What readers' of the Pricewatch blog had to say this week...

Pressure on Tesco to fulfil ‘free gift’ promise

VALERIE ENNIS got in touch with us to see if we could resolve a long-running issue she has had with Tesco. “I’ve had no success in solving it myself,” she writes.

She bought Tesco car insurance in August 2009 when there was an offer which entitled new customers to a free Karcher pressure washer. She said the offer was heavily advertised on the Tesco website and in in-store leaflets. “I wanted a pressure washer so I got a quote which was €63 less than my current premium with Aviva .” As the pressure washer was worth about €100 she reckoned she’d save over €150 by making the switch – it also helped that she was already insured and happy with Aviva, the company underwriting the Tesco polcy, so she felt she had nothing to lose by changing.

To get the pressure washer Tesco was supposed to post her a letter explaining delivery or collection options. “When my letter didn’t arrive by the end of September, I rang the helpline. I was told I should get my letter (which acts as your voucher to collect the washer from Karcher in west Dublin) within eight weeks. My letter never arrived.” She called the helpline again but it was no longer operational as the offer had ended. So she called Tesco car insurance – which is actually Aviva. “Naturally they couldn’t help,” she writes, but they advised her to contact a named Tesco employee.

“The receptionist at Tesco head office told me she wasn’t at liberty to put me through to him and advised me to contact Tesco customer care, which I did. Customer care said they couldn’t deal with personal finance product issues and told me to contact 1890 812 123, which is RSA insurance who now do the underwriting for Tesco car insurance. Obviously they didn’t know anything about the offer.”

She tried head office again and was given a Tesco employee’s email address. She emailed him a couple of times but did not get a reply. All she wants is to get what she was promised by Tesco when she switched her car insurance. “I suspect I am not the only customer in this situation. Any help you can give me with this would be very much appreciated .”

We contacted Tesco to see what was going on and a spokewoman said that, following our intervention, the store had investigated our reader’s complaint “and it appears that due to an operational fault” she did not receive her pressure washer. The spokeswoman apologised and said Tesco had “organised to have a courier deliver the pressure washer to Ms Ennis’s home”.

EuroMillions costs seem something of a lottery

A READER who plays EuroMillions contacted us last week because he believed Irish people were being ripped off by the National Lottery – and not just because they slickly sell dreams which are, let’s face it, very unlikely to come true.

This reader was annoyed because, he said, people in the Republic were being charged €2 for EuroMillions tickets while the same tickets in the UK cost £1, yet people there were entitled to the same prize money as us. He also complained that the EuroMillion Plus costs €3 here, and just £1.50 in the UK.

We contacted the National Lottery who were quick to reassure our reader he had got the wrong end of the stick. “Firstly, there is no EuroMillions Plus game in the UK,” a spokeswoman said, somewhat tersely. “This game is exclusive to Ireland. Secondly, EuroMillions costs £2 per play in the UK, not £1.” She said for the extra cost that players in the UK were entered into a draw for a prize of £1 million each week. So, nothing to worry about there then.

Supermarket tissue offer is one to be sneezed at

JOHN OH was in Tesco in Dublin’s Jervis Centre last week when he came across rather bizarre pricing on a six-pack of Kleenex pocket tissues. “It costs €1.35 per pack of six, or €3 for two packs of six, which works out at 15c more per pack of six than if you were to buy one. Incidentally, the cost of a pack of six at the €1.35 price is 36c more than the 99c price at Tesco in Dolphin’s Barn about two months ago.”