Woolworths honours cancelled points after competition mistake

A Woolworths customer among 79,000 people mistakenly sent a winning email has been re-rewarded after simply asking that the supermarket giant honour the earlier win.

Angela London, of Blenheim, was one of thousands of disgruntled Woolworths customers who were left upset last week after the supermarket told them they had won 4000 points in the store’s Everyday Rewards card system.

The prize, $30 worth of free groceries, should have gone to only 1000 customers.

London said that, instead of accepting a subsequent apology note – and 500 points – she contacted the supermarket’s customer service team.

She wrote: “Hi there, I won one of the Big Night In and then had it revoked. I received the email revoking it, but I believe you should be honouring it, please.”

Image / Supplied

Instead of meeting any resistance, she was asked some security questions before receiving another message reading: “I have added 3500 points to your Everyday Rewards card. It should take up to five business days to reflect.”

London said the extra points – labelled “goodwill points” – were in her account within an hour.

After last week’s points mishap, Woolworths issued a statement acknowledging the mistake and saying a full review would be carried out to prevent it from recurring.

Asked how many customers had the revoked points re-rewarded or honoured, a Woolworths spokesman said: “Our customer care team have discretion to de-escalate situations where they feel that is necessary because of the way in which a customer has reacted to the mistake.

“We have given all customers who were mistakenly emailed 500 Everyday Rewards points to apologise and make it right.”

London acknowledged it would have been a good thing to honour the mistaken points in the first place. Although it would have been costly to do so, customers would have used those points in their local Woolworths anyway, she said.

She wondered whether she was given the 3500 points because she was polite when asking. Whatever the reason, she was grateful to have an extra discount for the family’s next big shop.

“I’ll be using them to treat the family to some things that we can’t normally afford at the moment; that we forgo for the essentials. It was a lovely bonus.”