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Every little helps...

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Evenin' all.

What with riots, crappy weather and the fact that there is still no F1 for ages, I thought I'd occupy my time usefully, and have therefore written the following letter to Tesco.

Feel my rage...

 
 
 
Dear Customer Services,

 I was most chuffed to get a letter from your credit card section recently, with a jolly nice coupon for 650 Clubcard points. Apparently, in order to redeem them, I needed to have my MasterCard scanned at the same time as the coupon. A touch tricky, as I shop online. Handily, you provided a number on the back of the coupon with the message "If you're unable to get this coupon scanned at a Tesco Store please call".

Guess what? I did. There were 4 options on your phone menu. As I didn't want a credit card balance, to pay my credit card, have a query about my credit card, apply for a credit card or, in fact, need anything at all even remotely to do with my credit card, I selected the 4th option - Clubcard points.

Unfortunately, although I was actually calling about Clubcard points, the nice chap who eventually answered first of all suggested that my coupon was out of date (it isn't) and then said I'd called the wrong number, and I needed to speak to the Credit card team. I politely pointed out that, of all the options on the menu, the one saying 'Clubcard points' seemed to be the most logical one to select, but he said I needed to call again and speak to the Credit Card crew. I expect he needed to put his hand up so he could be 'excused' or something, or I was taking up too much time.

So I did call back. And this time I got through to the Credit card team. A nice chap seemed not to know anything about this and then mentioned that he'd need to email the information to a "Specialist". Well, we all like a nice job title don't we? "Specialist" sounds quite cool to me.

And so I thanked him and rang off. 'Jolly good' I thought. Some nice Clubcard points. Every little helps, right? And it only took two phone calls and 20 minutes of my time.

Imagine my delight when I returned home from work the next day to find a message on my answering machine, saying unfortunately I'd need to take the coupon in to the Customer Service desk in my local store.

I don't have a local store. I shop online. Which, if I roll you back in time to the start of this letter, is what I mistakenly though was the whole point on the phone number you helpfully provided.

I'm not old, but I can feel the will to live gently seeping away. Any chance you could give me the points? Pretty please? And if someone has a spare 5 minutes to take a look at the whole process, that'd be really rather nice too.

Yours, in cheery optimism,

 grumpyf1
 
(Rant accompanied by Mike Oldfield's "Let There Be Light".)

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