Woolworths $300 eBay voucher issue. $331 Order Placed. $181.60 of products out of stock. Only $31 refunded.

Lmilestm on 12/10/2015 - 21:04

Preface, probably a technical oversight, so not going to be to harsh until an actual human has had a chance to review my email to support I just sent through.

As you could probably guess from the title already, I ordered a couple of $300 vouchers during the eBay deal a couple of weeks ago. Placed my first order for $331 last week for delivery Sunday and when the delivery came, was notified $181.60 worth of the products I ordered where out of stock and would be refunded. A little disappointing but what can you do, at least they will refund me right? Well sort of..

For the $331 order I used the $300 voucher (which I paid $260 for from memory) and then the balance of $31 on credit card. When the refund came through it was only for the $31 that was charged to the card which means effectively I paid $260 for roughly $150 worth of groceries. The coupon was only valid for a single use and according to the terms and conditions, the balance would be forfeited if not used in a single transactions before November 30th.

Tried calling their support line this evening twice, was on hold over 15 minutes each time so shot them an email instead explaining the situation. I still have one of these vouchers and am a little hesitant to use it as they don't give you any indication of stock quantities prior to purchase.

Has this happened to anyone else who bit on that $300 voucher deal or is it just me?

Food & Grocery

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Woolworths
Woolworths

Comments

  • nocure on 12/10/2015 - 21:14
    +1

    Sounds suss..

  • chill on 12/10/2015 - 21:33
    +3

    $181.60 out of stock, not a bad effort by WOW

  • geek001 on 12/10/2015 - 22:22
    +3

    I think if you paid by giftcard they send you out another one to the value of the refund. That's what happened to me the last time.

  • dragonhawk on 12/10/2015 - 22:25

    It's happened to me numerous times. You just need to call them to tell them what happened and they'll give you a voucher for the difference (which incidentally lasts for 12 months and can be used multiple times until there is no more credit left).

  • spychiatrist on 12/10/2015 - 22:43

    Not exactly same as your situation but from previous experience, when I use a discount voucher online then items are out of stock, a percentage is deducted from the refund (say instead of $10 refund, I will only get $8) - which I assumed was the discount voucher bit.

    My complaint with them is I always tick the replacement button - meaning they can replace an OOS item with an equivalent item, so why refund? Never got a proper response, though after that, I got a Bulla Ice Cream as replacement for a Homebrand Ice Cream at no extra cost.

    Going back to your issue, I believe it's the way their program is and to avoid a scenario where a customer will come out really ahead - say, he used a $20 voucher discount on a $120 and then $20 worth of item is OOS, the customer still got a $100 worth of item but will only get $16 refund instead of $20. I dunno why but it seems to work that way.

    • mmd on 12/10/2015 - 23:28

      My complaint with them is I always tick the replacement button - meaning they can replace an OOS item with an equivalent item, so why refund? Never got a proper response, though after that, I got a Bulla Ice Cream as replacement for a Homebrand Ice Cream at no extra cost.

      I think it depends if the item is going to arrive in time for the delivery/ click and collect cut off.
      I tick the replacement box too and I usually get a better product.
      For eg: Sun long rice bag: was given an Asian brand that I have never seen at Woolies before. It looks like they went to the local Asian grocer before the delivery.

      Some exceptions include
      Quilton toilet paper: obvious price error so was refunded.
      Olsent globes: Given different ones that did not fit. No fuss returns which was great.

      Anyway OP, give customer service line a call. Like previous post, they will issue you a voucher with one year expiry.

    • kyle on 13/10/2015 - 03:13

      That might have changed now.I recently used a $15 code. Items were out of stock and I still got a full refund of those items.

  • battler on 12/10/2015 - 22:57

    same, you'll get credit refund into your ww online account. They won't refund to a different method than was originally used to pay for the order.
    Give them a call or live chat and they will issue a physical gift card instead of the credit in your online account, if that suits you better.

  • Heizenberg on 13/10/2015 - 02:01

    i get that this was done cause of an ebay deal but i don't get why people bother with online orders from coles/ woolies. Something always seems to go wrong, seems like more trouble than its worth.

    • ESEMCE on 13/10/2015 - 08:11

      Yeah, It's weird that they can quite easily keep a retail store stocked with product- rarely see an item out of stock in store -, but apparently can't keep a warehouse (from where I presume they fulfill online orders) in stock.

      • milestm on 13/10/2015 - 08:55

        I think alot of the time they fulfil orders by sending pickers to local stores and just taking stock off the shelf. At least Coles do it that way, not sure about woolies.

        • ESEMCE on 13/10/2015 - 08:56

          Really? Seems highly inefficient!

        • milestm on 13/10/2015 - 09:04

          @scubacoles:

          Probably keeps overheads low, economically efficient compared to running a bunch of centralised warehouses in each state just to fill online orders.

        • ESEMCE on 13/10/2015 - 09:08

          @milestm:
          But they already have warehouses (DC's)!

        • milestm on 13/10/2015 - 09:24

          @scubacoles: true, but maybe not enough of them to cover everywhere all at once, I have no idea

  • Japius on 14/10/2015 - 10:10

    They always email me a code to use online with my next order if something is out of stock. If they didnt you should call them and ask for the code for the out of stocks. Try to get it all in one code as you can only use 2 codes per order and last time they sent me 3 codes and I had a free delivery one but could only use 2 in one order.

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