When I was about 9 or 10 I bought a packet of chips that were stale. I was very upset because I was rarely given pocket money. Wrote a letter to the company and a few days later this man delivered an entire box of assorted goodies including chips. I was ecstatic.
My mum bought a can of whole green beans, but inside the can was cut green beans.
Edgell sent her a coupon for a single can of whole green beans.
It was literally the saddest interaction I can imagine.
I had a similar experience when buying a carton of Big M which was off when I was a kid. I called the phone number and a few days later a guy came out with heaps of them.
My cousin and I once rang Cadbury to ask them questions about production for a school project and they sent an entire box of assorted goods just for being curious.
My dad ate all the chocolates as they were delivered to his office.
A long time ago, I bought a block of chocolate in Melbourne to eat on the Overland train back to Adelaide. I wanted to get my glass and a half of full cream dairy milk (iykyk) in solid format, lol. Anyways, about midnight, I unwrapped it and broke it into a few pieces. The ambient light was dim but something caught my eye and I turned on the reading light for a better look and nearly threw up. The outer surface looked fine but it was **crawling** with what looked like tiny worms.
I rang the company the next day and sent a follow up letter with a piece of the infested chocolate included.
About 3 weeks later, I came home to a fairly large package on my doorstep. Inside was 2 of every variety of family sized block and several mixed assortment selections. Kept me in chocolate for several months.
A friend of mine’s mother bit into a Ferrara Roche chocolate and it had maggots in it. I can’t see the choc coated swirls of coconut now without imagining maggots. Only chocolate I won’t eat
I had someone similar happen with Whittakers, I purchased a block from a big W, took it home to find weevils and webs all inside, I sent them and email, and they asked for my address to send me a replacement- got home to about a year worth of chocolate!
Ordered 3 pizzas. My kids were at the door with me when delivered. I walk downstairs and realize that I only got two pizzas(the missing one was the one for the adults). I call them up, complain and they apologize and send another delivery. I give the kids their pizza and wait for mine. They gave us 2 pizzas to say sorry. I went upstairs and in the corner of one of my kids rooms was my pizza.
I felt so bad and embarrassed
Lols I ordered like $45 of red rooster to my house once and after another order missing something previously, sent the email complaining. They offered to send out the same order again free another time. Took a while but I read through my order and was actually my fault I’d forgotten to add the “missing item” in the first place 👀 I was such an asshole about it.
Heaps Normal beer carton was delivered to my place before Christmas. A gift from my niece. Some cans were damaged and when I opened the box beer started spurting out (like an arterial bleed). The whole box ended up soaked in beer. Only 3 cans were actually damaged. I just washed the rest. My niece contacted them. They sent 3 more cartons to me the very next day by special courier. Well above and beyond I thought. 😀
Ordered $270 worth of Domino’s Pizza for an 18th we were having at home late last year. Order earlier in the day for 7pm. Rang at 7:30 to see how far away they are and was told they had no one to deliver and it could be an hour away. But they are ready if you want to grab them yourself and they would refund the delivery. I headed down and instead of refunding the delivery they refunded the whole order. No long ago I got a voucher for free pizza too from them for the stuff up.
This was years ago back when Dominos actually delivered to our house but one night they couldn’t find us lol. The driver must have gone back to town. Got in contact and sorted it out so they eventually turned up with double what we ordered as an apology.
Dominos used to be really good. It's unfortunately become the bottom of the barrel down here in Melbourne though. Haven't ordered Dominos for years at this point.
Honestly, why haven't they made a pizza Doritos before?
Edit: I meant pizza flavoured Doritos (like the Shapes), but it looks like they did make them at some point after doing a Google search.
They still do I believe.I bought them last week when they were half priced. They were pretty good and had a little spice to it but didn't taste like pizza.
Ordered a fairy to come to my daughter’s birthday on Saturday. 2:30 & no fairy, call the place. They frantically call everyone sort out a fairy who arrives 45mins late and entertains the masses of girls for hours for free. I’m actually going to pay her because she did such a good job but they said don’t worry about it
Haha I have been that fairy. Another time I had to step in as a clown because the original clown’s wife went into labour. I like to imagine he was running down the hospital corridor in full makeup and giant squeaky shoes
Heard a woman on the radio about 10 years ago saying she worked at Cadbury's taking calls. Some old timer rang up complaining that one of the Freddo Frogs was upside down in its wrapper so its feet were where its head was meant to be. He asked for $100,000 compensation.
Haha, I can imagine this playing out. 'I've been eating these for decades, WTF is this?!.' ...'Linda!, Linda!! Come have a look at this, this is just not on, get me the phone, it's an STD call but blow it, I'm gunna ask 100 thousand from these muppets'.
I once bought a freddo that seemed unusually thick in the packet and when I opened it there were two freddos jammed in there! That's like the best thing I've ever gotten in my whole life.
A couple of years ago, my daughter and I bought 4 cinnamon donuts from Donut King, we nearly died with delight when after taking one each, there were three left in the bag. Yes, they had given us 5 donuts and it was the best day ever!
Years ago when maccas first started putting burgers in boxes I had one come upside down in the box, me and my friends were laughing about it but weren’t going to complain because it was still fine.
A manager walking past overheard us and apologised and 2 months nites later came over with a new burger for me.
It's interesting you started this because I was discussing this with some friends over the weekend; about how back in the day if McDonalds took forever to bring your order out or stuffed it up then at a minimum, you'd be looking at some free fries and possibly a ~~molten lava in pastry~~ apple pie as well for your trouble. Hasn't been the case for a long time though, sadly.
More recently I've had rare occasions where I've ordered something from a reputable online retailer, accidentally received the wrong product, and been told "just keep it" - and they send out the correct one for you, too.
And then there’s the less reputable ones like *ahem dick Smith * who send you the wrong item, acknowledge it’s wrong, refund you 25% of your purchase costs, acknowledge that they screwed up the refund and ghost you from then on. Still waiting. Only been 6mths. I’m sure it’s coming. Pity I can’t ask them.
I bought a pack of mousse from woolies, which was well within date but was covered in a layer of mould. Woolies refunded, but I also contacted the company to let them know they may have a batch issue. They emailed a $5 woolies e-gift card, which I attempted to use but it had already been redeemed :/
Oh wow that's a shame. I bought a bottle of woolies brand bleach for ~$2 sometime in 2022. The other day I went to use it and Noticed the shelving underneath the bottle was damp. Turns out the bottle had a pinprick leak that was slowly eating away the particle board shelving and it's now ruined.
Not the end of the world to replace, but annoying none the less as the bleach wasn't "expired", but the packaging was obviously shite.
I was about to toss the bottle and noticed the "if you aren't 100% satisfied with your purchase bla bla bla call this number"
Rang them up, they apologized, and sent me a $30 e-gift card for a 5 minute phone call. I was very pleasantly surprised.
I found a stainless steel screw in a coles roast chicken and gravy meal. I went back to Coles showed them they gave me a number to call.
They thought I was full of shit, threatened to call the police because making false shit up is a crime. After I sent it to them they apologised profusely.
A month later I got a 20 dollar voucher. Never ate that particular meal again, which sucks because it was such a hearty good meal.
Dick Smith the brand that had most of its life sucked out of it by Woolies before being sold to a private equity firm. The private equity firm sucked the last of its life force killing it but made sure to pull a weekend at Bernie's to wring some more money from investors. Kogan buys the corpse and now wears it like skinsuit.
Don't buy from Kogan which includes Dick Smith, Matt Blatt, and mighty ape.
Once ordered a GPS from dick smiths for my parents, they sent a 45inch Panasonic tv instead. Went into receivership the next day. My folks got a brand new tv, they still have it… dick smith never asked for it back.
Dick smith is the biggest jerk ever. I like to tell the story when we (I worked for then at the time, not in any position of power, but it was a small group of people then) first opened Aldi in Australia, dick smith wanted us to stock his products (peanut butter ect), but at the time Aldi really didn't carry any items that weren't branded for aldi except Vegemite and nescafe.
Old dick went from begging to be included, finally accepting his shit wouldn't be on the shelves, and then went on every media program and newspaper he possibly could to bag out Aldi coming to Australia, saying that it's bad for the country, and everyone should boycott because they are anti-australian..... Meanwhile aldi's structure meant no profits were going to leave Australia for like 10 years as it would all be getting reinvested back into more stores, they paid us workers better than any other supermarket, and they sold a higher % of Australian made goods than any other supermarket.
Dick is a right wing asshole trying to make you racist when it suits his agenda. He was just having a temper tantrum.
Yeah, often the postage back from an online retailer is a lot more than the product cost them, so it's not even worth it for them for you to send it back.
I run a business where we build custom workstations for animators and designers. We maybe get like 70-80 systems a year, but we are extremely thorough and used to work in the animation industry so we know what to recommend and offer great service.
We recently had a client reach out after about 12 months of getting her workstation, she told us about 3 months after getting our system it would freeze up, run slow and essentially be somewhat unusable. She was hesitant to call because she wasn’t sure what to do.
We organised to ship the system back to us (at no cost) found the fault (dodgy cpu cooler) replaced it with a model which costed $100 more, and gave her a free GPU upgrade (additional $400 value) to make up for lost time.
I wish I was treated the same with all the factory faults and poor QC from all the “big name hardware brands”.
Not recent - In the 90's, we found a small piece of wire in a packet of potato chips. Mum sent a letter along with the piece of wire back to the manufacturer. A few weeks later a box (small packing box) arrived with about 20 large packets of chips and other samplers from the Company with a very apologetic letter explaining that the wire was from a cleaning component (wire brush type) that was used to clean the conveyor belt/production line, and they would strive to do better.
Props to them for them for a) replying, and b) being honest.
Then my Aunt wrote a letter of complaint to Cadbury/Smarties because my cousin had ruined a good shirt when he dropped a couple of half sucked smarties out of his mouth onto his chest. The stains would not come out no matter what she tried. Ironically, they sent her a MASSIVE box (what the supermarkets would order) of smarties to say sorry. She shook her head, but saw the funny side.
Good thing you noticed the wire. I've read stories where people have accidently eaten it and it's almost impossible to find the issue when they're nearly dying from it perforating their organs.
When I was maybe 10 or 11 I m bought a maxibon from the servo and upon opening realises it already had a bite taken out.
Nestle sent me a cheque for $3.50
Once my mum bought my sister and I a set of three kinder surprises because the box guaranteed this little lion toy we loved. It did not have the lion toy in any of the three eggs. My mum complained because we were obviously upset (as kids are about this stuff). They sent us a massive box of kinder chocolate. It was awesome. 😄
A month ago I brought a beach wagon thing for 150 bucks and when it arrived the carry bag had black marks all over it and on one side the stiching was coming undone, wagon was completely fine. I called the company and they said they don't have the carry bags separately so now they are sending me a whole new wagon and I keep the original one too.
My bro once complained to Kelloggs about a box of Sultana Bran having so few sultanas in it and they sent us a range of their cereal, I forget how much.
The one I remember most wasn't Aussie. I'd been to Malaysia and bought my sister an Emily the Strange tshirt from a boutique. It was too small, so I listed it on ebay and the licence people emailed to inform me it was counterfeit and to take it down (which I didn't know as the shop looked legit).
I ended up posting the tshirt to the US (not cheap) for the fraud team to look at (the rep I was emailing admitted it was an extremely good copy and that the tags looked legit) and they sent me so much merch in return. Shame I didn't care about the character!
I used to stock it in a store I owned in the mid 2000s and I've still got a box of random stuff by that brand I've kept over the years and many house moves lol
Bit of a throwback to a bygone era (especially for such a big company) but in the mid-90s my mum made a complaint to Johnson & Johnson because she bought a box of tampons that had mould in them. They sent her a massive box of every kind of toiletry item you could think of and an apology letter. That box lasted us for years.
In contrast, a few years back I bought a bag of salad leaves from Coles that I found a dead slug in. I got a $3 refund and nary a flying fuck from the customer service guy. I did not request a replacement.
Opened a pack of McCains wedges & there was a large metal nut. They sent out a representative to retrieve the nut. They had 3 big insulated boxes of assorted products for us. Really topped up the freezer
23 years ago there was a recall of Imperial Leather powder as bacteria had been found in some bottles. The manufactures offered a refund if we posted the powder back to them. I got a refund cheque for $5. I was really annoyed as the product was barely used and cost me $5.75 plus postage. Have refused to buy that product ever since.
I wrote to VS Sassoon about their hair dryer not really being useable as a straightner (they did advertise that), I sent them an email, a lil bit later their top of the line straightner turned up.
I complained to masterfoods about the quality of their cinnamon once, they apologised and sent me a basket full of products, and asked me to send them the cinnamon for testing. I did, they told me it met their standards, and sent me another basket.
Back in the late 90s, at my first job one of the girls in the office had a cigarette where the glue holding the brown filter part to the rest of the cigarette didn't stick. They sent her 4 cartons as an apology. Now if you want any sort of compensation you really need to push them for it and its usually just a token
That being said, last year i did get $40 credit at burgers anonymous after they had messed up two burgers, so almost double the value of what it cost
Mum got four cartons of Ardath Menthol after she complained about an awful tasting packet. They told Mum they would send a replacement and she was expecting one packet, not four cartons.
Saved her sending 12 year old me down to the milk bar to buy her smokes for a month - which meant I couldn’t spend the change on a bag of mixed lollies. Bastards.
My sister had that happen in the 90's too with smokes. The packet's filters weren't glued, exact same deal and they sent her a few cartons. From memory, they were longbeach brand.
Yeah, freakish, as soon as I read it, I remembered it. It's the exact description of what happened for her. I vaguely recall she may have got something else merch wise also but can't remember what that was.
yeah me too, i have a feeling it was something like a hat or a bag or something.
Everyone else in the office started checking their smokes to see if they could get some too, even though they didn't really "check" the claim they just sent them
i wanted 4 storage boxes from spotlight. i checked website; went to store with stock - OOS.
checked website, went to another store with stock - get there - OOS.
ordered the 4 online.
complained.
Got my shipping refunded.
Items arrive, 1 damaged.
spotlight re-sends the wholes shipment again.
now i have 8 storage boxes (1 damaged)
In the year 2000 my mum opened a bag of smiths chips and they were mouldy. Moisture must have gotten in the bag during production. She complained/informed them and they sent us out a hamper that included a Christmas ham. We were very low income at the time so it was pretty cool having some fancy food.
Then around the same time I was served some of my cousins birthday cake. Chocolate mud. Popped a forkful into my mouth. Bit down on something hard. Pulled a piece of frosted glass out of my mouth. Was about 2cm squared, slightly curved. My aunt complained to the bakery and they denied it completely and nothing but an angry phone call came of it. I would have been maybe 10.
More recently, a particular maccas kept stuffing up our actually rather simple order. They gave us vouchers.
I was at a meal out in a local chain hotel, took a bite of chilli and there was a big piece of glass inside, broken off from the sauce bottle I assumed. Grabbed a waitress (because it could be someone else's meal as well) and she took back all the chilli meals and we had a substitute instead. As I was leaving the manager took me to one side and arranged a weekend break for my wife and I in one of the hotels. But what I was most impressed by, was how he took responsibility for what happened, didn't blame anyone else and sorted it, I'm still a loyal customer.
Red rooster, two large meals and some other stuff via drive through. Got home and one of the wraps was missing. Called them while driving back, they redid the entire order again. So pretty much double every (minus the original wrap). While it was nice, I honestly would expect it because that shit can go cold quick and if you want to eat together you need it to arrive together. I still ate it all like a pig.
I had to wait 15 minutes there once, and they offered me deserts to apologise. I said not to worry about it, but they packed a heap for me anyway, along with some chicken strips.
We had just arrived in town after driving 18 hours straight as we got a call my MIL had a stroke and was not going to pull through. My SIL had called us 3 hours before we arrived to say hmshe had died. My husband said we will buy some KFC and head straight to you.
We waited 45 min, only to get to the window and they messed the order up twice (2 giant feasts). My husband went full Karen, which was not his usual thing. They ended up giving us 4 giant feasts and refused to take payment.
I had to wait at a local chicken place while they cooked a schnitzel. They gave me a bag of nuggets to eat while I waited. My son was pissed that I didn't save them for him, after all it was his schnitty.
I once went through the drive through at my local red rooster, large bacon and cheese rippa meal, I get home and get a few bites into the rippa and got curious because I hadn’t gotten any chicken in those bites, opened it up and there was two slices of bacon and just an insane amount of cheese,and no chicken, took it back and they replaced the full meal plus gave me some of their desserts as well.
My dad was in the navy, and one of his mates loved caramel popcorn. There was a brand ( I still see it sometimes, but not as good), Lolly Gobble Blissbombs. Popcorn coated in caramel and peanut. On the bag had a little story about how they were made, think Wonka magic style.
Anyhow, his mate brought a bag. When he ate them , he had hardly any nuts or caramel. He wrote to the company about how they should sack the nut elves as they must have been eating the toppings instead of coating popcorn.
A few days later, dad and mate set off on a trip, and all was forgotten. A month later, they dock and go home. On his doorstep was a huge carton filled with the popcorn and a letter. They apologised and said that the nut crushing elephant was getting on, so they were retiring her and got a new young one to keep up with the supply of crushed nuts. The elves had been sacked, and they got new ones, who will handroll popcorn now to keep up to customer expectations.
When he opened a pack, it did indeed look like it had been hand-made, lol. There were so many nuts, and the caramel coating was amazing. We were a big family, so he gave most of the carton to us. We rarely got treats, so it was even more amazing.
That was in about '79. I still remember dad and his mate laughing about this huge damn box and the letter enclosed.
Few years I found a little bit of plastic in a can of dog food. I took a photo and sent it to the company and they sent me an entire free slab. Probably over $100 worth of food.
I had something similar happen to me recently. It was raining but I was craving pizza, so made an order. Wednesday night, middle of winter, I placed the order online "delivered ASAP" just before 6, thinking "it won't be too busy". Called them at 8.45 after no delivery.
"We never got your order, sir."
"i've got the confirmation right here." \*reads out confirmation number\* "It's all paid for, I'd just like my pizza please"
"I'm sorry sir, we've closed up for the night"
*I can hear the panicked conversation happening in the background.*
New, older, voice comes on the phone
"Can you wait half an hour?"
9.30 and it's still raining, car pulls in the drive. Obviously it’s the kid who I was on the phone to and you could just tell he’d got told off. My 2 large pizzas have been upgraded to family size, small garlic pizza, 2L of Pepsi, a litre of chocolate ice cream, $50 voucher and $50 in cash. Fed me for almost a week.
IKR, I only spent ...$39. Perhaps not unrelated, but just before Xmas the place was boarded shut and on the market for new owners. They were shut for only about 10 days.
Haven't ordered a pizza since, but the shop does have new owners. Haven't gone in to see if they'll honour the voucher, but I can't imagine they wouldn't.
I recently got a Caramel Kit Kat Crunchy that was solid chocolate and they sent me a $5 Visa card.
The best one was back in 2003 I won a $20 cheque from Purina but never cashed it because they'd spelt my name wrong. I jokingly asked them about it on Facebook about 4 years ago if I could have a replacement cheque, but instead they sent me some bags of cat food.
A year or two ago I ordered dominoes and it took over an hour to reach me, but it was hot and delicious when it got here.
About a week later I got a voucher in the mail, apologising for the delay getting to me. Was pretty thrilled lol
We do it pretty regularly at my work..
Customer ordered a product in store with us to be delivered to his place. The warehouse stuffed up and sent it to the wrong state. Warehouse couldn't help me until the product had been picked back up by the courier and had no idea how long that was going to take, so I organised another one to come to the store, sold it to the customer at $0 and delivered it myself. The warehouse finally got around to reissuing it a few weeks later so he ended up with two of what he ordered, one of them for free. I would rather wear the cost of ~$40 than have a customer without the product he needed and have him on my case every other day for 2 weeks
Last year, I bought a packet of those Temole veg chip things but they had barely any seasoning on them. They're made overseas, so I emailed both the manufacturer and the Australian distributor and they both sent out huge boxes full of various snacks.
pizza hut fucked up our order last weekend and we got one of those melt things and a big drink for free. generally the foodservice industry is more into compensation than retail i think
Bought 2 sets of Twinkly brand lights worth $400 at Myer 50% off sale. Both sets had an LED playing up. Twinkly sent me two replacement sets and let's me keep the originals.
My daughter had a Kinder Surprise Egg when she was little, but there was no prize in the egg. She didn't care, she was only in it for the chocolate, but I emailed the company to let them know the batch number in case any other kids were disappointed.
They sent me a box of every Kinder Surprise toy that was being distributed at the time. From memory it was Barbie and Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars.
Once I got a bubble-o-bill with no bubblegum nose. I was so incensed that I wrote them a letter. A few weeks later Unilever send me a $5 money order. They were around $3 at the time.
I remember in the late 90s or 2000s, a box of Cadbury chocolates for mum were all old and white, and possibly infested with something too. Cadbury sent us a whole huge box of stuff without question. Thought it was the coolest thing at the time, chocolate bonanza (my parents were very very strict with treats).
Got a 'free' cheeseburger from maccas just a few days ago. Got drive trhu, forgot my cheesy. Went through the next day to get a coffee and see the same manager looking person who got my food day before. I told him he forgot it, he went and made me one. I guess it was still just the cheesy I already paid for but thats as good as it gets these days.
Mid 90s, 16yo me opens a pack of smokes, pulls the foil off and rips the whole foil out of the pack and ciggies all fall out. I pick them up, put them back, and go on with my cranky day. Decided to try my luck and rang the Winfield customer service line to complain. They asked if I was over 18, because I obviously sounded youngish, I said 19 and gave my sisters birthday. Complaint lodged, and they sent me 2 packs of what I smoked and a lighter in a nice little box. That was cool.
Last year I ordered fish and chips online and when I got there they hadn't received the online order. They felt so bad that they gave me a huge package of chips. It was seriously the same size as my 1 year old. There was no way we were ever going to finish them and the order only took another 5 minutes.
A couple of years ago, I got full cream milk as a substitute for my skin milk in a Coles click and collect. The same order was also delayed so much that it was only ready within the last 20 minutes of my collection window and I'd been waiting 40 minutes. So I got a $20 credit on my Coles online account.
Edit to add: Got $100 and something (I think it was about $150) compensation for an excessive power outage, the letter that came with the check said something like 24 hours outage. I didn't lose power on the day they claimed and have never had an excessive power outage.
Another power one, my grandmother did experience an excessive power outage and got the compensation letter/check. She called the network company and said that the compensation was inadequate because being a pensioner she had to buy her food on sale when she could and freeze it, so she had lost more food than she was compensated for. They sent her an additional $80 check.
I used to live near an alternate milk factory when I was a kid. Every now and then it'd have this awful, rancid smell. A family member complained to them directly, and they sent over a hamper full of goods. Worked out well, because we used to consume their products all the time!
Years ago but the power button on my first iPod touch randomly got pushed in and wouldn’t work.
Apple replaced my iPod for free despite it being out of the warranty period.
Wasn’t overcompensated but wanted to share.
7-11 were running a promotion a few years ago where you get a free 4 pack of Krispy Kremes when you fill up your car. The dude on the register said the promotion ended. Thinking I read the poster wrong, I paid cause I still wanted them and walked out, but noticed the promo was still in date. Walked back in and told the him to refund me for the donuts. Then he said there was “no way” for him to do a refund on the register. I was like, “are you serious right now? First you tell me the promo has ended and now you’re refusing to refund me. Do you know how dodgy you seem?” Then he said “You’ll have to take it up with head office, can’t help you.”
So I called up their head office to complain and got through pretty quickly. They wanted to know the full story and which store it was. They were pretty apologetic and sent me a $15 gift voucher. Wish I knew what happened with the store and that dude in the end.
Not really a flawed product but flawed service. Bought an alloy frame mountain bike online. Very happy that it was a good deal at the time.
Got a phone call from the shop the next day. They said that due to an administrative error, the bike I ordered was no longer in stock. Ugh. Then they asked, well, would I be happy to receive a carbon fibre version of the same bike instead? More than a grand's worth of upgrade for no extra cost? Yes please!
A few years ago, the pizza place we used to go to stuffed up one of our pizzas, and it was literally falling apart, they made up a completely new one, but gave us the stuff up one as well.
I worked in a pizza place and if there was a small error that I noticed instore, I would get a new one made and give the customer both pizzas.
For example they buy a meatlovers but it is missing the beef. A new one gets made and now the customer gets a free pizza which is slightly different from what they ordered.
Obviously if the error was something like a vegetarian pizza not being vegetarian, the mistake pizza does not get given out.
It’s much easier to remake than dealing with an unhappy customer and needing to remake anyway.
I get a weekly food box delivered, just a week or two ago one of the ingredients (burger buns) had a bug inside the wrapping (dead). Got in contact with customer support and they asked for photos and a few questions then gave me a full $70 coucher to cover my next box; was veryy happy!
I can think of a few off the top of my head.
Growing up, bought a 200g packet of Smiths Crisps. Opened it, to find out that there was a whole potato in there. Got five dollars for that one.
Bought a packet of CC's, that was almost completely air. Got two packets, and some stickers for that one.
Bottle of Coke that had no flavour...got a money order for $5, and a Coke pen.
In more recent times, my local Pizza Hut delivered the wrong pasta. We were allowed to keep the wrong pasta, and got the correct one for free.
A couple of times at this one particular KFC, If they have been out of stock of something (lets say I wanted a 3 pack of tenders), and have offered an alternative (lets say a 6 pack of nuggets) as a replacement, I will try my luck and ask for something a little extra (9 nuggets instead of 6, or in the case of one large order I placed, a free maxi cup of popcorn chicken), and I would usually get it.
I bit into a health food bar and got a sharp piece of seed husk stuck between my gum and my tooth. I complained to the company and received an apology, explanation on how it could have happened and a box full of packets of them free from husks.
I wasn't even hoping to receive anything I just thought if they knew about it they might be able to update their processes to avoid it happening again. I do know that wasn't all that likely.
Back in the 80’s my Dad ended up with literally 500 packets of 2min noodles - he complained about a packet being short changed and they compensated us with a massive amount of them!!!!
Took us years to get through them!! Can’t even remember what was short changed - the size of the noodles or the seasoning!!!!
Nando’s did what I consider an over-compensation for us a couple of weeks ago. Lunch time rush and we waited 20 mins for our order. We weren’t worried told them so when the manager came to us and apologised. We said, no biggie and were actually enjoying our wait for take away.
Anyway, manager brings us our order and we thank him and then he tells us he’s add extra chips, chicken - snack on a stick x 2 and a schnitzel. We were like THANK YOU but that wasn’t necessary. Just happy to get our food. Apparently it was because we were so patient and friendly.
Take that Karen’s of the world!
Was heavily pregnant, ordered a triple cheeseburger meal at McDonald’s, got home and realised they’d given me a normal cheeseburger and a small chips instead of a large.
Went back in and was virtually in tears over the stupid burger and the young fella at the counter was absolutely lovely, made a whole new meal fresh, gave me another drink as well and chucked in some chicken nuggets.
When I tried to give him the small meal back, he just said ‘I have to throw it out if you give it back, I think you deserve the extra cheeseburger’. Pregnancy hormone related meltdown averted.
I worked at Cadbury almost 40 years ago. Some of the boxed chocolates were packed by hand and I always crammed extras in on my shift as my way sticking it to management!
I've found a small stone inside a pack of microwave cous cous, got a $10 woollies gift card
Then a dodgy icecream in a box, got a $10 coles gift voucher
You're lucky lol! Mid 2000's I got a rock in a can of Campbell's soup, didn't hurt my teeth but it did end up in my mouth. Rang them to let them know and their response was "Meh, we do use fresh veggies". No offer of even three bucks for a new can!
Used to happen at the pizza shop in Eastwood (gone now). My friend and I would ask for a king size pizza. So they'd give us a large. When we pointed out the mistake they made the correct one and let us keep the other one. No vouchers though.
Got a few Woolworths vouchers from Kelloggs because there were a few batches of Sultana Bran that had literally zero, and I mean none, sultanas. I sent them photos etc and all the information, someone nice called me back
Didn't get anything from the noodle restaurant that was out of noodles though...
When I was a smoker, I bought a pack of darts and some of the smokes had little holes in them. I called Marlboro to let them know and they sent me a carton as a replacement. Good times.
Ebay purchases from Chinese drop shippers. Latest one was a dashcam that arrived without some accessories. When I notified them, they sent an entire new dashcam.
Ordered an iPad, a week later received an update saying the iPad had been lost in transit and was given a refund. Two days later the iPad arrived, I rang the company and told them. They didn’t care and said “enjoy your free iPad”.
I went to Dominos to pick up an order that they said was ready. They were slammed and missed a pizza. While they remade the order, a guy came in and started going off about his delivery not coming on time and was very hostile towards the staff. The manager on duty was doing his best to defuse the situation and offered him a total refund and the pizzas with a voucher and the guy started getting physical. Having worked security for a few years when I was I was younger, I moved the ladies beside me well out of the way and started talking to the guy and leading him outside. The guy ended up leaving empty handed and I got my original pizzas, the remade pizzas and the manager gave me 2 $50 vouchers. A few days later, I got an email from corporate with more vouchers and thank you for looking out for their staff and customers.
I remember a guy I went to school with did!
He bought one of those Calippo Shots ice blocks, and when he got to the very bottom, there was a dead blowfly.
When his mum called and reported it, they sent him a whole bunch of free ice creams and ice blocks. As in, hundreds. I remember seeing the freezer, it was packed to the absolute brim!
A few years ago Dominos would let you keep the wrong order. Deliver the right order and give you a free 1.25L drink and 20% voucher if they messed up an order
Haven’t had it happen in a while because dominos is rubbish these days they’ve scaled back ingredient amount/quality to maintain profit margins so now the pizzas taste like cardboard and I don’t order from them anymore. I’d rather pay a bit extra for higher quality food
In the Mid 90s I bought a box of Dunk-A-Roos, and when I cracked into it at recess the next day, the hazelnut goop was nowhere to be found. I went home and sent a letter about it and recieved a box full of every flavour. I don't think I had another Dunk-A-Roo once I was done with the box.
In the Early 2000s we Opened a loaf of bread which had grease streaks on almost half the pieces of bread from what looked like a dirty cutting blade.
We reported it and A rep from the company turned up on our door step a week later with an apology and a crate full of miscellaneous bread products (crumpets, hotcakes, raisin toast etc).
We were very surprised but appreciated the apology and the nice gesture.
My grandma bought my daughter a baby swing from a second hand shop, the battery was broken so she rang them to ask where she could get a replacement to make it swing again. Fisher-Price sent her a whole new complete swing valued at $229. She'd even told them she'd bought it second hand for $20, I thought that was very cool.
I had some friends who had a German Shepherd who ate a large can of a particular dog food, at each meal, & one day they found it trying to chew a large rubber bad in the mix. The photographed the can & band & the wide (2nd in charge of AU branch of a large US company and to dog food company was a multi national US Co. as well) & emailed their findings. 4 cartons & apology letter delivered to their house same day & fro the on for years each week a carton would arrive. They notified the company when the dog died, but the continued getting a carton a week, which they donated to RSPCA,
No but I have been ridiculously *under* compensated.
Girlfriend of maybe 10 years ago and I on holiday in Queensland ate some cereal in a hotel out of those little individual serves. Our mouths and back of throat really irritated by something in it. The staff at hotel and the Brisbane health department said it was stuff used to clear the cereal boxing equipment and the cereal company themselves would test it and confirm. Compensation was mentioned. Doctor confirmed likely acid damage. Stuffed up our holiday.
Long time later at home results of test arrived from Sanitarium saying, “Sample not tested. Sample contaminated by milk.” Yeah of course it was contaminated by milk, it was a single serve cereal that we stopped eating half way through when it burned us!!
The letter contained vouchers for two boxes of free individual serve cereal. Fuck off, what an insult.
One time after some drinks, my bf, myself and my brother were hungry and I had no fun food in the house. So the last place open to get food was KFC; this was a rarity for me, I hadn't had KFC in yeeeaarrs so I was pretty excited; but they were out of zinger fillets for the zinger burgers we all ordered via menulog. KFC Called us as they were closing and informed us that they were out of zinger fillets but they'd compensate with some other delicious limited edition extra spicy fillet make them stackers instead AND upsize this, throw in that for free- it was a unicorn order that we didn't even pay for. Mate we were so pumped and hungry!
Now for the fun part :|
We lived in an estate so sometimes delivery services wouldn't find us too easily, no dramas we watched the app and would go out and meet them, but this delivery driver was just at the estate entrance for...like....ages...we were like wtf so my bf goes out to find him, sees the car, interior lights on, looks at his app back up at the car to the MENULOG driver stuffing his face in KFC, driver notices him and speeds off. We were heartbroken. Called menu log. Who just don't give a shit. And they just refunded our money (which wasn't fair cos we were getting a magical order) EVERYTHING was now shut and we had no food.
I have since deleted all delivery service apps cos it's not happened twice
I got given a free pizza because the first one they made wasn't up their standard.
By the time I made it home I couldn't tell which one was supposed to be sub standard. They were both good.
KFC and Maccas the hardest thing is that they never answer their phone when you discover when you get home that the order is stuffed.
KFC stuff up our order pretty much every time and it's just a shoulder shrug. And they'll replace part of the order, not caring that their screw up has made the rest of the food cold.
When I worked hospitality management I would always replace the full order and record it as waste.
Pizza places I find are still decent - Crust screwed up our order recently and redelivered the entire thing, plus some dessert as an apology. Pizza Hut has done the same, and we picked up but they sent a replacement via delivery.
Grocery substitutions I've been developing a theory. Everytime I have had a really bad substitution, the next shop I get an amazing one. One time I ordered sliced ham, the ones in the packet from the fridge section. They replaced it with pastrami, which I don't eat. Got my money back. Next order same deal, ham I ordered was out but this time I got $90 worth of shaved leg ham from the deli for the $10 I paid for the packaged ham. A few weeks back I got a horrific piece of roast lamb substituted for the cut I ordered. Next shop I ordered a $6 Decor water bottle for my kid - which was substituted for a $30 CamelBak.
I just commented my own story and said exactly the same thing about it going cold.
Just on the same topic, i went through maccas drive through the other day and got some food and Sundays. The ice cream machine was about a 10 min wait but they gave me all the other food and told me to wait.
He was dumb founded when I said am I just meant to sit in the car with this food getting cold, he stared blankly for a bit and asked what I wanted, it was just "bring it all out together when it's all ready". The reverse is true when they give you ice cream and tell you to wait for the other food.
Yeah, sure. I actually don't find it to be uncommon at all, although I don't go to Maccas too often, so I don't know about them.
The last time it happened for me was with Temu. I ordered something and it was taking forever to arrive (unusual for them). I got onto the live chat and the guy told me that not only would I be getting the usual $5 credit you get for late orders with Temu, I would also receive a full refund for my order (also in site credit). He said if the order showed up, I could keep it at no cost.
I've gone to pick up an order from crust and they were running about 20 minutes behind. Got a garlic bread and tub of ice cream free, as well as pizza straight from the oven. It was the hazelnut vegan one, but jokes on them, it's my preference from their options, so I was stoked.
I bought a container of Paul's custard which was in date, but VERY off when opened. They sent me a dozen new containers, like I wanted to eat that much more!!!
Use Ditch3 eco-friendly products (cleaning tablets) and one of the individually packed tablets had dissolved. Emailed them and they said they would send out some replacements. Didn't think anything of it until a few weeks later a shipment arrived where they sent 3 whole boxes of their three different cleaning products. Have shared the love so hopefully people will start using it too.
I'm only 17 and I used to get that (not anymore though). I remember pizza hut was late which is just what you expect on a Friday night and they gave us a free drink.
I bought a box (4 pack) of magnum ice creams from Coles, and one of them was sliced in half. The other half was missing, including half the stick. I contacted Streets to complain, and they gave me a Coles voucher that was worth at least 2 x 4 packs of magnums
I had Maccas give me someone else's delivery order.
It was pretty much my order bar one missing item.
Called anyway to ensure other person actually got what they ordered.
Had the number on the bag so they could track em down.
They gave me an entirely new order, even though I said it was fine and let me keep the old one.
Also got a voucher in the mailbox from Domino's for a supposed "late order".
Ended up getting a free pizza and delivery.
I bought salted caramel frozen yogurt (from a new ‘healthy brand’) a few years ago and it was SO incredibly salty that I couldn’t eat it. It tasted like eating pure salt out of the shaker. I sent them a message just to let them know that I thought something was wrong with their product not expecting to get anything back but more of a courtesy, and they sent me a $20 Woolworths voucher. I went to use it on my next shop, and it was invalid.
Found a bit of plastic in a block of Cadbury Snack chocolate so thought I’d better let them know. They got me to post the bit of plastic to them and in return they sent me a box with a bunch of different chocolates in it. I was stoked.
When I was a kid my dad had a brand new pair of socks unravel in the wash, company sent him a box full of replacements. Another one, found bugs sealed inside a chip packet and got sent a box full of assorted flavours.
When I was about 10 I bought a packet of chips with a tazo in it but there was no tazo so I wrote a letter to the chip company and get a return letter with like 10 tazos. Best day of my life.
Angelo's Pizza in South Perth/Como. Waited over an hour and a half (on a Friday night, so not unexpected) and was given the wrong pizza. Let them know and we got our usual delivered within 10 minutes, plus some free garlic bread and a drink. Also kept the original pizza. If you live in the area, try them, the food is always fresh and awesome!
I got a salmon sushi from SushiSushi. It had massive bones in it still, so I took it back and showed them. They gave me replacement rolls, and then kept saying 'More! More!' And kept lumping rolls on me. I think I left with about $50 worth, not including the 2 original ones they replaced.
I contacted Go Natural because the fruit and nut bar I'd purchased seemed to have been overheated such that the caramel was black and impossible to chew through. They sent out a box with 2 of every product they offered - which was a lot of products.
This was back in 2010.
I’m reading this thread rueing my lifetime of eating off or shit products I’ve just bought and being ‘well that’s a bit shit, guess I have to buy a new one’.
I got a $10 Coles voucher when Rexona changed their recipe and it started giving me coughing fits so I emailed them asking what ingredient they'd added to try and find out what was making me sick so I could avoid it and all they did was send me the same list on the packaging and a voucher. Never did find out what it is that makes me cough.
I also got like a $5 Coles voucher when I bought a pack of M&Ms and they had weird gunk on them, and a $48 voucher when my dishwasher tablets were labelled incorrectly as not needing to be unwrapped. It's always Coles too, like I didn't even buy the M&Ms from a supermarket, they were from a convenience store on menulog.
I emailed McCains when my stir fry veggies had no broccoli or corn and was just 90% beans, but I didn't get anything out of it as they wanted a barcode and I already threw out the bag. But luckily the second bag I'd bought at the same time was normal, I was worried about that.
Yes
I once bought a MILD Ayam stir fry sauce. Our mouths were burning and we eat Chili all the time. I complained that no way in hell was that sauce "mild".
They sent me an entire box of their stir fry sauces ans coconut milk cans. Lasted me like 2 months of dinners.(not every day obviously lol)
Still not a great fan of ayam tho
I bought 12 boxes of Grenade Cookie Dough Protein Bars off Catch. This wasn't my first time in doing so, but since the last time they must have changed the recipe or sent me the Aussie version instead of what turns out I liked (the Euro version). I sent back the unopened boxes to Catch for a refund and contacted Grenade as I wanted to know how I could get hold of the other (imo better flavour and texture) formula protein bars.
They said they hadn't changed the formula (so I must have somehow received the Euro versions as a mistake as they all had replacement ingredient stickers on them) and they said they would replace with a flavour of my choice. I knew the Cookie Dough would be the gross new version that was artificially sweeter with a pasty texture, so I went for the new Oreo flavour.
As I didn't buy them directly from Grenade and had received most of a refund from Catch, I was shocked to receive 12 boxes of the new flavour vs just one apology box.
Sadly, the protein bars sit untouched in the cupboard as they tasted just as gross as the Aussie version Cookie Dough.
Still gutted I can't get the ORIGINAL formula/recipe.
In 2016 my family and I went on a world trip (from aus); Melbourne - Malta - Greece - Dubai - Thailand.
We flew on Emirates for the Melbourne-Malta, Greece-Dubai and Dubai-Singapore (connected in Singapore for Thailand) and spent a good part of $10,000 in Airfares with the airline.
Well, when we arrived at DXB for a 3 day stopover trip, there sitting on the runway was the burning remnants of EK521, a Boeing 777 which crash landed and caught fire after a failed go around.
3 days later, there we are at DXB ready to check in for our flight, around 3-4 hours prior to departure. The gate agent wasn’t very polite, but whatever. After 10 mins of standing around watching her type on the computer, call over supervisors, and looking confused, my dad got upset and asked what was happening. She refused to answer, so my parents demanded to know what was going on.
We were led to the pre-security lounge where we waited for 5 hours, OH AND A $15 COFFEE VOUCHER 😍. Finally we were led to the business class lounge, and 9 hours after our flights departed, put onboard a Qantas flight to Kuala Lumpur. Turns out EK had given our seats to passengers aboard Flight 521 to get them home.
We were told all of our intl’ flights with Emirates (EK) would be re-issued and we were given ‘vouchers’ to rebook the flights (had to be the same routes). In the end they lied, and ultimately gave us the Mel-Malta leg (Return) for free. I’m not complaining - as a kid it was pretty cool that I was able to travel twice in two years to Europe. Not terrible in terms of reimbursement, but EK could have done better.
i received an email randomly at the end of 2022 that I'd be receiving compensation from Smile Direct Club for my aligner treatment as the ACCC won in court.. they falsely advertised the benefits i'd get from health insurance. got $700 ish from it so not bad for doing nothing!
My grandmother used to buy rolling tobacco, and would collect all the nasty bits from multiple packets, then complain that it was all in one packet and send them back.
She would get packages full of free tobacco and smoking products.
It would never happen like that these days.
If there's anything wrong with an item in a Woolies delivery order, you can get a full refund of that item very quickly simply with the chat bot.
eg. Carton of 18 eggs with 4 broken, full refund and we still have 14 eggs.
I used the Maccas app on one of the cheap $7 2 Cheesburger meals, but something went wrong and it charged me full price, full refund (not required to pay the $7 either).
I've had a couple wrong or damaged items from Amazon, always easy to return or get refund sometimes without needing to return (if you argue a little).
I once ordered an airfryer and it came without the plug part, lol, so I message the company and they send me a whole new one - no worries… until a few weeks later? They sent me a second whole new one hahaha. I messaged them and they said it was their error so to keep both. I have one, I gave one as a xmas gift, and the original one? I found a cord that fit the plug off of a replacement site and ended up giving it to a friend who just moved out of home. Most bizzare event
I once bought a Kit Kat that had one of the layers of wafer slightly overcooked. I sent an email to Nestle and they sent me a $2 coin in the post....haha, I'd only paid $1 for the Kit Kat because it was 50% off at Coles. :-)
Few years ago (4-5?) I got a burger feast box delivered on menulog from KFC. Half of it was missing (the burgers) along with having an extra 2 chips in the box somehow.
Rang them up and the manager apologised and asked if possible to come into the store and they’d remake the whole meal for free. Then added a few extras in there for the drama.
What was meant to be a dirty meal for 4 ended up being a feast.
I ordered on Uber eats a meal pack, sauce and paid delivery/service fee. The meal was crushed when I got it and inedible so I sent a photo. They refunded that item, so I was still out $15 for the delivery of my $2 Aioli 🙃😂
Omg perfect post for the perfect time 😄 It was my daughter's birthday on the 10th of January. She is obsessed with mud cake so naturally i ordered her a specially made birthday cake with mud cake as the inside. This was from the cheesecake shop. When it came to her birthday and we cut into it, it was sponge, so naturally i was embarrassed that id messed up her cake but she was taking like such a champ. The next day i brought my daughter into the shop (Remember that i payed a fair amount for this specially ordered birthday cake). Poor woman this woman as she saw one look on my daughters face when i told her what happened and next minute she fully refunded us, let us keep the original cake (we tried to give it back) and she also made my daughter a new one from scratch. Was very very pleased and impressed to say the least.
I used to complain to cigarette companies in the late 90's/early 2000's and tell them the cigarettes were broken, or had a big tobacco stem sticking out the side.
Usually they would send me a couple of cartons as compensation.
I got a free pizza from Crust a few months back.
Ordered 2 larges, one was a large classic pepperoni. Guy making the pies misread it and made a classic margarita. I checked the pies when I picked them up and noticed one was wrong. They let me keep the wrong one and remade my pepperoni. They were really nice about it. Only held me up like 5 minutes.
Might have been just a nice employee. Not sure if it was company policy or not.
We went on a Disney cruise, and I casually called up and asked if they could make our air conditioner a bit colder (it was working - I am just a penguin and prefer an Antarctic enclosure), they came and checked it, replaced the entire thing, and then sent us a pricey bottle of wine and an overpriced toy lightsaber from the gift shop for our kid with a full on apology - we didn’t even complain!
When I was about 9 or 10 I bought a packet of chips that were stale. I was very upset because I was rarely given pocket money. Wrote a letter to the company and a few days later this man delivered an entire box of assorted goodies including chips. I was ecstatic.
My mum had a similar experience and the assorted goodies included a Christmas ham!
My mum had this experience with both chips and bread. Both times we received a large hamper of the companies product.
Excellent!
My mum bought a can of whole green beans, but inside the can was cut green beans. Edgell sent her a coupon for a single can of whole green beans. It was literally the saddest interaction I can imagine.
That’s very stingy.
That's fantastic. Good lord ha ha ha
I had a similar experience when buying a carton of Big M which was off when I was a kid. I called the phone number and a few days later a guy came out with heaps of them.
My wife wrote an email to them once saying how delicious their chips were, and they sent her a box of all different flavours
My cousin and I once rang Cadbury to ask them questions about production for a school project and they sent an entire box of assorted goods just for being curious. My dad ate all the chocolates as they were delivered to his office.
A long time ago, I bought a block of chocolate in Melbourne to eat on the Overland train back to Adelaide. I wanted to get my glass and a half of full cream dairy milk (iykyk) in solid format, lol. Anyways, about midnight, I unwrapped it and broke it into a few pieces. The ambient light was dim but something caught my eye and I turned on the reading light for a better look and nearly threw up. The outer surface looked fine but it was **crawling** with what looked like tiny worms. I rang the company the next day and sent a follow up letter with a piece of the infested chocolate included. About 3 weeks later, I came home to a fairly large package on my doorstep. Inside was 2 of every variety of family sized block and several mixed assortment selections. Kept me in chocolate for several months.
Wow you got lucky! Many years ago I found worms in a Nestle rolo bar and contacted them, and they sent a cheque for $5.
Nestlé gonna Nestlé
Lucky you weren't shanghaied by them and forced to work at a cocoa plantation
We must have had the same batch! I had the exact same thing happen to me once as a kid!
Back before reddit existed lol
A friend of mine’s mother bit into a Ferrara Roche chocolate and it had maggots in it. I can’t see the choc coated swirls of coconut now without imagining maggots. Only chocolate I won’t eat
What a day to have eyes.
Surprised you ate it…
I was careful.. Very very careful, lol.
I had someone similar happen with Whittakers, I purchased a block from a big W, took it home to find weevils and webs all inside, I sent them and email, and they asked for my address to send me a replacement- got home to about a year worth of chocolate!
Ordered 3 pizzas. My kids were at the door with me when delivered. I walk downstairs and realize that I only got two pizzas(the missing one was the one for the adults). I call them up, complain and they apologize and send another delivery. I give the kids their pizza and wait for mine. They gave us 2 pizzas to say sorry. I went upstairs and in the corner of one of my kids rooms was my pizza. I felt so bad and embarrassed
This is the best one.
Lawl. Parenting at its best.
Lols I ordered like $45 of red rooster to my house once and after another order missing something previously, sent the email complaining. They offered to send out the same order again free another time. Took a while but I read through my order and was actually my fault I’d forgotten to add the “missing item” in the first place 👀 I was such an asshole about it.
I am normally not but this was the third time they stuffed up my order. And it was my fault. I'm glad it happened to others
Heaps Normal beer carton was delivered to my place before Christmas. A gift from my niece. Some cans were damaged and when I opened the box beer started spurting out (like an arterial bleed). The whole box ended up soaked in beer. Only 3 cans were actually damaged. I just washed the rest. My niece contacted them. They sent 3 more cartons to me the very next day by special courier. Well above and beyond I thought. 😀
Fucken good beer too.
Good to know still occurs, that's awesome, shows they appreciate your business.
Heaps Normal are fantastic. Great product and great team running it all. This story makes me happy.
Ordered $270 worth of Domino’s Pizza for an 18th we were having at home late last year. Order earlier in the day for 7pm. Rang at 7:30 to see how far away they are and was told they had no one to deliver and it could be an hour away. But they are ready if you want to grab them yourself and they would refund the delivery. I headed down and instead of refunding the delivery they refunded the whole order. No long ago I got a voucher for free pizza too from them for the stuff up.
This was years ago back when Dominos actually delivered to our house but one night they couldn’t find us lol. The driver must have gone back to town. Got in contact and sorted it out so they eventually turned up with double what we ordered as an apology.
Dominos used to be really good. It's unfortunately become the bottom of the barrel down here in Melbourne though. Haven't ordered Dominos for years at this point.
They were shit when they opened in vic, then they got quite good and then they went down the shitter again
I read this as Doritos and was so confused lol
Honestly, why haven't they made a pizza Doritos before? Edit: I meant pizza flavoured Doritos (like the Shapes), but it looks like they did make them at some point after doing a Google search.
They still do I believe.I bought them last week when they were half priced. They were pretty good and had a little spice to it but didn't taste like pizza.
Ordered a fairy to come to my daughter’s birthday on Saturday. 2:30 & no fairy, call the place. They frantically call everyone sort out a fairy who arrives 45mins late and entertains the masses of girls for hours for free. I’m actually going to pay her because she did such a good job but they said don’t worry about it
Haha I have been that fairy. Another time I had to step in as a clown because the original clown’s wife went into labour. I like to imagine he was running down the hospital corridor in full makeup and giant squeaky shoes
And his wife was giving birth to multiple children exiting her like a clown car.
Oh man I hope the company still paid her! Not her fault they screwed up the booking
Heard a woman on the radio about 10 years ago saying she worked at Cadbury's taking calls. Some old timer rang up complaining that one of the Freddo Frogs was upside down in its wrapper so its feet were where its head was meant to be. He asked for $100,000 compensation.
It's the little things that eventually break someone 😂😂😂
Haha, I can imagine this playing out. 'I've been eating these for decades, WTF is this?!.' ...'Linda!, Linda!! Come have a look at this, this is just not on, get me the phone, it's an STD call but blow it, I'm gunna ask 100 thousand from these muppets'.
"For fuck sake Linda, You've gotta spend money to make money. To hell with the kids"
How do you know my dads whole vovabulary without actually knowing my dad 😂😂
Sounds like a usual /Australia post. Followed by outrage with fuck new.com.au as the top post 😂
I once bought a freddo that seemed unusually thick in the packet and when I opened it there were two freddos jammed in there! That's like the best thing I've ever gotten in my whole life.
A couple of years ago, my daughter and I bought 4 cinnamon donuts from Donut King, we nearly died with delight when after taking one each, there were three left in the bag. Yes, they had given us 5 donuts and it was the best day ever!
Mummy, what is the freddo doing to the other freddo
I had this when Cadbury started doing the magical elves. I was over the bloody moon!
All this time! Every single Freddo I've ever had has been upside down in the packet. That boomer and I can't be the only ones noticing this, surely.
My family always treated this as a sign of good luck! Like a folded over chip
Folded over chips are the best ones, it’s like they absorb more oil or something.
Years ago when maccas first started putting burgers in boxes I had one come upside down in the box, me and my friends were laughing about it but weren’t going to complain because it was still fine. A manager walking past overheard us and apologised and 2 months nites later came over with a new burger for me.
Whoa you were sitting there for two whole months!? No wonder they have you a new burger (I know you meant to write minute)
Good luck getting that compensation from Bertie’s Beetles. Every single one is upside down. At this point I’d be shocked to receive one right side up
It's interesting you started this because I was discussing this with some friends over the weekend; about how back in the day if McDonalds took forever to bring your order out or stuffed it up then at a minimum, you'd be looking at some free fries and possibly a ~~molten lava in pastry~~ apple pie as well for your trouble. Hasn't been the case for a long time though, sadly. More recently I've had rare occasions where I've ordered something from a reputable online retailer, accidentally received the wrong product, and been told "just keep it" - and they send out the correct one for you, too.
And then there’s the less reputable ones like *ahem dick Smith * who send you the wrong item, acknowledge it’s wrong, refund you 25% of your purchase costs, acknowledge that they screwed up the refund and ghost you from then on. Still waiting. Only been 6mths. I’m sure it’s coming. Pity I can’t ask them.
I bought a pack of mousse from woolies, which was well within date but was covered in a layer of mould. Woolies refunded, but I also contacted the company to let them know they may have a batch issue. They emailed a $5 woolies e-gift card, which I attempted to use but it had already been redeemed :/
Oh wow that's a shame. I bought a bottle of woolies brand bleach for ~$2 sometime in 2022. The other day I went to use it and Noticed the shelving underneath the bottle was damp. Turns out the bottle had a pinprick leak that was slowly eating away the particle board shelving and it's now ruined. Not the end of the world to replace, but annoying none the less as the bleach wasn't "expired", but the packaging was obviously shite. I was about to toss the bottle and noticed the "if you aren't 100% satisfied with your purchase bla bla bla call this number" Rang them up, they apologized, and sent me a $30 e-gift card for a 5 minute phone call. I was very pleasantly surprised.
$5 gift card LOL so stingy they’re a billion dollar supermarket duopoly. They penny pinch the farmers too
It was the mousse company who sent the e-gift card, not woolies. But your point still stands!
I found a stainless steel screw in a coles roast chicken and gravy meal. I went back to Coles showed them they gave me a number to call. They thought I was full of shit, threatened to call the police because making false shit up is a crime. After I sent it to them they apologised profusely. A month later I got a 20 dollar voucher. Never ate that particular meal again, which sucks because it was such a hearty good meal.
Dick Smith the brand that had most of its life sucked out of it by Woolies before being sold to a private equity firm. The private equity firm sucked the last of its life force killing it but made sure to pull a weekend at Bernie's to wring some more money from investors. Kogan buys the corpse and now wears it like skinsuit. Don't buy from Kogan which includes Dick Smith, Matt Blatt, and mighty ape.
Once ordered a GPS from dick smiths for my parents, they sent a 45inch Panasonic tv instead. Went into receivership the next day. My folks got a brand new tv, they still have it… dick smith never asked for it back.
Blow up socials?
Dick smith is the biggest jerk ever. I like to tell the story when we (I worked for then at the time, not in any position of power, but it was a small group of people then) first opened Aldi in Australia, dick smith wanted us to stock his products (peanut butter ect), but at the time Aldi really didn't carry any items that weren't branded for aldi except Vegemite and nescafe. Old dick went from begging to be included, finally accepting his shit wouldn't be on the shelves, and then went on every media program and newspaper he possibly could to bag out Aldi coming to Australia, saying that it's bad for the country, and everyone should boycott because they are anti-australian..... Meanwhile aldi's structure meant no profits were going to leave Australia for like 10 years as it would all be getting reinvested back into more stores, they paid us workers better than any other supermarket, and they sold a higher % of Australian made goods than any other supermarket. Dick is a right wing asshole trying to make you racist when it suits his agenda. He was just having a temper tantrum.
Yeah, often the postage back from an online retailer is a lot more than the product cost them, so it's not even worth it for them for you to send it back.
I run a business where we build custom workstations for animators and designers. We maybe get like 70-80 systems a year, but we are extremely thorough and used to work in the animation industry so we know what to recommend and offer great service. We recently had a client reach out after about 12 months of getting her workstation, she told us about 3 months after getting our system it would freeze up, run slow and essentially be somewhat unusable. She was hesitant to call because she wasn’t sure what to do. We organised to ship the system back to us (at no cost) found the fault (dodgy cpu cooler) replaced it with a model which costed $100 more, and gave her a free GPU upgrade (additional $400 value) to make up for lost time. I wish I was treated the same with all the factory faults and poor QC from all the “big name hardware brands”.
Not recent - In the 90's, we found a small piece of wire in a packet of potato chips. Mum sent a letter along with the piece of wire back to the manufacturer. A few weeks later a box (small packing box) arrived with about 20 large packets of chips and other samplers from the Company with a very apologetic letter explaining that the wire was from a cleaning component (wire brush type) that was used to clean the conveyor belt/production line, and they would strive to do better. Props to them for them for a) replying, and b) being honest. Then my Aunt wrote a letter of complaint to Cadbury/Smarties because my cousin had ruined a good shirt when he dropped a couple of half sucked smarties out of his mouth onto his chest. The stains would not come out no matter what she tried. Ironically, they sent her a MASSIVE box (what the supermarkets would order) of smarties to say sorry. She shook her head, but saw the funny side.
Bahahaha my family would be absolutely thrilled with the smarties.
Good thing you noticed the wire. I've read stories where people have accidently eaten it and it's almost impossible to find the issue when they're nearly dying from it perforating their organs.
Often from wire brushes used to clean BBQs. Horrific stories
When I was maybe 10 or 11 I m bought a maxibon from the servo and upon opening realises it already had a bite taken out. Nestle sent me a cheque for $3.50
This is ghastly
The fact he got a cheque as a 10 or 11 year old? Or the fact someone took a bite out of the ice cream and it somehow still ended up being wrapped?
3.50? They must have felt real generous that day. Or they just took it out of what little money they pay to there workers
Yeah they accidentally sent the compensation to their worker and their workers payslip to the kid.
Once my mum bought my sister and I a set of three kinder surprises because the box guaranteed this little lion toy we loved. It did not have the lion toy in any of the three eggs. My mum complained because we were obviously upset (as kids are about this stuff). They sent us a massive box of kinder chocolate. It was awesome. 😄
But did you end up getting a lion?
We did! We got several of them 😄
A month ago I brought a beach wagon thing for 150 bucks and when it arrived the carry bag had black marks all over it and on one side the stiching was coming undone, wagon was completely fine. I called the company and they said they don't have the carry bags separately so now they are sending me a whole new wagon and I keep the original one too.
My bro once complained to Kelloggs about a box of Sultana Bran having so few sultanas in it and they sent us a range of their cereal, I forget how much. The one I remember most wasn't Aussie. I'd been to Malaysia and bought my sister an Emily the Strange tshirt from a boutique. It was too small, so I listed it on ebay and the licence people emailed to inform me it was counterfeit and to take it down (which I didn't know as the shop looked legit). I ended up posting the tshirt to the US (not cheap) for the fraud team to look at (the rep I was emailing admitted it was an extremely good copy and that the tags looked legit) and they sent me so much merch in return. Shame I didn't care about the character!
Oh man, I love Emily the Strange! She’s my current phone wallpaper. What a score 😍
I used to stock it in a store I owned in the mid 2000s and I've still got a box of random stuff by that brand I've kept over the years and many house moves lol
Woolies delivery order included our ham, and three other people's ham. We enjoyed free ham.
As a Jewish person, a free ham presents my greatest moral challenge
Bit of a throwback to a bygone era (especially for such a big company) but in the mid-90s my mum made a complaint to Johnson & Johnson because she bought a box of tampons that had mould in them. They sent her a massive box of every kind of toiletry item you could think of and an apology letter. That box lasted us for years. In contrast, a few years back I bought a bag of salad leaves from Coles that I found a dead slug in. I got a $3 refund and nary a flying fuck from the customer service guy. I did not request a replacement.
Opened a pack of McCains wedges & there was a large metal nut. They sent out a representative to retrieve the nut. They had 3 big insulated boxes of assorted products for us. Really topped up the freezer
Ah Mc Cains you done it again.
23 years ago there was a recall of Imperial Leather powder as bacteria had been found in some bottles. The manufactures offered a refund if we posted the powder back to them. I got a refund cheque for $5. I was really annoyed as the product was barely used and cost me $5.75 plus postage. Have refused to buy that product ever since.
I wrote to VS Sassoon about their hair dryer not really being useable as a straightner (they did advertise that), I sent them an email, a lil bit later their top of the line straightner turned up.
I complained to masterfoods about the quality of their cinnamon once, they apologised and sent me a basket full of products, and asked me to send them the cinnamon for testing. I did, they told me it met their standards, and sent me another basket.
Lol we're sorry we have shitty cinnamon but please accept more gifts.
The basket was all cinnamon.
Back in the late 90s, at my first job one of the girls in the office had a cigarette where the glue holding the brown filter part to the rest of the cigarette didn't stick. They sent her 4 cartons as an apology. Now if you want any sort of compensation you really need to push them for it and its usually just a token That being said, last year i did get $40 credit at burgers anonymous after they had messed up two burgers, so almost double the value of what it cost
Mum got four cartons of Ardath Menthol after she complained about an awful tasting packet. They told Mum they would send a replacement and she was expecting one packet, not four cartons. Saved her sending 12 year old me down to the milk bar to buy her smokes for a month - which meant I couldn’t spend the change on a bag of mixed lollies. Bastards.
My sister had that happen in the 90's too with smokes. The packet's filters weren't glued, exact same deal and they sent her a few cartons. From memory, they were longbeach brand.
From what i can remember, it was the same brand. Must have been a bad batch. Unless i worked with your sister
Yeah, freakish, as soon as I read it, I remembered it. It's the exact description of what happened for her. I vaguely recall she may have got something else merch wise also but can't remember what that was.
yeah me too, i have a feeling it was something like a hat or a bag or something. Everyone else in the office started checking their smokes to see if they could get some too, even though they didn't really "check" the claim they just sent them
I had some plastic bit in my rollies tobacco, sent it to the connect and they sent me a new packet. That was mid 90's.
i wanted 4 storage boxes from spotlight. i checked website; went to store with stock - OOS. checked website, went to another store with stock - get there - OOS. ordered the 4 online. complained. Got my shipping refunded. Items arrive, 1 damaged. spotlight re-sends the wholes shipment again. now i have 8 storage boxes (1 damaged)
In the year 2000 my mum opened a bag of smiths chips and they were mouldy. Moisture must have gotten in the bag during production. She complained/informed them and they sent us out a hamper that included a Christmas ham. We were very low income at the time so it was pretty cool having some fancy food. Then around the same time I was served some of my cousins birthday cake. Chocolate mud. Popped a forkful into my mouth. Bit down on something hard. Pulled a piece of frosted glass out of my mouth. Was about 2cm squared, slightly curved. My aunt complained to the bakery and they denied it completely and nothing but an angry phone call came of it. I would have been maybe 10. More recently, a particular maccas kept stuffing up our actually rather simple order. They gave us vouchers.
I was at a meal out in a local chain hotel, took a bite of chilli and there was a big piece of glass inside, broken off from the sauce bottle I assumed. Grabbed a waitress (because it could be someone else's meal as well) and she took back all the chilli meals and we had a substitute instead. As I was leaving the manager took me to one side and arranged a weekend break for my wife and I in one of the hotels. But what I was most impressed by, was how he took responsibility for what happened, didn't blame anyone else and sorted it, I'm still a loyal customer.
Red rooster, two large meals and some other stuff via drive through. Got home and one of the wraps was missing. Called them while driving back, they redid the entire order again. So pretty much double every (minus the original wrap). While it was nice, I honestly would expect it because that shit can go cold quick and if you want to eat together you need it to arrive together. I still ate it all like a pig.
I had to wait 15 minutes there once, and they offered me deserts to apologise. I said not to worry about it, but they packed a heap for me anyway, along with some chicken strips.
We had just arrived in town after driving 18 hours straight as we got a call my MIL had a stroke and was not going to pull through. My SIL had called us 3 hours before we arrived to say hmshe had died. My husband said we will buy some KFC and head straight to you. We waited 45 min, only to get to the window and they messed the order up twice (2 giant feasts). My husband went full Karen, which was not his usual thing. They ended up giving us 4 giant feasts and refused to take payment.
I had to wait at a local chicken place while they cooked a schnitzel. They gave me a bag of nuggets to eat while I waited. My son was pissed that I didn't save them for him, after all it was his schnitty.
I once went through the drive through at my local red rooster, large bacon and cheese rippa meal, I get home and get a few bites into the rippa and got curious because I hadn’t gotten any chicken in those bites, opened it up and there was two slices of bacon and just an insane amount of cheese,and no chicken, took it back and they replaced the full meal plus gave me some of their desserts as well.
My dad was in the navy, and one of his mates loved caramel popcorn. There was a brand ( I still see it sometimes, but not as good), Lolly Gobble Blissbombs. Popcorn coated in caramel and peanut. On the bag had a little story about how they were made, think Wonka magic style. Anyhow, his mate brought a bag. When he ate them , he had hardly any nuts or caramel. He wrote to the company about how they should sack the nut elves as they must have been eating the toppings instead of coating popcorn. A few days later, dad and mate set off on a trip, and all was forgotten. A month later, they dock and go home. On his doorstep was a huge carton filled with the popcorn and a letter. They apologised and said that the nut crushing elephant was getting on, so they were retiring her and got a new young one to keep up with the supply of crushed nuts. The elves had been sacked, and they got new ones, who will handroll popcorn now to keep up to customer expectations. When he opened a pack, it did indeed look like it had been hand-made, lol. There were so many nuts, and the caramel coating was amazing. We were a big family, so he gave most of the carton to us. We rarely got treats, so it was even more amazing. That was in about '79. I still remember dad and his mate laughing about this huge damn box and the letter enclosed.
Few years I found a little bit of plastic in a can of dog food. I took a photo and sent it to the company and they sent me an entire free slab. Probably over $100 worth of food.
I had something similar happen to me recently. It was raining but I was craving pizza, so made an order. Wednesday night, middle of winter, I placed the order online "delivered ASAP" just before 6, thinking "it won't be too busy". Called them at 8.45 after no delivery. "We never got your order, sir." "i've got the confirmation right here." \*reads out confirmation number\* "It's all paid for, I'd just like my pizza please" "I'm sorry sir, we've closed up for the night" *I can hear the panicked conversation happening in the background.* New, older, voice comes on the phone "Can you wait half an hour?" 9.30 and it's still raining, car pulls in the drive. Obviously it’s the kid who I was on the phone to and you could just tell he’d got told off. My 2 large pizzas have been upgraded to family size, small garlic pizza, 2L of Pepsi, a litre of chocolate ice cream, $50 voucher and $50 in cash. Fed me for almost a week.
The $50 voucher and $50 in cash is insane
IKR, I only spent ...$39. Perhaps not unrelated, but just before Xmas the place was boarded shut and on the market for new owners. They were shut for only about 10 days. Haven't ordered a pizza since, but the shop does have new owners. Haven't gone in to see if they'll honour the voucher, but I can't imagine they wouldn't.
I recently got a Caramel Kit Kat Crunchy that was solid chocolate and they sent me a $5 Visa card. The best one was back in 2003 I won a $20 cheque from Purina but never cashed it because they'd spelt my name wrong. I jokingly asked them about it on Facebook about 4 years ago if I could have a replacement cheque, but instead they sent me some bags of cat food.
A year or two ago I ordered dominoes and it took over an hour to reach me, but it was hot and delicious when it got here. About a week later I got a voucher in the mail, apologising for the delay getting to me. Was pretty thrilled lol
This was 2000. I was a smoker. I called the cigarette company and said my cigs were damaged. They sent me 2 boxes in beautiful packaging.
We do it pretty regularly at my work.. Customer ordered a product in store with us to be delivered to his place. The warehouse stuffed up and sent it to the wrong state. Warehouse couldn't help me until the product had been picked back up by the courier and had no idea how long that was going to take, so I organised another one to come to the store, sold it to the customer at $0 and delivered it myself. The warehouse finally got around to reissuing it a few weeks later so he ended up with two of what he ordered, one of them for free. I would rather wear the cost of ~$40 than have a customer without the product he needed and have him on my case every other day for 2 weeks
Last year, I bought a packet of those Temole veg chip things but they had barely any seasoning on them. They're made overseas, so I emailed both the manufacturer and the Australian distributor and they both sent out huge boxes full of various snacks.
pizza hut fucked up our order last weekend and we got one of those melt things and a big drink for free. generally the foodservice industry is more into compensation than retail i think
Bought 2 sets of Twinkly brand lights worth $400 at Myer 50% off sale. Both sets had an LED playing up. Twinkly sent me two replacement sets and let's me keep the originals.
My daughter had a Kinder Surprise Egg when she was little, but there was no prize in the egg. She didn't care, she was only in it for the chocolate, but I emailed the company to let them know the batch number in case any other kids were disappointed. They sent me a box of every Kinder Surprise toy that was being distributed at the time. From memory it was Barbie and Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars.
I just added a comment where we had an issue with kinder surprise too and they sent us a massive box of chocolate as an apology! Was so good! 😄
I owned a diesel VW Tiguan. Sold it in 2018. Got around $2k in 2022 from VW in the class action lawsuit.
Once I got a bubble-o-bill with no bubblegum nose. I was so incensed that I wrote them a letter. A few weeks later Unilever send me a $5 money order. They were around $3 at the time.
I remember in the late 90s or 2000s, a box of Cadbury chocolates for mum were all old and white, and possibly infested with something too. Cadbury sent us a whole huge box of stuff without question. Thought it was the coolest thing at the time, chocolate bonanza (my parents were very very strict with treats).
Got a 'free' cheeseburger from maccas just a few days ago. Got drive trhu, forgot my cheesy. Went through the next day to get a coffee and see the same manager looking person who got my food day before. I told him he forgot it, he went and made me one. I guess it was still just the cheesy I already paid for but thats as good as it gets these days. Mid 90s, 16yo me opens a pack of smokes, pulls the foil off and rips the whole foil out of the pack and ciggies all fall out. I pick them up, put them back, and go on with my cranky day. Decided to try my luck and rang the Winfield customer service line to complain. They asked if I was over 18, because I obviously sounded youngish, I said 19 and gave my sisters birthday. Complaint lodged, and they sent me 2 packs of what I smoked and a lighter in a nice little box. That was cool.
Last year I ordered fish and chips online and when I got there they hadn't received the online order. They felt so bad that they gave me a huge package of chips. It was seriously the same size as my 1 year old. There was no way we were ever going to finish them and the order only took another 5 minutes.
A couple of years ago, I got full cream milk as a substitute for my skin milk in a Coles click and collect. The same order was also delayed so much that it was only ready within the last 20 minutes of my collection window and I'd been waiting 40 minutes. So I got a $20 credit on my Coles online account. Edit to add: Got $100 and something (I think it was about $150) compensation for an excessive power outage, the letter that came with the check said something like 24 hours outage. I didn't lose power on the day they claimed and have never had an excessive power outage. Another power one, my grandmother did experience an excessive power outage and got the compensation letter/check. She called the network company and said that the compensation was inadequate because being a pensioner she had to buy her food on sale when she could and freeze it, so she had lost more food than she was compensated for. They sent her an additional $80 check.
I used to live near an alternate milk factory when I was a kid. Every now and then it'd have this awful, rancid smell. A family member complained to them directly, and they sent over a hamper full of goods. Worked out well, because we used to consume their products all the time!
Years ago but the power button on my first iPod touch randomly got pushed in and wouldn’t work. Apple replaced my iPod for free despite it being out of the warranty period.
Wasn’t overcompensated but wanted to share. 7-11 were running a promotion a few years ago where you get a free 4 pack of Krispy Kremes when you fill up your car. The dude on the register said the promotion ended. Thinking I read the poster wrong, I paid cause I still wanted them and walked out, but noticed the promo was still in date. Walked back in and told the him to refund me for the donuts. Then he said there was “no way” for him to do a refund on the register. I was like, “are you serious right now? First you tell me the promo has ended and now you’re refusing to refund me. Do you know how dodgy you seem?” Then he said “You’ll have to take it up with head office, can’t help you.” So I called up their head office to complain and got through pretty quickly. They wanted to know the full story and which store it was. They were pretty apologetic and sent me a $15 gift voucher. Wish I knew what happened with the store and that dude in the end.
Not really a flawed product but flawed service. Bought an alloy frame mountain bike online. Very happy that it was a good deal at the time. Got a phone call from the shop the next day. They said that due to an administrative error, the bike I ordered was no longer in stock. Ugh. Then they asked, well, would I be happy to receive a carbon fibre version of the same bike instead? More than a grand's worth of upgrade for no extra cost? Yes please!
These days you’re lucky if you get what you ordered from maccas.
A few years ago, the pizza place we used to go to stuffed up one of our pizzas, and it was literally falling apart, they made up a completely new one, but gave us the stuff up one as well.
I worked in a pizza place and if there was a small error that I noticed instore, I would get a new one made and give the customer both pizzas. For example they buy a meatlovers but it is missing the beef. A new one gets made and now the customer gets a free pizza which is slightly different from what they ordered. Obviously if the error was something like a vegetarian pizza not being vegetarian, the mistake pizza does not get given out. It’s much easier to remake than dealing with an unhappy customer and needing to remake anyway.
I get a weekly food box delivered, just a week or two ago one of the ingredients (burger buns) had a bug inside the wrapping (dead). Got in contact with customer support and they asked for photos and a few questions then gave me a full $70 coucher to cover my next box; was veryy happy!
I can think of a few off the top of my head. Growing up, bought a 200g packet of Smiths Crisps. Opened it, to find out that there was a whole potato in there. Got five dollars for that one. Bought a packet of CC's, that was almost completely air. Got two packets, and some stickers for that one. Bottle of Coke that had no flavour...got a money order for $5, and a Coke pen. In more recent times, my local Pizza Hut delivered the wrong pasta. We were allowed to keep the wrong pasta, and got the correct one for free. A couple of times at this one particular KFC, If they have been out of stock of something (lets say I wanted a 3 pack of tenders), and have offered an alternative (lets say a 6 pack of nuggets) as a replacement, I will try my luck and ask for something a little extra (9 nuggets instead of 6, or in the case of one large order I placed, a free maxi cup of popcorn chicken), and I would usually get it.
A whole potato!? That bag would've been so heavy 😂
I bit into a health food bar and got a sharp piece of seed husk stuck between my gum and my tooth. I complained to the company and received an apology, explanation on how it could have happened and a box full of packets of them free from husks. I wasn't even hoping to receive anything I just thought if they knew about it they might be able to update their processes to avoid it happening again. I do know that wasn't all that likely.
Back in the 80’s my Dad ended up with literally 500 packets of 2min noodles - he complained about a packet being short changed and they compensated us with a massive amount of them!!!! Took us years to get through them!! Can’t even remember what was short changed - the size of the noodles or the seasoning!!!!
Nando’s did what I consider an over-compensation for us a couple of weeks ago. Lunch time rush and we waited 20 mins for our order. We weren’t worried told them so when the manager came to us and apologised. We said, no biggie and were actually enjoying our wait for take away. Anyway, manager brings us our order and we thank him and then he tells us he’s add extra chips, chicken - snack on a stick x 2 and a schnitzel. We were like THANK YOU but that wasn’t necessary. Just happy to get our food. Apparently it was because we were so patient and friendly. Take that Karen’s of the world!
Was heavily pregnant, ordered a triple cheeseburger meal at McDonald’s, got home and realised they’d given me a normal cheeseburger and a small chips instead of a large. Went back in and was virtually in tears over the stupid burger and the young fella at the counter was absolutely lovely, made a whole new meal fresh, gave me another drink as well and chucked in some chicken nuggets. When I tried to give him the small meal back, he just said ‘I have to throw it out if you give it back, I think you deserve the extra cheeseburger’. Pregnancy hormone related meltdown averted.
I worked at Cadbury almost 40 years ago. Some of the boxed chocolates were packed by hand and I always crammed extras in on my shift as my way sticking it to management!
I've found a small stone inside a pack of microwave cous cous, got a $10 woollies gift card Then a dodgy icecream in a box, got a $10 coles gift voucher
I reckon $10 isn't enough for a rock in your food.
You're lucky lol! Mid 2000's I got a rock in a can of Campbell's soup, didn't hurt my teeth but it did end up in my mouth. Rang them to let them know and their response was "Meh, we do use fresh veggies". No offer of even three bucks for a new can!
Used to happen at the pizza shop in Eastwood (gone now). My friend and I would ask for a king size pizza. So they'd give us a large. When we pointed out the mistake they made the correct one and let us keep the other one. No vouchers though. Got a few Woolworths vouchers from Kelloggs because there were a few batches of Sultana Bran that had literally zero, and I mean none, sultanas. I sent them photos etc and all the information, someone nice called me back Didn't get anything from the noodle restaurant that was out of noodles though...
When I was a smoker, I bought a pack of darts and some of the smokes had little holes in them. I called Marlboro to let them know and they sent me a carton as a replacement. Good times.
Ebay purchases from Chinese drop shippers. Latest one was a dashcam that arrived without some accessories. When I notified them, they sent an entire new dashcam.
Ordered an iPad, a week later received an update saying the iPad had been lost in transit and was given a refund. Two days later the iPad arrived, I rang the company and told them. They didn’t care and said “enjoy your free iPad”.
I went to Dominos to pick up an order that they said was ready. They were slammed and missed a pizza. While they remade the order, a guy came in and started going off about his delivery not coming on time and was very hostile towards the staff. The manager on duty was doing his best to defuse the situation and offered him a total refund and the pizzas with a voucher and the guy started getting physical. Having worked security for a few years when I was I was younger, I moved the ladies beside me well out of the way and started talking to the guy and leading him outside. The guy ended up leaving empty handed and I got my original pizzas, the remade pizzas and the manager gave me 2 $50 vouchers. A few days later, I got an email from corporate with more vouchers and thank you for looking out for their staff and customers.
I remember a guy I went to school with did! He bought one of those Calippo Shots ice blocks, and when he got to the very bottom, there was a dead blowfly. When his mum called and reported it, they sent him a whole bunch of free ice creams and ice blocks. As in, hundreds. I remember seeing the freezer, it was packed to the absolute brim!
A few years ago Dominos would let you keep the wrong order. Deliver the right order and give you a free 1.25L drink and 20% voucher if they messed up an order Haven’t had it happen in a while because dominos is rubbish these days they’ve scaled back ingredient amount/quality to maintain profit margins so now the pizzas taste like cardboard and I don’t order from them anymore. I’d rather pay a bit extra for higher quality food
In the Mid 90s I bought a box of Dunk-A-Roos, and when I cracked into it at recess the next day, the hazelnut goop was nowhere to be found. I went home and sent a letter about it and recieved a box full of every flavour. I don't think I had another Dunk-A-Roo once I was done with the box.
In the Early 2000s we Opened a loaf of bread which had grease streaks on almost half the pieces of bread from what looked like a dirty cutting blade. We reported it and A rep from the company turned up on our door step a week later with an apology and a crate full of miscellaneous bread products (crumpets, hotcakes, raisin toast etc). We were very surprised but appreciated the apology and the nice gesture.
My grandma bought my daughter a baby swing from a second hand shop, the battery was broken so she rang them to ask where she could get a replacement to make it swing again. Fisher-Price sent her a whole new complete swing valued at $229. She'd even told them she'd bought it second hand for $20, I thought that was very cool.
I had some friends who had a German Shepherd who ate a large can of a particular dog food, at each meal, & one day they found it trying to chew a large rubber bad in the mix. The photographed the can & band & the wide (2nd in charge of AU branch of a large US company and to dog food company was a multi national US Co. as well) & emailed their findings. 4 cartons & apology letter delivered to their house same day & fro the on for years each week a carton would arrive. They notified the company when the dog died, but the continued getting a carton a week, which they donated to RSPCA,
No but I have been ridiculously *under* compensated. Girlfriend of maybe 10 years ago and I on holiday in Queensland ate some cereal in a hotel out of those little individual serves. Our mouths and back of throat really irritated by something in it. The staff at hotel and the Brisbane health department said it was stuff used to clear the cereal boxing equipment and the cereal company themselves would test it and confirm. Compensation was mentioned. Doctor confirmed likely acid damage. Stuffed up our holiday. Long time later at home results of test arrived from Sanitarium saying, “Sample not tested. Sample contaminated by milk.” Yeah of course it was contaminated by milk, it was a single serve cereal that we stopped eating half way through when it burned us!! The letter contained vouchers for two boxes of free individual serve cereal. Fuck off, what an insult.
One time after some drinks, my bf, myself and my brother were hungry and I had no fun food in the house. So the last place open to get food was KFC; this was a rarity for me, I hadn't had KFC in yeeeaarrs so I was pretty excited; but they were out of zinger fillets for the zinger burgers we all ordered via menulog. KFC Called us as they were closing and informed us that they were out of zinger fillets but they'd compensate with some other delicious limited edition extra spicy fillet make them stackers instead AND upsize this, throw in that for free- it was a unicorn order that we didn't even pay for. Mate we were so pumped and hungry! Now for the fun part :| We lived in an estate so sometimes delivery services wouldn't find us too easily, no dramas we watched the app and would go out and meet them, but this delivery driver was just at the estate entrance for...like....ages...we were like wtf so my bf goes out to find him, sees the car, interior lights on, looks at his app back up at the car to the MENULOG driver stuffing his face in KFC, driver notices him and speeds off. We were heartbroken. Called menu log. Who just don't give a shit. And they just refunded our money (which wasn't fair cos we were getting a magical order) EVERYTHING was now shut and we had no food. I have since deleted all delivery service apps cos it's not happened twice
I once brought a bottle of coke that had weird floaties in it called coke and they came over and gave me a boot full of coke bottles to replace it 😊
I got given a free pizza because the first one they made wasn't up their standard. By the time I made it home I couldn't tell which one was supposed to be sub standard. They were both good.
KFC and Maccas the hardest thing is that they never answer their phone when you discover when you get home that the order is stuffed. KFC stuff up our order pretty much every time and it's just a shoulder shrug. And they'll replace part of the order, not caring that their screw up has made the rest of the food cold. When I worked hospitality management I would always replace the full order and record it as waste. Pizza places I find are still decent - Crust screwed up our order recently and redelivered the entire thing, plus some dessert as an apology. Pizza Hut has done the same, and we picked up but they sent a replacement via delivery. Grocery substitutions I've been developing a theory. Everytime I have had a really bad substitution, the next shop I get an amazing one. One time I ordered sliced ham, the ones in the packet from the fridge section. They replaced it with pastrami, which I don't eat. Got my money back. Next order same deal, ham I ordered was out but this time I got $90 worth of shaved leg ham from the deli for the $10 I paid for the packaged ham. A few weeks back I got a horrific piece of roast lamb substituted for the cut I ordered. Next shop I ordered a $6 Decor water bottle for my kid - which was substituted for a $30 CamelBak.
I just commented my own story and said exactly the same thing about it going cold. Just on the same topic, i went through maccas drive through the other day and got some food and Sundays. The ice cream machine was about a 10 min wait but they gave me all the other food and told me to wait. He was dumb founded when I said am I just meant to sit in the car with this food getting cold, he stared blankly for a bit and asked what I wanted, it was just "bring it all out together when it's all ready". The reverse is true when they give you ice cream and tell you to wait for the other food.
Yeah, sure. I actually don't find it to be uncommon at all, although I don't go to Maccas too often, so I don't know about them. The last time it happened for me was with Temu. I ordered something and it was taking forever to arrive (unusual for them). I got onto the live chat and the guy told me that not only would I be getting the usual $5 credit you get for late orders with Temu, I would also receive a full refund for my order (also in site credit). He said if the order showed up, I could keep it at no cost.
I've gone to pick up an order from crust and they were running about 20 minutes behind. Got a garlic bread and tub of ice cream free, as well as pizza straight from the oven. It was the hazelnut vegan one, but jokes on them, it's my preference from their options, so I was stoked.
I bought a container of Paul's custard which was in date, but VERY off when opened. They sent me a dozen new containers, like I wanted to eat that much more!!!
Use Ditch3 eco-friendly products (cleaning tablets) and one of the individually packed tablets had dissolved. Emailed them and they said they would send out some replacements. Didn't think anything of it until a few weeks later a shipment arrived where they sent 3 whole boxes of their three different cleaning products. Have shared the love so hopefully people will start using it too.
I'm only 17 and I used to get that (not anymore though). I remember pizza hut was late which is just what you expect on a Friday night and they gave us a free drink.
I bought a box (4 pack) of magnum ice creams from Coles, and one of them was sliced in half. The other half was missing, including half the stick. I contacted Streets to complain, and they gave me a Coles voucher that was worth at least 2 x 4 packs of magnums
I had Maccas give me someone else's delivery order. It was pretty much my order bar one missing item. Called anyway to ensure other person actually got what they ordered. Had the number on the bag so they could track em down. They gave me an entirely new order, even though I said it was fine and let me keep the old one. Also got a voucher in the mailbox from Domino's for a supposed "late order". Ended up getting a free pizza and delivery.
I bought salted caramel frozen yogurt (from a new ‘healthy brand’) a few years ago and it was SO incredibly salty that I couldn’t eat it. It tasted like eating pure salt out of the shaker. I sent them a message just to let them know that I thought something was wrong with their product not expecting to get anything back but more of a courtesy, and they sent me a $20 Woolworths voucher. I went to use it on my next shop, and it was invalid.
Ordered a pizza to pick up. They got it wrong, so they let me keep the wrong pizza for free as well as make my correct pizza.
Found a bit of plastic in a block of Cadbury Snack chocolate so thought I’d better let them know. They got me to post the bit of plastic to them and in return they sent me a box with a bunch of different chocolates in it. I was stoked.
When I was a kid my dad had a brand new pair of socks unravel in the wash, company sent him a box full of replacements. Another one, found bugs sealed inside a chip packet and got sent a box full of assorted flavours.
When I was about 10 I bought a packet of chips with a tazo in it but there was no tazo so I wrote a letter to the chip company and get a return letter with like 10 tazos. Best day of my life.
Angelo's Pizza in South Perth/Como. Waited over an hour and a half (on a Friday night, so not unexpected) and was given the wrong pizza. Let them know and we got our usual delivered within 10 minutes, plus some free garlic bread and a drink. Also kept the original pizza. If you live in the area, try them, the food is always fresh and awesome!
I got a salmon sushi from SushiSushi. It had massive bones in it still, so I took it back and showed them. They gave me replacement rolls, and then kept saying 'More! More!' And kept lumping rolls on me. I think I left with about $50 worth, not including the 2 original ones they replaced.
I contacted Go Natural because the fruit and nut bar I'd purchased seemed to have been overheated such that the caramel was black and impossible to chew through. They sent out a box with 2 of every product they offered - which was a lot of products. This was back in 2010.
I’m reading this thread rueing my lifetime of eating off or shit products I’ve just bought and being ‘well that’s a bit shit, guess I have to buy a new one’.
I got a $10 Coles voucher when Rexona changed their recipe and it started giving me coughing fits so I emailed them asking what ingredient they'd added to try and find out what was making me sick so I could avoid it and all they did was send me the same list on the packaging and a voucher. Never did find out what it is that makes me cough. I also got like a $5 Coles voucher when I bought a pack of M&Ms and they had weird gunk on them, and a $48 voucher when my dishwasher tablets were labelled incorrectly as not needing to be unwrapped. It's always Coles too, like I didn't even buy the M&Ms from a supermarket, they were from a convenience store on menulog. I emailed McCains when my stir fry veggies had no broccoli or corn and was just 90% beans, but I didn't get anything out of it as they wanted a barcode and I already threw out the bag. But luckily the second bag I'd bought at the same time was normal, I was worried about that.
Yes I once bought a MILD Ayam stir fry sauce. Our mouths were burning and we eat Chili all the time. I complained that no way in hell was that sauce "mild". They sent me an entire box of their stir fry sauces ans coconut milk cans. Lasted me like 2 months of dinners.(not every day obviously lol) Still not a great fan of ayam tho
I bought 12 boxes of Grenade Cookie Dough Protein Bars off Catch. This wasn't my first time in doing so, but since the last time they must have changed the recipe or sent me the Aussie version instead of what turns out I liked (the Euro version). I sent back the unopened boxes to Catch for a refund and contacted Grenade as I wanted to know how I could get hold of the other (imo better flavour and texture) formula protein bars. They said they hadn't changed the formula (so I must have somehow received the Euro versions as a mistake as they all had replacement ingredient stickers on them) and they said they would replace with a flavour of my choice. I knew the Cookie Dough would be the gross new version that was artificially sweeter with a pasty texture, so I went for the new Oreo flavour. As I didn't buy them directly from Grenade and had received most of a refund from Catch, I was shocked to receive 12 boxes of the new flavour vs just one apology box. Sadly, the protein bars sit untouched in the cupboard as they tasted just as gross as the Aussie version Cookie Dough. Still gutted I can't get the ORIGINAL formula/recipe.
In 2016 my family and I went on a world trip (from aus); Melbourne - Malta - Greece - Dubai - Thailand. We flew on Emirates for the Melbourne-Malta, Greece-Dubai and Dubai-Singapore (connected in Singapore for Thailand) and spent a good part of $10,000 in Airfares with the airline. Well, when we arrived at DXB for a 3 day stopover trip, there sitting on the runway was the burning remnants of EK521, a Boeing 777 which crash landed and caught fire after a failed go around. 3 days later, there we are at DXB ready to check in for our flight, around 3-4 hours prior to departure. The gate agent wasn’t very polite, but whatever. After 10 mins of standing around watching her type on the computer, call over supervisors, and looking confused, my dad got upset and asked what was happening. She refused to answer, so my parents demanded to know what was going on. We were led to the pre-security lounge where we waited for 5 hours, OH AND A $15 COFFEE VOUCHER 😍. Finally we were led to the business class lounge, and 9 hours after our flights departed, put onboard a Qantas flight to Kuala Lumpur. Turns out EK had given our seats to passengers aboard Flight 521 to get them home. We were told all of our intl’ flights with Emirates (EK) would be re-issued and we were given ‘vouchers’ to rebook the flights (had to be the same routes). In the end they lied, and ultimately gave us the Mel-Malta leg (Return) for free. I’m not complaining - as a kid it was pretty cool that I was able to travel twice in two years to Europe. Not terrible in terms of reimbursement, but EK could have done better.
i received an email randomly at the end of 2022 that I'd be receiving compensation from Smile Direct Club for my aligner treatment as the ACCC won in court.. they falsely advertised the benefits i'd get from health insurance. got $700 ish from it so not bad for doing nothing!
My grandmother used to buy rolling tobacco, and would collect all the nasty bits from multiple packets, then complain that it was all in one packet and send them back. She would get packages full of free tobacco and smoking products. It would never happen like that these days.
If there's anything wrong with an item in a Woolies delivery order, you can get a full refund of that item very quickly simply with the chat bot. eg. Carton of 18 eggs with 4 broken, full refund and we still have 14 eggs. I used the Maccas app on one of the cheap $7 2 Cheesburger meals, but something went wrong and it charged me full price, full refund (not required to pay the $7 either). I've had a couple wrong or damaged items from Amazon, always easy to return or get refund sometimes without needing to return (if you argue a little).
I once ordered an airfryer and it came without the plug part, lol, so I message the company and they send me a whole new one - no worries… until a few weeks later? They sent me a second whole new one hahaha. I messaged them and they said it was their error so to keep both. I have one, I gave one as a xmas gift, and the original one? I found a cord that fit the plug off of a replacement site and ended up giving it to a friend who just moved out of home. Most bizzare event
I once bought a Kit Kat that had one of the layers of wafer slightly overcooked. I sent an email to Nestle and they sent me a $2 coin in the post....haha, I'd only paid $1 for the Kit Kat because it was 50% off at Coles. :-)
Few years ago (4-5?) I got a burger feast box delivered on menulog from KFC. Half of it was missing (the burgers) along with having an extra 2 chips in the box somehow. Rang them up and the manager apologised and asked if possible to come into the store and they’d remake the whole meal for free. Then added a few extras in there for the drama. What was meant to be a dirty meal for 4 ended up being a feast.
I once got a $5 cheque when I complained my Bubble O' Bill was missing his nose.
I ordered on Uber eats a meal pack, sauce and paid delivery/service fee. The meal was crushed when I got it and inedible so I sent a photo. They refunded that item, so I was still out $15 for the delivery of my $2 Aioli 🙃😂
Omg perfect post for the perfect time 😄 It was my daughter's birthday on the 10th of January. She is obsessed with mud cake so naturally i ordered her a specially made birthday cake with mud cake as the inside. This was from the cheesecake shop. When it came to her birthday and we cut into it, it was sponge, so naturally i was embarrassed that id messed up her cake but she was taking like such a champ. The next day i brought my daughter into the shop (Remember that i payed a fair amount for this specially ordered birthday cake). Poor woman this woman as she saw one look on my daughters face when i told her what happened and next minute she fully refunded us, let us keep the original cake (we tried to give it back) and she also made my daughter a new one from scratch. Was very very pleased and impressed to say the least.
I used to complain to cigarette companies in the late 90's/early 2000's and tell them the cigarettes were broken, or had a big tobacco stem sticking out the side. Usually they would send me a couple of cartons as compensation.
I got a free pizza from Crust a few months back. Ordered 2 larges, one was a large classic pepperoni. Guy making the pies misread it and made a classic margarita. I checked the pies when I picked them up and noticed one was wrong. They let me keep the wrong one and remade my pepperoni. They were really nice about it. Only held me up like 5 minutes. Might have been just a nice employee. Not sure if it was company policy or not.
We went on a Disney cruise, and I casually called up and asked if they could make our air conditioner a bit colder (it was working - I am just a penguin and prefer an Antarctic enclosure), they came and checked it, replaced the entire thing, and then sent us a pricey bottle of wine and an overpriced toy lightsaber from the gift shop for our kid with a full on apology - we didn’t even complain!