h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I purchased a 'meal deal' at Kettering's Boots branch last friday (22nd October), comprising a 'meal deal' stickered sandwich ('Delicious Roast Chicken'), a bottle of coke and a bag of Walkers Max crisps, and when I attempted to pay, I was told that this does not count as a 'meal deal'. Upon my investigation into the reason why, I was told that a bag of Walkers Max crisps does not count under the heading "Any Walkers crisps". I would like to enquire why a bag of crisps produced by Walkers should not be included under the heading of "any Walkers crisps".

Further to this, upon replacing my bag of non-Walkers Walkers crisps with an accepted bag of actual-Walkers Walkers crisps, I left the shop, opened my sandwich and bit into a bone.

I looked all over the packaging, and could not find a warning which stated that the product may contain bones, and if the bone had been positined around 5 millimetres to the right, you would be recieving my dentistry bill for the replacement of front tooth which was weakened by an accident a couple of years ago. As it was, I only had to endure a throbbing pain in my front left tooth for the rest of the day. Fortunately, there does not seem to be any lasting damage.

Having experienced these two unlucky events in the space of a few minutes, I feel it is only prudent to advise you to amend your notices instore to the effect that the term "any Walkers crisps" does not actually include "any" Walkers crisps, and list the exceptions (or the adherences, should this be easier), and to make it a little more obvious that bones may be present in your sandwiches to reduce the risk of tooth breakage, choking and dentistry bills.

Thank you for your time,

Thomas Briggs

Is this place actually run by British folks or is it run but Indian, Pakistanis, or other foreigners? You might have actually been transported to a foreign country when you went through the door into the sub-continent. There English is a second language and words dont mean the samething as next door or down the street.

Sorry about the tooth hope everything is better.

On the other hand it will be better if you a) write a letter of complaint insisting upon getting a free meal with the actual agreed upon contents instead of some substitute or b) file a law suit accusing them of assault and battery on your tooth and ask for millions in damages or c) forget the whole thing and keep on getting poor service in this place. Your choice good luck

Ouch...

this is generally where I would gloat about how great it is to be a veggie But I won't because that sounded somewhat painful

There must be some odd temporal annomaly in which "any Walkers" actually meas "specified Walkers"....

For dim25trav... You're in AmericaLand, right? Boots is vaguely like Walgreens and Walker's Crisps are really Lays

Thanks E.E. for the heads up I would never have known without your giving me the info.

I do know that the UK have been invaded with those foreign types in the past (It must have been a long time ago because it has been since the eighties when I was in the UK last time) and so many of lower paid posiitons have been filled with Paki's and Indians. Not that I'm a racist but face it, is English culture the same since this invasion?

Our "meal deals" are with Mc Donalds and Subway sandwiches. Who have added MILK to the menu! amazing. Just last night I heard a report that the milk has more calories than the soda (what they failed to report is that the milk actually has nutrition instead of actually removing the said nutrients from the bodies of the drinkers)

Go figure
Adieu

We have the McDonalds and Subway meal deals too. They're everywhere...

I'm not going to do any more about it because I didn't keep the bone and therefore wouldn't get anywhere with it. Just felt like sending an arsey email to them

TK[1]

I've gotten free meals when I sent emails of complaint even without the bone. I even got free food from Subway for making a suggestion that they didn't even use.

Give it a try at least?!?

I got a response:

"Thank you for emailing us. If you need to contact us again, please quote your customer reference number [Removed cos I don't want you all making out of MY complaint!]

I'm sorry to hear that you found a bone in the Chicken Sandwich you bought from us and you have my sincere apologies.

Our trained staff take great care while manually stripping the meat from the bone. This is followed by a further visual inspection of the meat to remove any remaining bone. However, we are aware that it's possible for small bones to go unnoticed and so a warning is included on our packs.

Nevertheless, we're very concerned that in spite of the extreme care taken, the bone still escaped detection. I can assure you that we're taking it seriously and have made our supplier aware of what's happened. They'll do everything possible to further reduce the risk of it happening again.

I understand your disappointment that the Walkers Max Crisps are not included in our meal deal. I have passed your comments about the display material to our lunchtime foods marketing team. They have advised me that exclusions are printed on the display material but they will look into this further.

Thanks for taking the time to let me know about this.

Kind regards,

[Removed for privacy's sake]"

Well, all I can say to that* is 'TOOK YOUR BLOODY TIME, DIDN'T YOU!?!?'They promise a reply within "two working days"- I posted the original journal entry minutes after sending it to Boots, and I'm posting this response literally seconds after it has appeared in my inbox. The dates are shown, you can work it out for yourselves.

Also... very nice of you to take so much care and attention to detail over making sure there are no bones, but it DIDN'T WORK, DID IT? There was a SODDING BONE IN MY SANDWICH! And it wasn't a small bone. It was half a leg. Well, O.k, maybe not quite that big, but it was still considerable, in sandwhich scales. AND THERE WASN'T A WARNING! THAT WAS MY COMPLAINT! I SCOURED THE ENTIRE PACKAGE! There wasn't even a hint of the thought of the possibility that the sandwich may contain anything other than roast chicken flesh!

You obviously do not understand my disappointment. My disappointment was not that Walkers Max crisps are not included. My disappointment was that it didn't say anywhere that they weren't included, and I picked them up, chose my sandwich and drink, trekked over to the till, queued (there is ALWAYS a queue in our local Boots store, regardless of whether there are any customers), attempted to pay and then encountered a problem- the till's price was different to my own, mentally calculated price. Normally I'd just shut up, but this was one of those cases where the till's price was bigger than mine- not having that. So after this, the girl behind the till had to find another member of staff to ask her what was wrong. She said Walkers Max weren't included. I asked her where it said this. She looked, but couldn't see any more than I could where it said that, but she said it said it anyway**.

So I thought sod it, changed the crisps and bought the 'meal'. I went back in a couple of days later and had a goooood look for a sign saying Walkers Max weren't included. Did I find one? No. I went in last week (soome time after sending my initial complaint), and lo and behold... clear as day, a sign indicating that Walkers Max weren't included.

So they waited just long enough to reply so that they could make out I'M in the wrong. Typical British customer services. The customer is always totally, undeniably wrong. And if he isn't, we'll just engineer it so that he looks like he is.

TK[1]



*Yes, yes, well obviously I thought of more to say afterwards.

** In the bottom drawer in a locked cupboard in a disused toilet marked 'beware of the leopard, no doubt'...

Persevere.

It took two letters of complaint to a travel company for me [erm, I mean, my family of course] to get any kind of compensation. And boy did they take their time...

I'm not trying to get anything out of them, I was just feeling contrary.

TK[1]