Ever complained and received complimentary freebies?

Darkwave · 9 Jul 2007 at 19:32

#1: During my last couple of months with Virgin Media, I got extremely annoyed at their rapidly-declining quality of service and called them a few times to cut off my services with them. They made some nice price cuts for me as is the norm with them these days, but unfortunately they still simply failed to be competative.

#2: I found pieces of sharp metal in some sausage while I was eating my tea when I was a kid. I can't remember who made them, but they sent us quite a lot of frozen sausage and other meat stuff with a letter of apology.

#3: We recently bought a Samsung SyncMaster monitor and two Samsung Bordeaux 32" HDTVs and were so impressed with the little blue cleaning wipes they include in the boxes that we called them and asked where to buy them, they sent us a box full. Not a complaint, but it was awesome.

Azagoth · 9 Jul 2007 at 19:37

Ulfhedjinn said:
#3: We recently bought a Samsung SyncMaster monitor and two Samsung Bordeaux 32" HDTVs and were so impressed with the little blue cleaning wipes they include in the boxes that we called them and asked where to buy them, they sent us a box full. Not a complaint, but it was awesome.

Oooh, may try that one myself. What Samsung number did you call?

Darkwave · 9 Jul 2007 at 20:05

Azagoth said:
Oooh, may try that one myself. What Samsung number did you call?

Can't remember, it was the general enquiries number in one of the instruction books.

Azagoth · 9 Jul 2007 at 20:06

Cool, I still have the books for my Sammy LCD TV lying around. I'll take a peak later.

Dave85 · 9 Jul 2007 at 20:58

complained about them removing original flavourd volvic, got a letter saying its being re-introduced and lots of vouchers for free water.

millsy888 · 9 Jul 2007 at 21:16

Had a kit kat once that had no biscuit in it

They sent me a 6 pack of kit kats free, after i complained

J1234 · 9 Jul 2007 at 21:21

cheets64 said:
Once got sent a big box of kit kats because i had bought a bar and a couple of fingers where solid chocolate.

Just eaten a solid one a few minutes ago

fail at the internets · 9 Jul 2007 at 21:25

Did you ask for compensation when you did this or was it automatically offered? and is it more effective to complain via email or letter?

Hyper · 9 Jul 2007 at 21:27

I complained to kit kat after buying one that was fully chocolate, they sent me a £5 voucher to spend on more kit kats

Just read through and it seems this is a common problem lol.

HangTime · 9 Jul 2007 at 23:07

In my 27 years of life I've only ever once felt the need to complain to the manager in a restaurant/diner (and I've eaten in some pretty crappy places before now).

However an absolutely appalling experience in Chicago Rock (false advertising, poor communication, deceit, passing off dishes as something it wasn't, ill-informed waitresses, slow service) I ended up getting everything for free, some free drinks vouchers and a discount food token.

However, it was such a utter bunch of turd that we didn't want to spend another second in there, refused the offer of more free drinks from the bar and never set foot in there again.

Darkwave · 9 Jul 2007 at 23:19

HangTime said:
In my 27 years of life I've only ever once felt the need to complain to the manager in a restaurant/diner (and I've eaten in some pretty crappy places before now).

I've never felt the need to complain to resturant staff about a meal, but one time I did eat at a place in St. Anne's who served us smelly food on dirty plates with greasy/dirty utensils about 45min after ordering. Kids food was worse and they got straws in their coke with lipstick on them.

Didn't complain to the staff, just left all our food on the table and rang the health services or whatever when we got home. They got shut down not long after, good riddance.

daz · 9 Jul 2007 at 23:28

I once ordered a half and half pizza from Domino's... when it arrived, it wasn't half an half, but just the same all over. Complained to Domino's via the web... received a letter of apology and two free any pizza any size vouchers. :cool:

Jonny ///M · 9 Jul 2007 at 23:50

Seems its quite good to complain with all this free stuff. Never really had the need to complain about much but my grandparents and auntie had a meal at a pub and the baked potato was dire for some reason. At the end of the meal they mentioned it to a memeber of staff and they got told that the guy would "tell him about it later" lol. Didnt go back there.

I was at a family inn type affair the other day and got served a chicken thing instead of tuna. Didnt kick up a fuss just ate the chicken as i like it anyway.....

Reality|Bites · 10 Jul 2007 at 00:17

Azagoth said:
Not a complaint as such, but I once drunkenly wrote a letter to UniLever asking why in the 'Original Curry' flavour Pot Noodle the sachet of sauce wasn't sufficent a size to flavour the entire tasty snack.

Anyhow, being a drunken thing after a Friday night out I forgot all about it until a month or so later when I recieved a voucher for 24 Pot Noodles and a very funny letter explaining the 'mathematics' of the Noodle to Sauce ratio.

Winn0r!

You should have written a letter asking why they stopped put a little slit in the sachet as you now have to use your teeth,scissors or my personal favourite a pair of nail clippers to open it.

teulk · 10 Jul 2007 at 00:21

Had a box of Cadburys Minature Heros and they tasted really disgusting, i rang cadburys and they asked me too send a few off to them - got £10 pounds worth of cadburys vouchers for my troubles

Reality|Bites · 10 Jul 2007 at 00:26

Any of you guys seen the movie Waiting?

If so remember the scene where the blond bitch of a customer was giving the waitress a hard time?

bledd · 10 Jul 2007 at 10:54

if you send a tactful letter in, or even a funny poem, i'm sure you'll get something back

penski · 10 Jul 2007 at 12:11

When I were a lad, I saved up my paper round, pot scrubbing and woodyard gopher money and bought a portable Sony minidisc player/recorder so I could sneakily bootleg gigs (i had a pair of stereo mics that I could subtly clip on to my glasses...then just stand near the desk and get a good recording).

Anyhoo, I filled in the warranty registration card thingy and sent it off.

a few weeks later, I got a parcel with ten blank minikdiscs in.

being a nice young chap, I wrote a letter saying thanks for them as nowhere in the product literature did it mention free MDs.

a couple of weeks later I got another twenty minidiscs in.

so I wrote another letter saying thanks.

...and got another letter back saying "don't push your luck."

*n

R B Customs · 10 Jul 2007 at 12:37

dont think ive ever got any free stuff, but i reckon im soon gonna be the proud owner of like 50 tubs of smarties ice cream with all the blue ones taken out!

rb

J1234 · 10 Jul 2007 at 12:39

penski said:
When I were a lad, I saved up my paper round, pot scrubbing and woodyard gopher money and bought a portable Sony minidisc player/recorder so I could sneakily bootleg gigs (i had a pair of stereo mics that I could subtly clip on to my glasses...then just stand near the desk and get a good recording).

Anyhoo, I filled in the warranty registration card thingy and sent it off.

a few weeks later, I got a parcel with ten blank minikdiscs in.

being a nice young chap, I wrote a letter saying thanks for them as nowhere in the product literature did it mention free MDs.

a couple of weeks later I got another twenty minidiscs in.

so I wrote another letter saying thanks.

...and got another letter back saying "don't push your luck."

*n

Wtf, why were they sending them to you?