Press "Enter" to skip to content

Tag: tesco

Fun: Banned from Tescos

October 2, 2008
Comments closed

Dan Hardiker posted about Tesco Antics which just had me bursting out laughing. I’ve got no idea if this is fact or fiction (and isn’t it just a little scary that I can’t tell?):

Dear Mrs. Murray,

While we thank you for your valued custom and use of the Tesco Loyalty Card, the Manager of our store in Banbury is considering banning you and your family from shopping with us, unless your husband stops his antics.

Below is a list of offences over the past few months all verified by our surveillance

1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people’s trolleys when they weren’t looking.
2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to feminine products aisle.
4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official tone, ‘Code 3’ in housewares….. and watched what happened.
5. August 14: Moved a ‘CAUTION – WET FLOOR’ sign to a carpeted area.
6. September 15: Set up a tent in the outdoor clothing department and told shoppers he’d invite them in if they would bring sausages and a Calor gas stove.
7. September 23: When the Deputy Manager asked if she could help him, he began to cry and asked, ‘Why can’t you people just leave me alone?’
8. October 4: Looked right into the security camera; used it as a mirror, picked his nose, and ate it.
9. November 10: While appearing to be choosing kitchen knives in the House wares aisle asked an assistant if he knew where the antidepressants were.
10. December 3: Darted around the store suspiciously, loudly humming the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme.
11. December 6: In the kitchenware aisle, practised the ‘Madonna look’ using different size funnels.
12. December 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed, yelled ‘PICK ME!’ ‘PICK ME!’
13. December 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, assumed the foetal position and screamed ‘NO! NO! It’s those voices again.’

And; last, but not least:

14. December 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited a while; then yelled, very loudly, ‘There is no toilet paper in here.’

Yours sincerely,

Charles Brown
Store Manager

Thank You Tesco for the cheap Lexmark printer

January 3, 2008
Comments closed

I’d just like to say thank you to Tesco’s Beaumont Leys store for supplying me with a Lexmark Wireless All-In-One X4850 printer for just £69.97 – it should retail for £129.99 according to Lexmark (and, according to Tesco, £129.97).

So how do I get it so cheap? Well, I saw a yellow “Discount” shelf edge label promoting the printer for £99.97 so I thought, since I’ve been looking for a cheapish wireless printer for a while, I’ll buy it. Got to the checkout and it was rang up for the normal full price of £129.97. So I wander over to the Electrics customer services – point out that they’ve overcharged me by £30 and they check and agree. They then remind me (although I hadn’t forgotten and would have reminded them if necessary) that Tesco’s pricing promise means that if they make a pricing mistake – you get refunded double the difference. So my £30 over-payment became a £60 credit in my favour.

I’ve just finished setting it up, and the setup was very simple (hardest part was finding where in the house to situate it) and it works well with our SSID hidden WPA2 protected wireless network (much better than the Nokia N95 Series 1 phone which needed the SSID to be visible). Print quality is as good as you would expect from an inkjet on nearly 10 year old cheap 80gsm white laser copier paper (I brought a whole box full from Office World when I was at college and I’ve still got over a ream left) and scanning seems ok. Only disappointment is that the PictBridge software on the printer won’t talk directly to my Japanese-brought Ricoh Capilo RX camera over USB: I’ve got to eject the SD card and insert it into the printer: but at least it gives the option to manipulate/change the photo a bit (borders/frame, red eye reduction, cropping, rotation etc).

Not too bad for £69.97 IMHO!

Interesting Insurance….

July 3, 2007
Comments closed

My partner and I (cool, I sound like the Queen) are currently reviewing our car insurance policies and so we’re just getting a few quotes.

So I proceeded (now I sound like a police man) over to Tesco.com and used their car insurance policy quoting system. Underwritten by “UK Insurance Limited (UKI)” and with a URL in the format https://uk1.tesco-insurance.co.uk/insurance/motor/PLBxxx/yourdetails.do;jsessionid=sss we received a quote of £469.39. Not bad, but I wondered if my bank (Nationwide) could beat that quote – so I went and used their insurance quotation system…

Nationwide Car Insurance is underwritten by Churchill, but also has URLs in the format https://uk1.u-k-i.com/insurance/motor/PLBxxx/yourdetails.do;jsessionid=sss . Hang on – those URLs look familar, and could U-K-I stand for UK Insurance Limited as used by Tesco… I wonder how we managed the much lower quote of £387.45 from what appears to be the same company with the same details (even the excesses from Nationwide were lower!).

U-K-I.com appears to be registered by RBS INSURANCE SERVICES LTD (rbs.co.uk) via Netnames. Same as churchill.co.uk (where we earlier got a quote of £413). So Churchill= UK Insurance Limited (UKI) = Royal Bank of Scotland.

So three quotes from between £469.39 to £387.45 for the same drivers, the same car, at the same address – all from essentially the same company… Interesting….

Things like this make me want to spend time finding out out of all the many insurance companies out there, who are actually “differently owned” from the others. But I’ve got better things to do with my time (as my GF lays her hand on my shoulder and reads what I write 😉 ).