FREE NEWSLETTER
Go to main Forum page »
When I experience an issue with a food product, I don’t suffer in silence. While eating lunch at work in the late 1980s, I found what I thought to be a bug in my frozen turkey dinner. I mailed the specimen to the manufacturer, along with a cover letter that included a subtle attempt to mimic the comic style of the Lazlo Letters. I received some coupons and a boiler-plate apology, along what I thought was an unsatisfactory reply: “We sent your exhibit to our lab and they have informed us that it was a piece of fatty tissue with dark brown meat fibers adhering to the piece of fat.”
I showed the company’s letter to my co-workers and–goaded on a bit by them–I sent a response that stated in part: “Madam, I can assure you (along with about a dozen of my scientifically trained professional colleagues) that what I sent you was a “’roach or similar bug adhering to a crouton.’” Wisely, the company left the second letter unanswered.
I went through a brief period during which I was hyper-sensitive to anomalies in food items I’d purchased. When one of my Life Savers candies contained a suspicious dark spot, I sent it to the company with a request that they identify which kind of worm egg it was. The apologetic response: “The substance you discovered in your recent purchase of this variety was analyzed to be burnt sugar.” They also sent me two coupons for free Life Savers.
Another time, I found that the inner bag in my box of Life Cereal had not been sealed properly. Among other things, I told the company, “The cereal tastes okay, I guess, so I’m not demanding my money back or anything. I just thought you’d like to know.” Despite my soft touch, they did send me a replacement coupon or two.
The novelty of being such a stickler must have worn off, or maybe life just got too busy to be concerned about such minor trifles. Recently, however, I’ve been given reason to return to my old practice of holding food companies accountable.
A couple months ago, I found a piece of plastic wrap cooked into a relatively expensive enchilada frozen dinner made by a well-respected company. No longer having to pull out my typewriter to compose a formal letter, I just found the company on the internet and emailed them my complaint, along with a photo of the offending material. True to form, this company took the issue seriously, even sending me a mailer to provide their Quality Control department with the contraband. They also generously provided me with three replacement coupons. I was impressed.
Not long after that, I bought a container of a popular grape juice drink. It was horrible. I couldn’t even describe what the problem was…it was just not drinkable and was unlike any other containers of the juice I’d had before. I sent a quick email, received a follow-up asking for a little more information, and soon received a replacement coupon in the mail.
Since I’m now a “mature” individual, I no longer try to amuse myself by writing colorful or bizarre cover letters to companies when I find a problem. But with the extra time I have as a semi-retiree, doing my part to hold corporate America accountable for providing a safe and high-quality food supply seems like an activity worth engaging in. Especially when I get coupons.
Are there others in the HumbleDollar community who engage in similar activities? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.
I sent a letter to a company about a defective product that wouldn’t dispense properly.
I got a letter later they would replace it…. in a week or so, I received 2 boxes of 12 count dental floss string. Ok, well thank you…. ha ha!
I sure do. If I purchase a product and it fails to meet specifications, I let them know. Actually every time we write a company, we are helping them improve their products. A while back Kirkland batteries were terrible, I let Costco know and they did what they always do, give you a refund and in this case I had none of the batteries that corroded. My last few letters went to Nordstrom a messed up Gift card, Spectrum the Cloud DVR has many issues, Turbo Tax failed to work for E-file State Tax, Quicken stopped working for Target and Nordstrom credit cards auto downloads, Verizon issues with Hot Spots. In at least 90% of the situations I get a refund or at least a good explanation of what is happening. I write to the President of the company and never waste time on the telephone.
William, you mentioned Verizon in your list. I received an electronic debit card (Mastercard) from Verizon as part of a class action settlement. It is worth all of $14.81 and can be used for online purchases only. Well, Amazon won’t accept it and based on some buzz I’ve read in other forums, lots of people are having issues with not being able to use their settlement cards. I don’t have any energy to pursue the issue but my perceptions of both Verizon and Mastercard have taken a hit.
My mother-in-law (now deceased) used to send letters to companies when she purchased an inferior product. My wife has told me stories of “the company man” coming to their home with a replacement product and sincere apologies. Sadly, those days are gone, but I’ve followed in her footsteps mostly through the company website’s comments section. I’ve even done it repeatedly with a well-known English muffin which was bought out by the largest bakery company in the U.S. The muffins are still not as good, but at least they’re cheap or free with my coupons.
Your post has me thinking about English muffins. I enjoy a certain well-known brand and have yet to experience any dissatisfaction. I was introduced to them almost 50 years ago when I helped out at a camp in New Hampshire. The owner of the muffin company donated an essentially unlimited supply to the camp. Thus every meal, it seemed, featured English muffins: English muffin pizzas, English muffin sandwiches, and for breakfast, French English muffin toast-a favorite.
Way back in the 1970s, my beer of choice for at-home consumption was Stroh’s in long-neck returnable bottles. One evening I opened a bottle, took a swig and nearly gagged. I thought it was a cigar in the bottle, poured out the beer, and wrote a letter to Stroh’s HQ in Detroit. A week or so later a distributor came to our house. I still had the offending bottle. He checked it and found that instead of a cigar, it was a cleaning brush that had broken off during the cleaning and sanitizing process. He took the bottle and left me with a certificate for a case of their beer. Shortly thereafter, I switched to canned beer. And yes, I recycle the aluminum cans.
That’s quite a story and I almost gagged in sympathy while reading the cigar part. One consolation is that the problem likely was not a result of human error or misbehavior. The personal touch of a visit combined with a free case seems like an appropriate remedy.
The first time I communicated with a food company about their product was when I was around 10. In the early 1970s, there was a new cereal called ‘Freakies’ that had a clever marketing campaign featuring short cartoons starring the seven Freaky characters. The back of the box contained fascinating (to kids like me) descriptions of each character’s personality. The sweet cereal was okay, but I was obsessed with collecting a full set of the plastic Freaky figurines included in each box. I managed to obtain six, even resorting to buying boxes with my own money. Finally, in frustration, I sent a glowing letter to the cereal manufacturer, telling them how much I loved their cereal and the Freakies characters. I requested that they send me the final Freaky I needed for my collection. I signed off with “Freakies Forever!”. A few weeks later I received a package that contained the elusive figurine, completing my set. The colorful letterhead on the response letter featured the phrase, “Freakies are Forever!” Of course, I just knew I must have given them the idea for that. PS: A full set of Freakies figurines goes for $150 on eBay these days.
My husband and sister, riding the subway home from work together in the ‘80’s, once found a clump of blue mold floating inside the can of cola that one of them was hoping (or had started) to sip. I believe we sent the mold to the company who did as detailed here: sent an apologetic letter, some coupons and a reassuring message that, while distasteful, the mold, if ingested, would not have had health consequences.
There is of course this master of the complaint/counter-complaint
https://27bslash6.com/massanutten.html
That’s laugh-out-loud funny!
Thanks for the humorous link. We had dinner at a pub in Massanutten a few years ago-great burger, as I recall. Walked around town a bit also, but can’t say we saw any bears that resembled the one pictured.
Ken, you are either the most observant consumer I’ve heard of, or the unluckiest.
My first consumer letter was sent at age 13, after a small spring in the handle of my lightly-used ultra-light spinning reel broke. I consulted the expanded parts diagram to determine the part number, then sent a letter to the manufacturer asking for a replacement. I offered to pay, but they sent an apology and a new spring. It was a good lesson for a young boy.
In the 80’s, we remodeled the kitchen in our first home, installing new cabinets. One by one, the hardware attaching the doors began to break. We were able to kind of fix them, but eventually many of the doors hung crooked. When we went to sell the house ten years later, the cabinet company told me that they had discontinued that hardware after using it very briefly, but I would have to send them all the broken pieces for them to send me replacements. However, before I could even remove and mail them, the box of replacements arrived. No further contact from the cabinet company. I’m thinking someone with good sense said “Can you believe they dealt with that faulty hardware for ten years? What are we gonna do with them? Just send the replacements.”
Nice work, young Edmund, and kudos to the fishing reel company. I imagine they gained your lasting goodwill by responding like that.
Generally, no. For one thing, I very rarely find problems. However, I am getting ready to send a complaint to the NYT’s Wirecutter product testing group. I had a Braun toaster for many years that consistently produced a properly cooked single slice of toast. It finally expired, and I bought Wirecutter’s top pick. It may do fine with two pieces of toast, but it is hopeless with one. One side is cooked before the other has even changed color, plus it has a tendency to burn the crust on one side. Hard to believe they ever tested it with one slice.
Braun no longer makes toasters. If anyone has a current brand that can cook a single slice properly, please post!
Get an oven toaster, it is fine with one, or with 4 slices of bread. Yep you guessed it, cost more that 2 slice toaster. But you can adjust as you please and cook many things in it. Breville Toaster Oven, are you ready $270, but if you want low cost, go to Walmart and buy an $8 Rival toaster, it does OK for just single or double.
I didn’t know Braun made toasters. I’ve had several of their electric razors, as IMHO theirs are the best out there. Looks like if you want to avoid the China-made stuff and get a top quality toaster you should look at Dualit brand, made in England. Pricey though.
Sadly, Braun no longer makes toasters. Mine was very old.
Thanks for the suggestion, but for $300 I think I’ll continue to flip the toast part way through! (Or is that unnecessary frugality?)
You gave me my chuckle of the day, Kathy. Gloomy and rainy here in northeastern PA, so thanks for some sunshine and keep flipping that single slice of toast. 😊
It looks like maybe Braun still sells them overseas…but they probably run on 50 Hz or have a European plug. I’m with you…not spending $300 to solve that particular first world problem.
Ken, can you tell me where to find the Life Saver Brûlée flavor? Creme Brulee is one of my favorite desserts.
I got involved in some 6-sigma quality control analysis late in my career. Satellites are very specialized products, but they do have many parts. It was a challenge to figure out what were appropriate metrics for measuring our quality. We tried to apply it to our detailed engineering drawings, where each line, callout, and part was an opportunity for a failure. I remember thinking what it must be like to work in a mass-produced product line, like lightbulbs or food. Even a very tiny failure rate would still lead to a large number of absolute failures.
In the 1980s I attended a leadership conference for GE. I met some engineers from GE’s jet aircraft engine group. Their feelings about a product failure made a lasting impression on me.
You may need to settle for Butter Rum, Rick.
My maternal grandfather quit smoking by substituting Life Saver Crysto Mints. He would buy them by the box. There were always mints around when we visited. Great memory.
My great grandmother was an immigrant from Aberdeen Scotland. When we visited she would give each of us a small tin of mints sort of in the shape of a flying saucer.
I remember when they had a pack called Assort-O-Mint, with four different mint flavors in each roll. My all-time favorite.
I’ve always been suspicious of such offerings, like the little tub of jelly labeled “mixed fruit”. I wonder if it’s just a way to package leftovers instead of tossing them out?
To me, it’s more like having a variety of Starburst flavors in the pack versus getting all strawberry. A “mixed mint” flavor, now that might have been interesting.
I tend to be a bit of a maniacal consumer myself and have sent a fair number of similar emails to companies whose food or other products have been seriously defective. I find it very helpful in deciding what kind of company it is to see how responsive it is to its customers.
If all else fails, email the CEO. You can usually either find their email address on the web or figure it out once you know the format used by the company (e.g., John.Smith@XYZ.com). I’ve found that going to the top often produces the best response of all.
Andrew, your last suggestion is a great technique to keep in the back pocket.
As a schoolboy in England, I used to send proof of poor quality to manufacturers, notably makers of crisps (as potato chips are known in the UK). Schoolboy legend said this was a sure way to get a gigantic box of the offending product. But, alas, it was merely that — a legend.
Did you receive any kind of compensation or acknowledgement? I can’t think of any time where I was not provided with some kind of coupon for my troubles.
I remember getting letters, but never the box of crisps I imagined!
Maybe the schoolboy legend worked against you…too many young amateur QC inspectors angling for the big score.