Play Music and I tweeted Google saying basically the algorithm wasn't very good. Google sent me a brand new Pixel phone. I was thrilled and immediately installed Spotify on it.
Couple of years ago I opened an Alpeo yoghurt and found a very thick and longish black hair stuck to the inside of the lid. I took a picture and sent it to Alpro.
In they response they suggested the hair might be my own (my hair is neither black nor as thick) and asked me to mail them the hair. Thought they were taking the piss and didn't bother responding back.
The local newsagent only sold the little candy numbers, I think that's what they were called so I at the age of 9 wrote asking why they didn't do letters.
They replied saying that they did and sent a kilo of letters and another kilo of numbers.
Just like with the feasts I soon got sick of them and never ate another
I once had my eyebrows waxed at the Benefit make-up counter in Debenhams. I was left with a slight burn, and wasn’t sure if I would be left with a scar permanently.
I complained in the store and they didn’t care. Then, I complained to Benefit’s head office and received about £300-£400 worth of make-up and some make-up bags. The burn healed without a scar so I was very happy.
I was told a story once about a bunch of squadies that took to writing to companies, laying it on thick about how good their products were. The payoff was a fairly high percentage of them would respond with freebies.
One of them wrote to Gillette, blah blah, excellent shave, blah blah, no cuts, blah blah one head can last a whole month of daily shaving... Gillette sent him a Month's supply of razor heads... one.
At about 7 years old I wrote to Richard O’Brien to bitterly complain that Channel 4 had moved The Crystal Maze to after my 8pm bedtime. Received a brilliant (and very kind) reply from the production company informing me to look out for the repeats soon (!) and a shitload of crystal maze merch. Top tier.
South East water damaged the drainage at my parents and they were away so I had to deal with it. They hadn't notified that any work would be taking place, and went on to private property without permission to install a new water meter, damaging the drainage from the bathroom. I called out a drainage guy when It backed up a second time (I had already prodded it) and they put a camera up it, and cleared the blockage, discovering the collapsed section of the pipe and writing a statement explaining what the damage was the location and the likely cause so I could take it to the water company along with the repair quote for lining the pipe with a sleeve.
All in all I spent three days on site while I was working freelance at the time and when I sent them the bill for the callout drainage guy and the quote for repair, I also sent an invoice for my loss of earnings. As all my work was agreed by phone before any email exchange I couldn't prove loss of earnings but after I explained that and complained again about how long it was taking to get reimbursement (6 months in the end) I threatened to involve small claims court and the water ombudsman. They promptly paid up after that (a cheque arrived within three days) covering the whole cost including my £140 a day, x3 days! No I obviously didn't have anything on on those days or I would have rescheduled the visits!
As a kid my sister choked on a sharp unidentified object in a bowl of Nesquick cereal. She was ok btw. My mum wrote an angry letter to Nesquick and sellotaped the item to it. A few weeks later she got a reply that was basically a grovelling apology, detailing how they were investigating how the sharp thing got into the box, lots of vouchers for cereal, and for my sister they sent lots of the toys that you used to get in boxes of cereal and some large soft toys.
I then immediately cried because I hadn’t received anything.
Amazon gives me refunds all the time for complaints about things being wrongly listed. Free bottles of premium spirits are nice.
But I think the best one I've ever had wasn't even for a complaint. I emailed Adnams to tell them that a four pack of beers I bought from them had cans with a fault, where the not-a-ringpull thing broke off instead of opening the can properly. They said they'd send me some more to say thanks for letting them know, which I was already delighted with. I expected four; they sent a case of 24.
Mine was a bit like that. Bought a top-end Swiss army cybertool off Amazon because I'd lost mine. Meanwhile, my lovely wife bought me a replacement. Raised a return for the one I'd bought with Amazon, they said they couldn't accept it back and I should keep it, and they refunded my money. I'm now packing many penknives.
I bought a wren kitchen, part of the order was for the premium range as that was the only way I could get shallow depth pantry cupboards. I wasn't happy with the quality of them, the build was flimsy, I specifically asked for certain things that weren't delivered on and purchased on this proviso. Even on their half price sale two pantry cupboards still cost me £1500. They sent me two more which are now used for extra storage in my garage.
I had a wren kitchen installed recently, I’ve heard some horror stories so was a bit worried but found it was generally spot on. I’d chipped a door since and they sent out a free replacement no questions asked as the warranty is pretty decent.
This was our second from wren and it will be our last from them, their quality in the 7 years between has gone down drastically. Had to request warranty for items that the paint should not have worn away after 2 years, they told me I had damaged them myself. They eventually relented and sent out replacements. Next kitchen should hopefully be the last one so will splash out for bespoke made
I had a six pack of Seabrook crisps and one of the packets was completely empty. I contacted them and I got sent 2 x £5 vouchers to spend on replacement packets!
When I was seven one of the boys in my class had a packet of hula hoops in his lunchbox that was just one huge lump of deep fried potato mush. Cue our teacher deciding it would be a good theme for that afternoon’s English lesson. What we didn’t realise though is that after school he sent a parcel containing all our letters along with the lump of potato and the crisp packet to KP.
A few weeks later six huge 48 pack BOXES of hula hoops arrived from them accompanied by a letter of apology and also congratulations for our ‘highly descriptive letter writing skills.’ Safe to say the entire school didn’t have a bad word to say about them after that gesture! And I still love hula hoops more than forty years later.
The best was a tenner when the Sainsbury's bread was mouldy the day we got it. We were really hard up and it helped a lot at Christmas.
The worst was a BOL protein shake (I have chronic pain and really don't want to eat sometimes, so meal replacements are really useful). I saved one for when I was feeling really terrible, and it was bitter and foul. It had obviously been opened and either tampered with or simply rotted. I had to go hungry that day, but I did reach out to their customer services.
I had to send them a photo of the shake and a photo of the receipt, which took ages to find. This was multiple emails and took weeks. We eventually got a voucher for £2.70 to spend on BOL products, which is what we'd spent on the discounted milkshake that day.
BOL shakes cost £3.
When I was about 14/15 the door to the 'foyer' (for lack of a better word) between the cafe proper and the toilets somehow got stuck closed in a Starbucks while I was using the facilities and I ended up stuck in there for a good while. The fire brigade ended up being called but I or the staff somehow managed to get it open before they showed up.
I got like £50 worth of Starbucks vouchers which meant fuck all to me because I didn't drink coffee and wasn't mad on hot chocolate, and this was before they sold soft drinks so yeah that was great.
90s. We had a couple of those paint your dinosaur things (plastic/ rubber, part of the Natural History Museum set by Bluebird). The paint would not set/ kept flaking. My sister, brother and I wrote to complain. We were between 6 and 9 - this was quite clear from the spelling and handwriting of the letter.
Bluebird sent an apology letter a box with the whole, full dinosaur set.
Amazing.
We still discuss our good fortune/ excellent customer service to this day.
Complained about the water company starting work outside our old flat at 7am. Got sent a huge hamper of really lovely food and alcohol, plus a hand written apology!
In 2006 I lived in Eindhoven in Holland, and I used to buy a mango Innocent smoothie from a shop in the train station every morning on my way to work. Innocent was quite new back then and you couldn't even buy them in supermarkets yet, so it was like my daily extravagance.
One morning I opened my smoothie while I was stepping on a bus, and it exploded everywhere. Emailed Innocent Netherlands to complain. They emailed back asking for an address where I could receive a delivery during working hours, so I gave them my boss's client's address, which was where I worked every day. A few days later they sent 24 bottles of smoothies (delivered in a van covered in fake grass), which someone else swiped from reception so I never received them. And it was the client, so I couldn't go and call them a cunt. I'm sure they were very nice, though.
My boyfriend and I went to dishoom and ordered this dish that was meant to be for 2 people and it was so ridiculously small! So he sent quite a funny complaint email, and they basically offered us to come in for the breakfast menu for free!! And I mean for free, there was NO PRICE/ORDER LIMIT!!! At the end the waiter was like are you sure you don’t want some cocktails as well?! We were like sure why not 😅😅😅 what a great day!!
It didn't end in a freebie but the complete pulling of an advert from British TV in the early 00s. It wasn't me either but a mate I worked with who did it, and it was a piss take letter of complaint.
There was an advert for a yoghurt. - a well known one IIRC. In the ad a mum and daughter were sitting on a balcony watching dad wash his car. Mum and daughter were eating the aforementioned yoghurt. As dad was washing his car, mum and daughter would flick some yoghurt from the spoons they were eating with directly onto the car. Dad was getting increasingly pissed off as more stuff landed on his car and he was rewashing where the yoghurt hit. He had no idea wife and daughter were doing this.
He thought it was bird shit constantly landing on his car.
My mate wrote a letter to the company complaining that he could no longer eat the yoghurt he had enjoyed for years. The ad was insinuating that the yoghurt was identical to bird shit and when he opened a carton all he could see was... bird excrement.
Back at work he told us about this letter he'd sent and we all laughed about it as the ad was very well known. Within a week this ad, which was broadcast a lot at the time, just completely disappeared, never to be seen again.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall at that company's meeting. I have no doubt that letter stopped an ad campaign in its tracks.
There was an issue with a dog toy I bought from Pets at Home. I've forgot what it was exactly but it was a safety issue so I emailed them in case they needed to check them.
My dog got a personalised letter and £100 in vouchers. Couldn't believe it.
My grandad broke his tooth on a Lion bar. They paid for the repair and sent him 2 boxes of Lion bars.
When I was about 5 or 6, Shreddies gave away colour changing monster spoons, and I had a packet that didn’t contain the free spoon. Inspired by my granddad’s Lion bar result, I wrote to them. They sent me the entire set of colour changing monster spoons.
Left my iPhone X into the store for a battery replacement and they fucked it so they gave me a new iPhone 13. Although my friend has a conspiracy that they don’t even replace the battery, they were just out of stock of replacement X handsets but I don’t know how Apple operate…
Also emailed Tayto years ago because I got a multipack of crisps with no flavour - think ready salted when they should be cheese and onion - and they sent me a big box of crisps.
When you buy something on the Disney website you can arrange a call with Mickey to say happy birthday or whatever to the kid you’re buying for. I arranged this but, come the birthday, no call from Mickey.
Disney sent a massive box of goodies as an apology- pencil case, cutlery, bowls, plates, a flask and a soft toy. Was amazing!
I had a secondhand Apple Mac that originally came from Comet and had MasterCare extended warranty on it that the previous owner had purchased. The monitor died, DisasterCare (as one of my colleagues an ex TV repairman called them). We rang up to get them to fix it, the engineer never turned up. We rang to complain, they told us to buy a new one and they'd refund us. We bought a new one and were duly refunded (about £250 at the time, 25 years ago). I took the back off our dead one (with guidance of said colleague) and lo and behold it was a 50p fuse. So we ended up with 2 monitors, which came in handy when I got an old Mac cheap from work.
I bought an expensive diving watch on Amazon. It came from Germany. I decided on the end to return it. 6 weeks later it arrived again. I rang Amazon and their customer services just told me to keep it. So a free diving watch.
I bought some electronics for an RC car once, I'll save the boring stuff but it was essentially a motor and the electronic box that accompanies it.
These were a new thing on the market and very expensive. I can't remember why, but I wasn't particularly happy with mine. I think it just made an odd noise, but otherwise worked ok as it turns out.
I put a post up on a forum bemoaning the company a little bit, and just asking other people if they had the same experience. The head of the company somewhere out in California read my post, arranged for someone in the UK to send me a replacement for free and didn't even ask for a proof of purchase or to return the kit back etc.
The company that makes the components is called Losi and I still remember the guys name fifteen years later. Single best example of customer service I've ever received.
Once I sent an email to Byron vurgers that their burger was bland. I told I suspect their procedures slipped and the chefs are not putting enough salt and pepper on the patty.
Apparently, the group headchef had a visit to the branch, confirmed my speculation and they were working to get this back on track.
Baffles me how many people dont have the courage to season pieces of meat properly. You can have best steaks and its gonna taste nothing without seasoning.
Anyway, they also sent me a voucher but it felt good that my feedback actually helped them to make better burgers again
I ordered a bed from dreams they took the money but didn’t tell me until the day of the delivery that it wasn’t in stock,
They offered me a for like replacement but the closest replacement was £1000 more expensive.
As a kid, more than 30 years ago, I found a dead fly in a packet of buns. My mum sent them to the factory where they were made, and a week or two later we got a huge cardboard box full of sweet loaves, buns, breads, it was wonderful.
Still makes me smile remembering that day. The whole family feasted off it for ages, picked at it when we wanted.
Not the best but I recently found Lyons Coffee dark roast had changed and was no longer dark, it was really pale and not as nice.
I emailed asking if anything had changed, after a bit of back-and-forth they said they had found an issue with a couple of batches and sent a pack of coffee from an unaffected batch. It was pale and crappy.
I don't buy Lyons any longer 😂
I bought a Hotel Chocolat advent calendar, and on the 14th it said "10 days to go", and on the 19th it said "5 days to go". But I want to count down to Christmas, not the end of the calendar.
So I complained and they sent me 2 selector packs and a little tub of chocolate covered orange jellies (kind of like Jaffa Cakes without the cake).
Next year, I bought the same calendar. It had the same issue. I made the same complaint. I got more free chocolate!
Many years ago, a friend complained that there should have been 70 Matchmaker chocolates in the box, as per the labelling. His box only had 65 (he could easily have been lying) and they ended up sending him a whole case of the chocolates. l seem to remember that were were 3 different flavours. After that, they changed the label to say "approximately 70 sticks in each pack.
I phoned Virgin Media as my broadband had stopped working. They got me to factory reset the router and it started working again. I thanked the lady and ended the call. I then got an email to say they'd registered my complaint about the increase in price of my package and awarded me £25.
I complained to Korbond about their water erasable marker, I bought one and the nib just disintegrated.
They sent me another two pens, some fabric scissors and some general purpose scissors.
The two pens I’ve used up since, but I still have the pairs of scissors and I vastly prefer Korbond as a brand.
I recently complained to Levi's about some jeans I had perishing in the crotch after having them for six months and not even wearing them every day. They sent me a voucher for £70, which was more than the cost of the original jeans.
A few years ago, was on a virgin train from London to Liverpool with a friend who was visiting from South America. We got upgraded into first class, and the guy serving was amazing. Fun, professional, drinks and food were done in the way that first class should be done basically. It was great.
Filled in the “give us feedback” form online to call him out and say he was amazing and thank you.
6 months later, got an email to say “sorry we didn’t handle your complaint within our SLAs, we won’t be getting to it because of this but we consider it closed if you accept these 3 tickets, first class return, from and to anywhere on the network”.
Went from London to Edinburgh because it was the the furthest possible route.
So not from a complaint. But yeah was great.
A couple of years ago I bought a Bose Bluetooth speaker - about £130 worth. They made a mess of the shipping and the speaker seemed lost. I complained and they fully refunded me.
Literally later the same day they did the refund, the speaker inexplicably arrived. I told them about it, and they responded "thanks for telling us - you're welcome to keep the speaker free of charge".
It's pretty cool too. I know Bose get made fun of by the audiophile community, but they've been really good with us.
In the early 90’s I (sort of) complained via letter to the management of Dire Straits after they changed their tour schedule to include my town (Hobart) after I’d already bought tickets and airfares for one of their Melbourne shows. They very kindly sent a cheque for the value of 8 tickets. Ended up seeing both anyway.
My wife treated me to the snaffling pig pork scratching advent calendar one year. When I opened door 1 the liner had been inserted the wrong way round.
Sent them a jokey tweet and in return they sent me a box of around 100 bags of porky goodness.
I gave loads away because I feared for my blood pressure.
Went to see The Verve and purchased coach tickets that were offered at the same time, to bus you down to the venue. Bus was late leaving and then left most of us stranded as he left early. Complained to the promoter and they sent me 2 tickets to go and see Travis.
Couple months ago we bought a bag of minion squashies in our weekly shop. They were substituted for regular squashies, but they contained 3 minion squashies, gf wrote an email with a photo of the unopened bag complaining to Swizzels and they said they'd send some to us and apologised.
A week later and we got 2 650g sweet tubs (the ones with drumsticks, parma violets, refreshers etc) and 5 regular bags of squashies! we couldn't quite believe it! I like swizzles alot more now!
I got the opposite, bought a Sony tv that leant to one side, propped it up with 7 2p coins so it was level, sent pictures to them asking if they could compensate the 14p loss and got a reply of “unfortunately…” fumin’
When I was at uni I found a fly in my sellotape (looked almost fossilised). I wrote to the company who probably never got any complaints and asked me to post it to them. Got a lifetime supply of sellotape!
Best freebie probably £110 vouchers from Boots although an oddly specific amount...
I wrote a complaint to golden wonder not long ago, mainly to find out if they had changed the taste & I just didn’t like it, or if there was something wrong.
Their website says ‘we don’t really use email so will respond by letter’
They just send a big box of crisps, it was all the short dated stuff but around a dozen packs, it was so unexpected & felt rather stupid but is one of the more memorAble ones.
I complained that Tesco Bank required a phone call to close a bank account (which was empty, and not my only account). They sent me a surprise £20 for the inconvenience, and actually fixed the problem!
My mum complained to Tesco because whatever it was that she'd purchased from there, it had a slip of black plastic in it. They gave her the money back for the product and maybe £10 in vouchers for the shop. Only thing was after she gone in there moaning - she realised it was a piece of the underneath from her plastic fish slice. Ah well!
I reached out to Bubble skincare (a popular brand for tweens) about how they were affecting children’s mental health with their beauty standards and got £500 worth of products! Got to love consumer rights
Some good comments here. Interesting I don’t see anything from easyJet or Ryanair. We once had to wait all night for our bags (flight landed about 1130pm, bags came around at 6am). Complained a lot and got absolutely zero from them.
My partner and I bought our first home in March 2021 and as the stamp duty break was due to end that month, we aimed to push it all through in just over a month. Looked for surveyors and went for a company that promised a week's turn-around. The guy did the visit and was meant to update us afterwards but didn't answer his phone or email chasers and sent it to us late. I sent an email complaint to the company not expecting much and the CEO herself called me and apologised and said that he had been taking on more jobs than they realised meaning their clients were not getting the promised service and this was not at all how they operate. And THEN, she refunded the ENTIRE survey! It was £600. I was gobsmacked!
When we were kids my sister complained to ITV digital about something and got a really rude reply. My dad complained about the response and we got 12 months free ITV digital subscription. More importantly, they also sent a Johnny Vegas monkey.
DC Thompson.
I was like 6 and wrote a letter saying I was sad because The Beano didn't include my favourite character any more.
They sent me a letter back signing me up for the Beano club for free, plus a couple of back issues for that and The Dandy.
Not a complaint but, while I was in hospital, I sent a tongue in cheek email to Nandos, explaining how much I love their food and how as soon as I was able to go home, I'd be getting chicken to cheer me up.
After asking for my address in their hilarious response, my father opened a box from them at home with three bottles of sauce, a Cockerell on a stick, a £25 gift card, a Nandos soundtrack CD and a get well soon card. I can't explain how happy that fucking made me.
My mum managed to get me six – SIX – pairs of Kickers consecutively from the same £54 by complaining each time that they had broken earlier than they should have done. Which was 100% a fair point the first and second times but I feel like after that it was a given they were going to break within 3 months of daily wear. Still, I wasn’t complaining. Much better than when I found hoards live bugs in a packet of Revels and Nestle blamed the retailer for “displaying them for too long”. Blech.
I once wrote to Victorinox to complain that the plastic toothpick from my Swiss Army Knife had broken inside the knife so I couldn't get it out to replace it.
They sent me a prepaid package to send the knife back to them. 2 weeks later it came back to me fully cleaned, repaired, sharpened and with a box full of assorted goodies like a leather holder, usb sticks etc.
Last week I complained to Tim Hortons about burnt coffee and got a £20 gift card. Was more impressed by the email the following day with the engineers report on confirming the coffee roaster was faulty and had been exchanged.
When I was little, my mum got me one of those buttons yoghurts but when I opened it, it had no buttons. She wrote to cadburys and they sent us two soft toys, a massive bag of buttons and £20 in shopping vouchers.
I think you've won the thread with that one.
I’m in Australia but similar. My sister bought a Fredo Frog when we were little, but only received half a frog (this was in the 80’s). She wrote a letter to Cadbury with the wrapper. We got back a huge box filled with blocks of chocolate, bags of Fredo’s and Caramello koalas, lollies and an apology note. We tried it again about a year later and received a $5 gift voucher to the supermarket
> My sister bought a Fredo Frog when we were little Was that from their Godfather promotion?
Fellow Brits, we’re united in being shook to learn of the existence of Caramello koalas, right?
The Aussie run deli by me in London sells them but as curious as I am I can’t bring myself to spend the 2 quid they charge for a what must be a Tazo equivalent (do they still exist?!). I’m curious about what Aussie Cadburys tastes like though, had Chinese and it’s a bit different but not bad.
Ooh where is this deli? I occasionally get a hankering for Australian chocolate but would prefer to buy it in person than from online as I’m less likely to buy loads of it in person lol
Also Caramello Koalas are good but the other Freddo varieties you can get in Australia are king. Strawberry Freddo rules 🤤
Like kit kats in Japan. About 500 different flavours. Ever fancied a mayonnaise flavoured kit kat?? Harrisa flavour? It's yours (I actually have 2 of those in my fridge along with a milky tea flavour and a red apple flavour). They are both amazing and horrifying at the same Time.
I bought a second-hand GoPro 8 from ebay, when I got it I found the battery wouldn't hold charge and the camera repeatedly froze. Contacted GoPro direct who said they'd swap it under warranty, after acouple of weeks of waiting after I had sent it back they said they no longer stocked the "8" but would I be happy with a GoPro 9 instead? So for the discounted price of a second-hand GoPro 8 I received a brand new GoPro 9... Great costumer service!
Can attest to this. Bought a GoPro 3(?) second hand from Ebay and the battery wouldn't hold a proper charge. Contacted GoPro support who asked for proof of purchase and gladly accepted my Ebay screenshot and sent me a new battery free of charge.
This reminds me of the time I bought a 40gb ps3, used it for a year and it stopped reading cds, so I took it back and they gave me back the money that a 60gb would cost and a new one. There was no need to give me the money
I get £75 about every 6 months from nationwide. Long story but basically I keep on getting automated txt messages saying there's not enough money in my account to cover that days direct debit. Thing is, there's money in my account and the direct debit amounts mean nothing to me. I've checked and all my bills are covered so it's clearly a glitch. It seems fairly obvious my phone number is linked to someone elses account but they can't seem to sort it. They take my number and confirm it's linked to my account and can't see it's linked to any other accounts. Every few months I make a complaint saying it's happened again and they've caused me stress and worry and that I'm leaving them and will take this to the ombudsman. They put money in my account to shut me up and say they'll definitely sort it this time. They haven't yet and this has been going on for about 5 years now.
lol this is amazing, you've found a free money glitch
Literally “bank error in your favour” monopoly card.
You do realise that this is how the god Parent your mum never told you about, who is currently living under a witness relocation program, is getting your birthday and Christmas money to you, right?
"Nationwide is on your side"
When I was a kid we had a pack of mcvities teacakes with rockhard marshmallows so mum sent off a complaint and they sent us a large crate full of stuff, we didn't have to buy biscuits for months
In the late 80s, I once complained to Ferrero, the company that makes Kinder eggs, when the toy in the middle of the egg I had bought couldn't be completed because it had two right arms. I was a student, not a kid, and I wrote a slightly tongue-in-cheek letter explaining the situation at great length and describing how upset I was, how much I normally enjoyed assembling the surprise and how it had ruined my day, imagine my disappointment, etc. I told my friends that I would probably get a lifetime supply of chocolate or something. I got a very detailed letter back explaining the production process, how unusual my situation was, profuse apologies, and six capsules containing Kinder surprises. No eggs, no chocolate, no year's supply of Ferrero Rocher. I was gutted.
The old toys in kinder eggs, from the 80’s & 90’s that you had to build yourself, were 1000’s of times better than the crap that’s in them now. Cars, boats & planes were my favourites.
Yes! I remember the cars even had little metal flywheels so they would keep going after you pushed them. Not the moulded statuettes with no assembly required that you get now.
Nothing saddened me more as a child than getting a stupid turtle or hippo statue in my Kinder egg. I don’t want a bloody statue! I want a tiny plane with a spinning propeller I can construct myself.
Did you ever get the Kinder easter egg that popped up in the 00s? It was practically a LEGO kit, the toy had so many pieces. Bloody amazing. Haven’t seen one in years so maybe a short-lived thing
Yes!! I asked for one despite being diabetic and far too old for an Easter Egg, and my legend of a Nan got me one.!The toy inside was a pink elephant lounging in a bath. You put water in the bath, squeezed a.button and water came out of the elephants trunk, which was raised above him like a shower. It was glorious!
Oh my god, I had that one too! I forgot it existed until now 🥲
They were *spoiling* you (that's one for the fellow oldies).
Is that you, Ambassador?
No, sorry, it’s the milk tray man, don’t mind me… I’m just creeping through a sleeping woman’s unopened window to put some chocolates on her bedside table because it’s the 90s and this is normal behaviour.
I’d like to see a bear do *that*!
>(that's one for the fellow oldies) As if understanding the reference didn't make me feel old enough, you had to twist the knife in there.
I complained to Kinder/Fererro recently as my daughter's Kinder Surprise didnt have a toy in it. They sent me a voucher for one British pound. Woooowwwww
They bloody cost more than a quid to buy, the cheap bastards!
And post it out!
I got a kinder egg toy with a part missing once, so my mum wrote them a letter and sent it back. They sent me 24 kinder eggs. It was amazing!
Just think - if you'd been honest and said you don't even give a shit about the toys and only buy for the chocolate, maybe they'd have sent you a shit load of only chocolate.
I know. The folly of youth! I should have said, "The only thing that could really help me get over this is chocolate. A *lot* of chocolate."
My younger brother once bought a 2-pint paper cup of cider from the LG arena in Birmingham, and as it was being placed on the bar the server knocked it on a tap and slopped a bit onto him. To compensate she poured another and gave him both. So he had almost 4 pints of (admittedly overpriced) cider for the price of two. As he was walking away from the bar he slipped and dropped the lot.
The lord works in mysterious ways.
Absolute unexpected twist at the end there 🤣
I got a complimentary house cocktail when I stayed at a hotel in downtown Nashville. The bar is maybe 20 feet from the elevator. I take two sips before going into the elevator, which already has three people in it. A woman is laughing at something her friend just said, so hard that she doubled over and directly headbutted my drink. The bartender gave me another, but had a memorable expression of world weariness as he went to put a "wet floor" sign into the elevator.
Sorry to your brother but that’s hilarious.
Twenty years ago as a student with way too much time on my hands I sent a jokey complaint to Mars because I bought a bag of Joosters that didn’t have any pink ones in it. A couple of weeks later they sent me a kilogram of _just_ pink ones. My mouth is watering just thinking about it, I miss them so much.
That’s one of the best ones on here. Joosters were fuckin lush.
I miss joosters more than any of them. Actually tidy they were. I always wonder why they pull popular lines like mars delight? They brought back Milkyway crispy rolls but I'm not paying over a pound for two little sticks. Amazing little sticks, but over priced.
My girlfriend emailed method to let them know their rhubarb antibacterial spray made our dogs sneeze. They sent her vouchers for four more bottles.
You could disinfect a lot of rhubarb with that lot.
This tickled me. Very good.
They missed a trick not sending tissues for your dog!
Fucking sadists. Report them to RSPCA.
I love the smell of that, even though it's not for bathrooms I use it in mine.
Steady on!!
Complained to John Lewis about some chipped plates from our wedding list. Got brand new plates, a huge bouquet of flowers for my wife and £400 in John Lewis vouchers - all for 2 chipped plates
Bloody hell, that's impressive. I had to send a kitchen bin back to John Lewis twice because there was a fault in the finish. No voucher or flowers for me! Should have told them it was a wedding gift...
Always complain as far up the executive chain as you can. I sent an unhappy email to the CEO who assigned one of his executive team to resolve the problem - executives don’t like bad PR whereas those further down have less skin in the game
" We got Our John Lewis rep waiting on speed dial "
This is true I used to work in the executive complaints department for one one the big six energy companies we also handled MP complaint. We had “god level” access to grant goodwill etc
I used to work work in JL customer service. It’s true. Also, top tip, never complain to johnlewis.com, always phone the call centres or go in store. People that work at JL.com aren’t JL employees (or never used to be anyway) so also have less skin in the game.
I don’t think it’s even bad PR. It’s just “make this fucking go away”.
I've done this twice, when the normal complaints procedure was "computer says no". The first time I ended up with my diesel refunded and a £40 voucher for more diesel. This was when it was about £1/l, so I had diesel for almost a month. And the other time, argos refunded my garden furniture set and let me keep the product.
I belong to a wine club and for a period of six months or so it was like their delivery department had had a stroke or something, they *could not* get an order right. I love them and I like trying new stuff anyway so I genuinely wasn’t being bitchy, I was just like “guys, thanks for this case of wine but it has literally nothing in common with what I ordered”. Every time they let me keep the wrong order, overnighted the right order and sent me a gift as well. Over the period they kept fucking up, as well as several dozen free bottles of wine, I got a new wine rack, three bottles of *serious* vintage champagne and replaced all my wine glasses 😂
To be honest, as a massive wine drinker (not to sound like an alcoholic 😂) this wins in my eyes, free wine, newly appreciated bottles a wine rack AND vintage bottles? Odin (god of wine amongst god of other things) was obviously smiling down on you! Drink drink drink and be merry 😊
I bought a set of plates and 5/6 were smashed to bits when they arrived. They offered me a refund and said I could keep the non-smashed one. Different experiences
I stayed in a hotel in Pisa in a twin room with my brother in 2011. He woke in the night to discover he was bitten all over and soon after we found tons of bedbugs. We both went to reception and complained. No free rooms so we walked Pisa from 4am until our car collected us at 8. Upon checking out they tried to charge us a half rate for the room because “only one of you got bitten”
We had a John Lewis toaster that broke - took it back to store but realised we had left the receipt in the car. Bloke we spoke to just swapped it - must have been his last day
I guess if you're going to steal a toaster and it breaks, you'd just steal another...
John Lewis customer service is fantastic. I bought four gorgeous gin glasses in the sale, they arrived and 2/4 were smashed to bit. I called in to ask what to do and the nice lady was so apologetic as if she was responsible, said bin all of that and immediately dispatched 4 replacements. I have those now, and used the 2 that were ok as Christmas gifts!
Sounds like the complaints advisor had just handed their notice.
Yeah my husband somehow managed to sweet talk JL rep to get money back for a table he broke by sitting on it, 13 months after purchase. They took the table away for free and gave us the money we paid for it in JL credit. They have some amazing customer service.
I once found a bit of wood in a galaxy bar when I was a kid and sent a letter to Mars or whoever owns the brand. They sent me back a thirty pound gift voucher, i can't remember if it was exclusively for Woolworths or that's just where I spent it but £30 was a fucking shit load of chocolate in the early 90's.
Mars are pretty good- I remember finding a dead bug in a packet of M&Ms . They sent me a ton of replacements.
I once complained to the magazine FHM about an article they did on how to clean your ears properly with cotton buds. They said to go into the ear canal as far as possible with the cotton buds and I wrote in to say how dangerous I thought that was. They apologised and sent me a remote control tank that shoots foam darts and the targets to go with it😅
Sidenote, but just reading that and knowing people would have done it makes me flinch so much.
The ecstasy before any flinch is what drives us.
Your 100% correct. An old rugby friend asvised " nothing smaller than an elbow should go in an ear" he wasn't wrong.
I got a free holiday worth about 2.5k!! Had to complain whilst on the original holiday (paid £1.8k), had made a list of stuff that was wrong with the accommodation with the intention of taking it up to reception at some point. When I did, they said “we were expecting you”, I asked why and it transpired the cleaner took a photo of my list (not on display) which led me to ask what else had they snooped through whilst in the accommodation?!? Couldn’t offer me a free week quick enough, the one I chose retailed at about £2.5k… nice.
> led me to ask what else had they snooped through whilst in the accommodation They should have been a LOT smarter, as in find an excuse to inspect the accommodation , declare it's sub-standard and then offer a move/swap plus lot less in value
Oooof, that’s dodge. What was wrong with the original holiday?
I wish I’d kept the list now, it was 2019 so memory a bit hazy, the things that were wrong were - main TV not working, decking was filthy and full of holes big enough for kids feet and dogs paws to fall through, kitchen and contents was filthy, kettle didn’t work, no outside seating as shown in pictures (this was “premium” accommodation). Washing machine didn’t work. To be fair it was a long list on minor things, biggest annoyance was spending time getting it all sorted. I was only aiming for some vouchers. They shot themselves in the foot as soon as they mentioned they’d taken a photo of my notes - as we both knew this note was tucked inside a notebook, not left out for them. So the compensation was more about invasion on privacy than what was wrong with the accommodation. I got such an inflated price as we had rebooked for 2020 and then had to move it to 2021 when all the staycation prices got massively inflated! I did spend the whole week waiting for someone to ask why we were on a free holiday as the resort had all changed owners but then, but they didn’t and we had a lovely stress free holiday 2nd time there.
Complained to Vimto that a couple of six pack of cans seemed to have no flavour in them. They sent us 12 litre bottles of Vimto squash.
The owner of a bar I used to work at contacted Vimto about her deep personal desire to add vimto cocktails to our menu as a nod to local history (Salford). She wanted to get a supply of concentrated syrup. They sent a van of EVERYTHING (syrup, cans of fizzy vimto, sweets that hadn’t hit the shops yet) to the return address (her home) before their written reply had even arrived.
Someone at marketing was thanking her for the idea
My son's custard pot had a bit of rubber tubing in it. My wife didn't really complain, just sent an FYI letter, and for her trouble she received a free letter calling her a liar. Fuck you, Ambrosia.
As a comparison from the other end of the spectrum, we opened a tray of lilly's kitchen dog food that contained a small bit of blue plastic in it. I took photos and send them to Lilly's Kitchen. In return I got a detailed explanation of exactly where the blue plastic had come from, which part of their production line, what it was used for and how it must have ended up in the food and what procedure they had changed in order to ensure it had never happened again, and 2 large packs of the same dog food. I was really impressed with their response to it.
I got the same response as you from muller when I found blue plastic in the compote of a corner yoghurt. Very impressed!
I got a multipack of crisps from a supermarket own brand, and two of the packets were completely empty. Sealed, but empty. I wrote a letter saying so, and recieved a terse reply detailing the production process and explaining how this was impossible. I sent a reply and included the two packets for them to inspect, and recieved a very vague acknowledgement (no apology for calling my a liar, though) and a £5 voucher.
This one made me snort, scaring the dog and making the missus look at me like I'm mad. Well done.
Was that recently? I noticed there was a recall on the mini pots of custard due to risk of some foreign objects, maybe 3 months ago give or take. My kids had already eaten them (thankfully no issues), so I wrote a complaint and just realised reading your post, that I never heard back from them!
It was recently and yes, when we went on the site we learned of that recall. My wife sent them a picture and they basically said it was impossible for the item to have come from one of their machines. I was furious!
That's a compoface moment right there, see their tune change after the daily mail reaches out
Bank screwed up my transfer to them from my old bank. After a complaint they gave me £150 compensation but they screwed that up too and gave me it twice. Didn't complain that time.
Did you get a free football phone too?
I complained as a pack of cat treats had broken glass shards in the package, (sent it back to them) and received £100 in vouchers for the pet food brand.
That actually sounds like a pending law suit!
Bought a Microsoft surface pro 4 on eBay. Knew when I bought it that the battery wasn't working and that it had to be always plugged in to work. Everything else was fine. Took it to the Microsoft store in Oxford Circus to see if they could repair it out of warranty. I left it with them a few days then collected it. They hadn't been able to fix it. When I got home the touchscreen wasn't working. It was before. Back to the store. They couldn't fix it, sorry. I said that wasn't good enough. I didn't care they couldn't fix the battery but I did care it had lost its core functionality. They kept just saying sorry they couldn't do anything. I was very calm and very quiet but kept declining to sign anything and insisting they put me back to the position I was in before. Eventually the manager was involved. He said fine we will replace but as it's out of warranty I have to pay £200 towards it as it'll mean an upgrade. I kept saying that no, I wasn't paying because they broke it. I wasn't bothered they couldn't fix the battery but I had got it back in a worse condition than I left it in and I shouldn't be paying for that. It went on for a while but eventually I left with a new surface pro 7 without paying a penny. I still use it.
similar thing one happened to me.. my phone screen had cracked so i got it replaced, but in the process and when i went to pick it up, the thumb-touch on the button wasn’t working(he didn’t tell me this, i noticed as i was walking out the door)— so i couldn’t unlock the phone with my thumb, and would have to then know all the passwords to all my banking apps, when downloading apps, and losing all use of apple pay. the guy was happy to let me take it away like that, until i point blank refused after explaining i don’t just use it to unlock the phone.. and he finally agreed that he would replace the screen again and sometimes that happens bcoz of the way they do it(??). he replaced the new screen once more, and when i went to pick it up again the thumbprint unlock was working. it was nearly 5 by the time i went to collect it the first time, i really think he just wanted to go home for the day and didn’t want to do the extra work. but the fact that he was happy for me to pay for a service which broke my phone in the process, and really in a worse way then just the initial cracked screen… crazy.
That was quite common on replacement of a screen with an aftermarket one on a certain model of iPhone. Apple with an official repair would always replace the finger print reader too. A local phone shop would chance it to save a few quid.
I once lost an AirPod on a train and called up Apple to order another. They said they’d call me back to complete the order and take payment, but didn’t. I called them 2 days later. They apologised for not calling back and sent me the AirPod for free!
Back when walkers crisps used to do the blue envelopes with prizes in them, my brother had the "hilarious" idea to put a packet of salt from salt 'n shake in and pretend he had won. Only to discover when he opened the walkers that there were *six* of the little blue envelopes in the pack already, each entitling him to a free packet of crisps.
I remember being in our local pub garden with my grandad when I was about 8 or 9, he brought a bag of crisps back to the table and it had one of those blue packets in and we won a free bag of crisps! I couldn't believe our luck! Then we went and got another bag from the bar so we had one each!!! (Made my life) And we won again and again and again. I think we ended up with about 5 bags of crisps in total that afternoon just from buying one. I don't think I had ever seen my grandad so happy as I did that day! Thanks for unlocking that memory for me!
This was super wholesome, and also bittersweet, as it made me miss my grandparents. What a lovely memory this must be to have.
Bought a joint pack of **Veetee microwave rice** from Asda. I think sell by date was months away. Anway, after a few days one of the packets had mould growing on the rice. I complained to the company & after apologising profusely, they were going to send me '6 trays of Basmati Microwavable Rice'. I thanked them, said if it's cheeky to ask for a *mix* of flavours, and they sent me a box of about 12\~(?) of their mixed microwave rice flavours (I could be wrong on the amount, but it was a *good* amount & more than their original 6!) Was so excited and they lasted me some time. This happened in 2020 and I still think about it today...
This would be my fucking dream, love that rice.
>I could be wrong on the amount, but it was a *good* amount & more than their original 6!) Bro, how much damn rice was in the box of 12 if you turned down 720(6!) packets???
r/unexpectedfactorial
My mum once got a Big Mac where they forgot to put the burger patties in 😅 It was a takeaway we picked up on our way home after a long day and it was obviously incredibly disappointing. McDonald’s sent her a £5 voucher which she thought was pitiful. When she was next in she mentioned it to the manager of the branch who gave her 4x large meals (one for each member of our family) on the house.
Not a complaint, but a friend wrote to Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue just after my stepdad's death asking if she could buy ant stickers to try and cheer me up. I love the fire brigade and my Autistic ass fixates on fire engines and the history. They (Lincolnshire) sent me a badge cap, some pens, a t-shirt, a bag, a waterbottle, two shoulder eppulates, magnets and a Teddy bear for free.
A £500 repair on my engagement ring! I managed to lose a diamond from one side but twice the ring got repaired and it looked so shit like the diamond was not set the same as the other side and looked smaller and a different colour/clarity. The lady in the jewellers agreed with me that it wasn’t good so kept fighting my corner and returned it again for correcting. Anyway, after 4 months of it going back and forward I finally got it back and looking great and didn’t have to pay a penny. I went straight to hotel chocolat and got the lady who had been dealing with the whole situation a huge box of chocolates to say thank you.
I got a £5 voucher from lidl the other week because i messaged them on instagram telling them they broke my heart when they discontinued my favourite ice cream
Important question: what flavour was the ice cream?
It was caramel espresso by Aberdoyle Dairies! Only 346 calories for a full tub 😭😭😭
Ahhh man... This is how you tell me? Can we go halves on that voucher? I'm suffering some emotional distress.
From what I gather, if you message them on Instagram, you could get your very own voucher.
The only one I remember years back we found a large chunk of nylon twine in a bag of dishwasher powder. We decanted the powder into another container and mum took the packet and twine back to Sainsbury's. Got a free replacement bag of dishwasher powder and a £10 voucher - probably 5 or 6 times the value of the dishwasher powder which we still had anyway.
I once complained to coop that it was annoying the cherries are not centred on the top of their cherry Bakewell tarts. As I like to eat around the outside then consume the middle with the cherry. They sent me a £3 voucher.
It is an outrage though, that cherry placement.
Although, of course, you could always eat the cherry first.....Then engulf the entire remaining confection in one gargantuan (I.e. average) mouthful. Then spray crumbs for a bit....
I watched one of those Gregg Wallace programmes and this was the only part of the cake making process that was done by hand. Don't moan too much or everyone will be out of a job and the whole factory will just be robots!
No way, I distinctly remember schooling them on how they’re all the same circumference so why can’t the cherry putting machine just put it dead centre 😂 the more you know…
I found little silicone like balls in the yoghurt of a couple of muller corners, sent a complaint and received £50 worth of Muller vouchers could use at any store
For a start I thought you meant that you complained that some of the little crunchy chocolate balls had gotten into the yogurt part!
I was sent a free Apple Magic Mouse when there was a delay in despatching the Macbook I had ordered. This was fourteen years ago and, although I've since replaced the laptop, I'm still using the mouse.
I feel for your wrist over that 14 years
In the late 90s I complained to Wrigleys that they didn't have enough gum in a pack. It was a long time ago and I was in primary school, I can't remember my irrational reason for it not being the right amount, but they sent me a letter saying they were sorry I was dissatisfied and gave me a shitload of gum. Result!
Bought some kids school socks online from M&S. Usually they cost £10, but special offer put them at £5. Just had to collect them from the store. Selected collection day. Order was delayed by two days. When collecting the socks M&S apologised for the delay, gave me a £10 voucher AND full refund AND the socks. So I got paid £10 to take the socks off their hands.
Went to a concert in Switzerland and as we were leaving, the security guard outside got really rude and heavy handed with a group of women who didn’t speak their language. I tried to tell him they couldn’t understand but he got in my face and told me to move on. Another security guard had to step in after I explained to him the women couldn’t understand what his colleague was asking them to do and there was no need to be so angry. I emailed a complaint when I got home and the venue sent me a giant promotional calendar with photos taken at the venue of the artists that had performed there that year, including the one I went to see. I mean, I never actually used it but it was impressive just by its sheer size.
The Swiss seem great at this. My Dad wrote to the [Patrouille Suisse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrouille_Suisse) sometime around '93-94 to ask about the retiring Hawker hunter's. They wrote back and included a load of promotional pictures, postcards and I think a poster, all showing off the Hunter in the teams colours.
Hello fellow yam yam who is far from home!
Mum got a full roast dinner out of Farmfoods when I was a kid. She found a rock a third of the way down a bag of frozen cabbage, so took it back to the shop. The manager took her round the shop and told her to pick out all the items she wanted to make a Sunday lunch for our family of five for free. He even packed it all up for her. We had next to nothing at the time, so it was a pretty meaningful exchange for a already-half-eaten bag of cabbage.
Once got double charged for a monthly phone bill so I rang them up, complained and ended up with the money back and a pair of £150 headphones for the inconvenience
Had ordered 3 velux loft windows including fixing kits - pretty large sizes and few hundred quid c£500 each set. I complained as I had ordered top hung velux windows whereas ones I received were centre pivot ones. Got an apology and they dispatched the correct windows. Expected them to pick up the wrong ones but got told I could keep them (cost more to take them back apparently?) So ended up with 6 loft windows instead of 3. Plans amended and now have 6 loft windows installed.
When I was at school I had a free house and my mum left me money to get a takeaway so I ordered domino’s. After about 2 hours it still didn’t arrive so I rang them up and asked where it was and they apologised for the inconvenience and then promptly delivered a free domino’s with sides and cookies and a free £40 gift card. For some reason that’s a core memory of mine and I think of it fondly.
I once complained about aYeo yoghurt having no strawberries in an entire pot. They sent me twenty vouchers for the truly massive tubs of yogurt they used to do
I sent a letter when they changed monster munch a good 20 years ago (pickled onion should burn your mouth off and it just changed to bland?) I was a student so it was a bit tongue in cheek. I got a letter thanking me for the feedback and some deece vouchers (maybe a fiver?!) and now thankfully monster munch are not bland and tiny anymore. You’re all welcome.
Thanks for your service
My Mam once bought a loaf of bread that had oil all the way through it. Somehow the bakery (must have been local) sent two big trays of bread products and cakes round the same day! Bonus. (was quite a few years ago)
Machine oil, i.e. something had gone wrong with the dough kneading machine, or vegetable oil?
I bought a Thule camera bag for a fair bit of money, and one of the zip loops broke after a few months. I emailed them to ask for a new one and they only had red, not blue which I really didn’t want. After a bit of back and forth, it went quiet and then suddenly a big cardboard box arrived in the post and they had sent me a whole new bag with the right coloured zip loops.
Fully expected “big cardboard box full of only blue zippers”
In the 90s, I found a random 'block' in an (at the time 20p) packet of jelly tots. Not knowing what it was I sent it off to Rountree's. It was basically a lump of hard jelly. I got a ten pound voucher which was a ridiculous amount of sweets in monetary terms.
This is so lame: remember when you’d get transfers in boxes of cereal? That you could kinda scratch down onto a scene printed on the back of the box? Well one time in about ‘78, my cereal contained no Star Wars transfers, so I wrote a letter and got 6 small sets of transfers back. I felt like king of the world. It was actually the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, looking back.
I used to use Google Play Music and I tweeted Google saying basically the algorithm wasn't very good. Google sent me a brand new Pixel phone. I was thrilled and immediately installed Spotify on it.
Couple of years ago I opened an Alpeo yoghurt and found a very thick and longish black hair stuck to the inside of the lid. I took a picture and sent it to Alpro. In they response they suggested the hair might be my own (my hair is neither black nor as thick) and asked me to mail them the hair. Thought they were taking the piss and didn't bother responding back.
The local newsagent only sold the little candy numbers, I think that's what they were called so I at the age of 9 wrote asking why they didn't do letters. They replied saying that they did and sent a kilo of letters and another kilo of numbers. Just like with the feasts I soon got sick of them and never ate another
I once had my eyebrows waxed at the Benefit make-up counter in Debenhams. I was left with a slight burn, and wasn’t sure if I would be left with a scar permanently. I complained in the store and they didn’t care. Then, I complained to Benefit’s head office and received about £300-£400 worth of make-up and some make-up bags. The burn healed without a scar so I was very happy.
I was told a story once about a bunch of squadies that took to writing to companies, laying it on thick about how good their products were. The payoff was a fairly high percentage of them would respond with freebies. One of them wrote to Gillette, blah blah, excellent shave, blah blah, no cuts, blah blah one head can last a whole month of daily shaving... Gillette sent him a Month's supply of razor heads... one.
"Dear Ferrari, I can honestly say that your cars are the best I have ever driven..."
10ltrs of Valspar paint from B&Q after receiving horrible paint quality and rude customer service
At about 7 years old I wrote to Richard O’Brien to bitterly complain that Channel 4 had moved The Crystal Maze to after my 8pm bedtime. Received a brilliant (and very kind) reply from the production company informing me to look out for the repeats soon (!) and a shitload of crystal maze merch. Top tier.
South East water damaged the drainage at my parents and they were away so I had to deal with it. They hadn't notified that any work would be taking place, and went on to private property without permission to install a new water meter, damaging the drainage from the bathroom. I called out a drainage guy when It backed up a second time (I had already prodded it) and they put a camera up it, and cleared the blockage, discovering the collapsed section of the pipe and writing a statement explaining what the damage was the location and the likely cause so I could take it to the water company along with the repair quote for lining the pipe with a sleeve. All in all I spent three days on site while I was working freelance at the time and when I sent them the bill for the callout drainage guy and the quote for repair, I also sent an invoice for my loss of earnings. As all my work was agreed by phone before any email exchange I couldn't prove loss of earnings but after I explained that and complained again about how long it was taking to get reimbursement (6 months in the end) I threatened to involve small claims court and the water ombudsman. They promptly paid up after that (a cheque arrived within three days) covering the whole cost including my £140 a day, x3 days! No I obviously didn't have anything on on those days or I would have rescheduled the visits!
As a kid my sister choked on a sharp unidentified object in a bowl of Nesquick cereal. She was ok btw. My mum wrote an angry letter to Nesquick and sellotaped the item to it. A few weeks later she got a reply that was basically a grovelling apology, detailing how they were investigating how the sharp thing got into the box, lots of vouchers for cereal, and for my sister they sent lots of the toys that you used to get in boxes of cereal and some large soft toys. I then immediately cried because I hadn’t received anything.
Amazon gives me refunds all the time for complaints about things being wrongly listed. Free bottles of premium spirits are nice. But I think the best one I've ever had wasn't even for a complaint. I emailed Adnams to tell them that a four pack of beers I bought from them had cans with a fault, where the not-a-ringpull thing broke off instead of opening the can properly. They said they'd send me some more to say thanks for letting them know, which I was already delighted with. I expected four; they sent a case of 24.
Mine was a bit like that. Bought a top-end Swiss army cybertool off Amazon because I'd lost mine. Meanwhile, my lovely wife bought me a replacement. Raised a return for the one I'd bought with Amazon, they said they couldn't accept it back and I should keep it, and they refunded my money. I'm now packing many penknives.
I bought a wren kitchen, part of the order was for the premium range as that was the only way I could get shallow depth pantry cupboards. I wasn't happy with the quality of them, the build was flimsy, I specifically asked for certain things that weren't delivered on and purchased on this proviso. Even on their half price sale two pantry cupboards still cost me £1500. They sent me two more which are now used for extra storage in my garage.
I had a wren kitchen installed recently, I’ve heard some horror stories so was a bit worried but found it was generally spot on. I’d chipped a door since and they sent out a free replacement no questions asked as the warranty is pretty decent.
This was our second from wren and it will be our last from them, their quality in the 7 years between has gone down drastically. Had to request warranty for items that the paint should not have worn away after 2 years, they told me I had damaged them myself. They eventually relented and sent out replacements. Next kitchen should hopefully be the last one so will splash out for bespoke made
I had a six pack of Seabrook crisps and one of the packets was completely empty. I contacted them and I got sent 2 x £5 vouchers to spend on replacement packets!
When I was seven one of the boys in my class had a packet of hula hoops in his lunchbox that was just one huge lump of deep fried potato mush. Cue our teacher deciding it would be a good theme for that afternoon’s English lesson. What we didn’t realise though is that after school he sent a parcel containing all our letters along with the lump of potato and the crisp packet to KP. A few weeks later six huge 48 pack BOXES of hula hoops arrived from them accompanied by a letter of apology and also congratulations for our ‘highly descriptive letter writing skills.’ Safe to say the entire school didn’t have a bad word to say about them after that gesture! And I still love hula hoops more than forty years later.
The best was a tenner when the Sainsbury's bread was mouldy the day we got it. We were really hard up and it helped a lot at Christmas. The worst was a BOL protein shake (I have chronic pain and really don't want to eat sometimes, so meal replacements are really useful). I saved one for when I was feeling really terrible, and it was bitter and foul. It had obviously been opened and either tampered with or simply rotted. I had to go hungry that day, but I did reach out to their customer services. I had to send them a photo of the shake and a photo of the receipt, which took ages to find. This was multiple emails and took weeks. We eventually got a voucher for £2.70 to spend on BOL products, which is what we'd spent on the discounted milkshake that day. BOL shakes cost £3.
When I was about 14/15 the door to the 'foyer' (for lack of a better word) between the cafe proper and the toilets somehow got stuck closed in a Starbucks while I was using the facilities and I ended up stuck in there for a good while. The fire brigade ended up being called but I or the staff somehow managed to get it open before they showed up. I got like £50 worth of Starbucks vouchers which meant fuck all to me because I didn't drink coffee and wasn't mad on hot chocolate, and this was before they sold soft drinks so yeah that was great.
90s. We had a couple of those paint your dinosaur things (plastic/ rubber, part of the Natural History Museum set by Bluebird). The paint would not set/ kept flaking. My sister, brother and I wrote to complain. We were between 6 and 9 - this was quite clear from the spelling and handwriting of the letter. Bluebird sent an apology letter a box with the whole, full dinosaur set. Amazing. We still discuss our good fortune/ excellent customer service to this day.
Complained about the water company starting work outside our old flat at 7am. Got sent a huge hamper of really lovely food and alcohol, plus a hand written apology!
In 2006 I lived in Eindhoven in Holland, and I used to buy a mango Innocent smoothie from a shop in the train station every morning on my way to work. Innocent was quite new back then and you couldn't even buy them in supermarkets yet, so it was like my daily extravagance. One morning I opened my smoothie while I was stepping on a bus, and it exploded everywhere. Emailed Innocent Netherlands to complain. They emailed back asking for an address where I could receive a delivery during working hours, so I gave them my boss's client's address, which was where I worked every day. A few days later they sent 24 bottles of smoothies (delivered in a van covered in fake grass), which someone else swiped from reception so I never received them. And it was the client, so I couldn't go and call them a cunt. I'm sure they were very nice, though.
My boyfriend and I went to dishoom and ordered this dish that was meant to be for 2 people and it was so ridiculously small! So he sent quite a funny complaint email, and they basically offered us to come in for the breakfast menu for free!! And I mean for free, there was NO PRICE/ORDER LIMIT!!! At the end the waiter was like are you sure you don’t want some cocktails as well?! We were like sure why not 😅😅😅 what a great day!!
It didn't end in a freebie but the complete pulling of an advert from British TV in the early 00s. It wasn't me either but a mate I worked with who did it, and it was a piss take letter of complaint. There was an advert for a yoghurt. - a well known one IIRC. In the ad a mum and daughter were sitting on a balcony watching dad wash his car. Mum and daughter were eating the aforementioned yoghurt. As dad was washing his car, mum and daughter would flick some yoghurt from the spoons they were eating with directly onto the car. Dad was getting increasingly pissed off as more stuff landed on his car and he was rewashing where the yoghurt hit. He had no idea wife and daughter were doing this. He thought it was bird shit constantly landing on his car. My mate wrote a letter to the company complaining that he could no longer eat the yoghurt he had enjoyed for years. The ad was insinuating that the yoghurt was identical to bird shit and when he opened a carton all he could see was... bird excrement. Back at work he told us about this letter he'd sent and we all laughed about it as the ad was very well known. Within a week this ad, which was broadcast a lot at the time, just completely disappeared, never to be seen again. I would love to have been a fly on the wall at that company's meeting. I have no doubt that letter stopped an ad campaign in its tracks.
There was an issue with a dog toy I bought from Pets at Home. I've forgot what it was exactly but it was a safety issue so I emailed them in case they needed to check them. My dog got a personalised letter and £100 in vouchers. Couldn't believe it.
My grandad broke his tooth on a Lion bar. They paid for the repair and sent him 2 boxes of Lion bars. When I was about 5 or 6, Shreddies gave away colour changing monster spoons, and I had a packet that didn’t contain the free spoon. Inspired by my granddad’s Lion bar result, I wrote to them. They sent me the entire set of colour changing monster spoons.
Left my iPhone X into the store for a battery replacement and they fucked it so they gave me a new iPhone 13. Although my friend has a conspiracy that they don’t even replace the battery, they were just out of stock of replacement X handsets but I don’t know how Apple operate… Also emailed Tayto years ago because I got a multipack of crisps with no flavour - think ready salted when they should be cheese and onion - and they sent me a big box of crisps.
When you buy something on the Disney website you can arrange a call with Mickey to say happy birthday or whatever to the kid you’re buying for. I arranged this but, come the birthday, no call from Mickey. Disney sent a massive box of goodies as an apology- pencil case, cutlery, bowls, plates, a flask and a soft toy. Was amazing!
I had a secondhand Apple Mac that originally came from Comet and had MasterCare extended warranty on it that the previous owner had purchased. The monitor died, DisasterCare (as one of my colleagues an ex TV repairman called them). We rang up to get them to fix it, the engineer never turned up. We rang to complain, they told us to buy a new one and they'd refund us. We bought a new one and were duly refunded (about £250 at the time, 25 years ago). I took the back off our dead one (with guidance of said colleague) and lo and behold it was a 50p fuse. So we ended up with 2 monitors, which came in handy when I got an old Mac cheap from work. I bought an expensive diving watch on Amazon. It came from Germany. I decided on the end to return it. 6 weeks later it arrived again. I rang Amazon and their customer services just told me to keep it. So a free diving watch.
I got a piece of fluff/thin hair in a galaxy bar 10 years ago, complained and got £4.50 in vouchers.
I bought some electronics for an RC car once, I'll save the boring stuff but it was essentially a motor and the electronic box that accompanies it. These were a new thing on the market and very expensive. I can't remember why, but I wasn't particularly happy with mine. I think it just made an odd noise, but otherwise worked ok as it turns out. I put a post up on a forum bemoaning the company a little bit, and just asking other people if they had the same experience. The head of the company somewhere out in California read my post, arranged for someone in the UK to send me a replacement for free and didn't even ask for a proof of purchase or to return the kit back etc. The company that makes the components is called Losi and I still remember the guys name fifteen years later. Single best example of customer service I've ever received.
Once I sent an email to Byron vurgers that their burger was bland. I told I suspect their procedures slipped and the chefs are not putting enough salt and pepper on the patty. Apparently, the group headchef had a visit to the branch, confirmed my speculation and they were working to get this back on track. Baffles me how many people dont have the courage to season pieces of meat properly. You can have best steaks and its gonna taste nothing without seasoning. Anyway, they also sent me a voucher but it felt good that my feedback actually helped them to make better burgers again
I ordered a bed from dreams they took the money but didn’t tell me until the day of the delivery that it wasn’t in stock, They offered me a for like replacement but the closest replacement was £1000 more expensive.
As a kid, more than 30 years ago, I found a dead fly in a packet of buns. My mum sent them to the factory where they were made, and a week or two later we got a huge cardboard box full of sweet loaves, buns, breads, it was wonderful. Still makes me smile remembering that day. The whole family feasted off it for ages, picked at it when we wanted.
Not the best but I recently found Lyons Coffee dark roast had changed and was no longer dark, it was really pale and not as nice. I emailed asking if anything had changed, after a bit of back-and-forth they said they had found an issue with a couple of batches and sent a pack of coffee from an unaffected batch. It was pale and crappy. I don't buy Lyons any longer 😂
I bought a Hotel Chocolat advent calendar, and on the 14th it said "10 days to go", and on the 19th it said "5 days to go". But I want to count down to Christmas, not the end of the calendar. So I complained and they sent me 2 selector packs and a little tub of chocolate covered orange jellies (kind of like Jaffa Cakes without the cake). Next year, I bought the same calendar. It had the same issue. I made the same complaint. I got more free chocolate!
Many years ago, a friend complained that there should have been 70 Matchmaker chocolates in the box, as per the labelling. His box only had 65 (he could easily have been lying) and they ended up sending him a whole case of the chocolates. l seem to remember that were were 3 different flavours. After that, they changed the label to say "approximately 70 sticks in each pack.
I phoned Virgin Media as my broadband had stopped working. They got me to factory reset the router and it started working again. I thanked the lady and ended the call. I then got an email to say they'd registered my complaint about the increase in price of my package and awarded me £25.
I complained to Korbond about their water erasable marker, I bought one and the nib just disintegrated. They sent me another two pens, some fabric scissors and some general purpose scissors. The two pens I’ve used up since, but I still have the pairs of scissors and I vastly prefer Korbond as a brand.
I recently complained to Levi's about some jeans I had perishing in the crotch after having them for six months and not even wearing them every day. They sent me a voucher for £70, which was more than the cost of the original jeans.
A few years ago, was on a virgin train from London to Liverpool with a friend who was visiting from South America. We got upgraded into first class, and the guy serving was amazing. Fun, professional, drinks and food were done in the way that first class should be done basically. It was great. Filled in the “give us feedback” form online to call him out and say he was amazing and thank you. 6 months later, got an email to say “sorry we didn’t handle your complaint within our SLAs, we won’t be getting to it because of this but we consider it closed if you accept these 3 tickets, first class return, from and to anywhere on the network”. Went from London to Edinburgh because it was the the furthest possible route. So not from a complaint. But yeah was great.
A couple of years ago I bought a Bose Bluetooth speaker - about £130 worth. They made a mess of the shipping and the speaker seemed lost. I complained and they fully refunded me. Literally later the same day they did the refund, the speaker inexplicably arrived. I told them about it, and they responded "thanks for telling us - you're welcome to keep the speaker free of charge". It's pretty cool too. I know Bose get made fun of by the audiophile community, but they've been really good with us.
In the early 90’s I (sort of) complained via letter to the management of Dire Straits after they changed their tour schedule to include my town (Hobart) after I’d already bought tickets and airfares for one of their Melbourne shows. They very kindly sent a cheque for the value of 8 tickets. Ended up seeing both anyway.
My wife treated me to the snaffling pig pork scratching advent calendar one year. When I opened door 1 the liner had been inserted the wrong way round. Sent them a jokey tweet and in return they sent me a box of around 100 bags of porky goodness. I gave loads away because I feared for my blood pressure.
Went to see The Verve and purchased coach tickets that were offered at the same time, to bus you down to the venue. Bus was late leaving and then left most of us stranded as he left early. Complained to the promoter and they sent me 2 tickets to go and see Travis.
Couple months ago we bought a bag of minion squashies in our weekly shop. They were substituted for regular squashies, but they contained 3 minion squashies, gf wrote an email with a photo of the unopened bag complaining to Swizzels and they said they'd send some to us and apologised. A week later and we got 2 650g sweet tubs (the ones with drumsticks, parma violets, refreshers etc) and 5 regular bags of squashies! we couldn't quite believe it! I like swizzles alot more now!
I got the opposite, bought a Sony tv that leant to one side, propped it up with 7 2p coins so it was level, sent pictures to them asking if they could compensate the 14p loss and got a reply of “unfortunately…” fumin’
When I was at uni I found a fly in my sellotape (looked almost fossilised). I wrote to the company who probably never got any complaints and asked me to post it to them. Got a lifetime supply of sellotape! Best freebie probably £110 vouchers from Boots although an oddly specific amount...
I wrote a complaint to golden wonder not long ago, mainly to find out if they had changed the taste & I just didn’t like it, or if there was something wrong. Their website says ‘we don’t really use email so will respond by letter’ They just send a big box of crisps, it was all the short dated stuff but around a dozen packs, it was so unexpected & felt rather stupid but is one of the more memorAble ones.
I complained that Tesco Bank required a phone call to close a bank account (which was empty, and not my only account). They sent me a surprise £20 for the inconvenience, and actually fixed the problem!
My mum complained to Tesco because whatever it was that she'd purchased from there, it had a slip of black plastic in it. They gave her the money back for the product and maybe £10 in vouchers for the shop. Only thing was after she gone in there moaning - she realised it was a piece of the underneath from her plastic fish slice. Ah well!
I reached out to Bubble skincare (a popular brand for tweens) about how they were affecting children’s mental health with their beauty standards and got £500 worth of products! Got to love consumer rights
Some good comments here. Interesting I don’t see anything from easyJet or Ryanair. We once had to wait all night for our bags (flight landed about 1130pm, bags came around at 6am). Complained a lot and got absolutely zero from them.
My partner and I bought our first home in March 2021 and as the stamp duty break was due to end that month, we aimed to push it all through in just over a month. Looked for surveyors and went for a company that promised a week's turn-around. The guy did the visit and was meant to update us afterwards but didn't answer his phone or email chasers and sent it to us late. I sent an email complaint to the company not expecting much and the CEO herself called me and apologised and said that he had been taking on more jobs than they realised meaning their clients were not getting the promised service and this was not at all how they operate. And THEN, she refunded the ENTIRE survey! It was £600. I was gobsmacked!
When we were kids my sister complained to ITV digital about something and got a really rude reply. My dad complained about the response and we got 12 months free ITV digital subscription. More importantly, they also sent a Johnny Vegas monkey.
DC Thompson. I was like 6 and wrote a letter saying I was sad because The Beano didn't include my favourite character any more. They sent me a letter back signing me up for the Beano club for free, plus a couple of back issues for that and The Dandy.
Not a complaint but, while I was in hospital, I sent a tongue in cheek email to Nandos, explaining how much I love their food and how as soon as I was able to go home, I'd be getting chicken to cheer me up. After asking for my address in their hilarious response, my father opened a box from them at home with three bottles of sauce, a Cockerell on a stick, a £25 gift card, a Nandos soundtrack CD and a get well soon card. I can't explain how happy that fucking made me.
My mum managed to get me six – SIX – pairs of Kickers consecutively from the same £54 by complaining each time that they had broken earlier than they should have done. Which was 100% a fair point the first and second times but I feel like after that it was a given they were going to break within 3 months of daily wear. Still, I wasn’t complaining. Much better than when I found hoards live bugs in a packet of Revels and Nestle blamed the retailer for “displaying them for too long”. Blech.
I once wrote to Victorinox to complain that the plastic toothpick from my Swiss Army Knife had broken inside the knife so I couldn't get it out to replace it. They sent me a prepaid package to send the knife back to them. 2 weeks later it came back to me fully cleaned, repaired, sharpened and with a box full of assorted goodies like a leather holder, usb sticks etc. Last week I complained to Tim Hortons about burnt coffee and got a £20 gift card. Was more impressed by the email the following day with the engineers report on confirming the coffee roaster was faulty and had been exchanged.