There is no special reward on finding bugs in salads

[AngryFaery]

I usually get 2-3 calls a week with complaints from people finding bugs in their bagged salads. It happens. I apologize and compensate the person sending them on their way.

This fellow I had took it to another level. He deliberately purchased a bagged salad where he could see a bug in it. Rather than informing the store manager, he bought it and then called us. His excuse was that the manager couldn't do anything about fixing it and he wanted to report it.

He had no receipt or card to confirm proof of purchase. Both my next level agent and I agree reluctantly to compenate him for the salad.

He then tries to get me to say a blanket statement assuring him it will never happen again. I told him that I can't do that since the veggies grow OUTSIDE with the BUGS and no amount of washing will keep them all out. We do our best to screen them out but they do get through.

Since he was not successful in getting me to the blanket statement trap, he tries to get me to give him double the amount. Seriously? No. You intentionally bought a bad product and are trying to use that to get extra money for it. You called us because the store would offer a thanks and you wanted something extra. Finding a bug does not equal winning the lottery.

[sirwired]

And what's funny is that it's very common for stores to issue double money-back on unsatisfactory produce, meat, and dairy.

[WishfulSpirit]

I don't return stuff all that often so I'm not sure but I don't think anyone around here has that policy. Exchange or money back, that's it.

[Aria]

Huh. When I find a bug in my salad, I toss the bug outside and eat the salad. I never even thought of demanding a refund. I mean, I'm eating organic salad and look, an organic bug! It's fresh!

Is that odd?

[Aria]

And what's funny is that it's very common for stores to issue double money-back on unsatisfactory produce, meat, and dairy.

Not where I live. I had to return rotten mussels once and I just got my money back.

[notalwaysright]

There are certain packaged foods which are very difficult to completely separate from their environment. Dried beans, for example. I always pick through them, and yes I have found stones before. Salads have the hazard of bugs.

If a person finds something crazy in a salad, like a finger, that's different. But a bug? No. I've heard that people have found frogs or spiders and I'd probably throw the whole bag out at that point. *shudder* I don't know if I've ever returned food to the grocery store, but I haven't had anything spoiled or otherwise messed up.

[AngryFaery]

Generally the store will reimburse you for the cost of the item or allow you to exchange it. However we are all encouraged to do a little extra. Which means we reward those who whine so they don't cause a scene.

Bugs are normal in bagged and pre-packaged salads. We have people who act like finding a bug has just ruined the rest of their life and made their family hate them. We give them a little extra to keep them happy. We generally side on the side of the customer within reason. No we aren't giving you a $25 gift card because there is a bug. We don't offer bounties on them. Yes, I know you will go to social media with it and tell everyone you won't shop with us anymore. Good luck with that.

One of the odder ones I had was a lady who found what she thought was a spider smooshed in the top of her ice cream. Its unusual but okay. I give her a little extra and send her on her way. She called back later and got another rep. They told the rep they had an expert look at the spider and it wasn't really a spider but a finger tip. And now she was getting a lawyer. She got sent to the dept that handles illness, injuries, damages and outragous claims. None of get paid enough to deal with that level of crazy.

[sirwired]

Huh; I guess the "Double back on Meat/Dairy/Produce" is unique in my area. (The main chain I shop at prides themselves on those items.)

I feel almost embarrassed sometimes, because it's always on the tag price. You buy it on BOGOF? You get double the tag price back, meaning you get quadruple your money back. (And they know how much you paid, as it's on your loyalty card and the receipt.) I got $20 back for a $5 Pork Tenderloin once. (And for the BOGOF sales, it's really 50% off, you don't actually have to get two; the only difference is that the discount comes off at the end of the transaction instead of it being a line-item discount. Only B[more than one]G[some number] require the purchase of the listed quantity.)

But yeah, plants sometimes have bugs in them. It happens. (Heck, on bags of dried beans, they explicitly tell you to sift through them to make sure there aren't any rocks.)

[nutraxfornerves]

A while back I found a big piece of what looked like a plastic gear in a bagged salad. What was funny was that a couple of weeks earlier, I had toured the salad bagging plant.

Well, sort of toured. They were paranoid about cleanliness, so we had to look on from windows on a higher level. The goal of the plant was to have lettuce (or whatever) in a bag in the fridge no later than 45 minutes after the truck showed up with the raw produce--about an hour and a half after the stuff was picked.

The produce went through a couple of washings, one of which included a human-safe disinfectant. That would have gotten rid of most of those of the insect persuasion, but I can see how a few might have escaped, dead, of course, but still in the mix. The last thing that happened before the bags went into the fridge, was a pass through a metal detector

The workers were all kitted out in space suits. Hair nets and beard nets. No jewelry or hair pins. Wedding rings were OK since they wore gloves. There was some provision for religious stuff, but I've forgotten it.

I called customer service. The guy I talked to expressed the proper degree of horror and asked me to send them the plastic in a prepaid envelope he'd provide. He also said he'd send me "a few coupons" I could use for my next purchases. His package showed up a couple of days later. I sent off the plastic. The "a few coupons" turned out to be for free salad, enough to cover me for the next three months or so.

[Slave to the Phone]

The first thing I do before using any produce, even the stuff I grow myself, is to wash it. Bugs happen, its a fact of life.

OK, I might lie a little about tomatoes fresh off the vine. It's possible that I might wipe one on my shirt and eat it right then.

[Dreamstalker]

You buy it on BOGOF? You get double the tag price back, meaning you get quadruple your money back. (And they know how much you paid, as it's on your loyalty card and the receipt.)

Even though the loyalty cards store purchase history, we can't access anything at the store level (something about privacy/data security...I didn't realize there was a HIPAA/SOX for grocery stores). Requiring the matching card for returns would eliminate a lot of headaches especially if it's an item the store doesn't sell--in which case we shouldn't be taking it in anyway.

I think BOGO returns here (you do indeed have to buy two) don't get anything except an even exchange unless you return both although that may be up to the MOD (even exchange or merch credit for the prorated amount). I haven't witnessed any attempted returns on quantity deals so I'm not sure how that works; I assume either individual items are credited at the sale price or we just don't allow it. We've had local store owners abuse the quantity deals on soda before...clear the shelves and when they don't sell it all, they try to return the excess after the sale's over and get the full price.

[Erinesque]

My dad told me a story about his sister, who was born in 1925. I can only presume that it's true, since he'd told me another story about his aunt killing her husband that turned out to be true. (More on that one later.)


So at some point, my aunt, for some reason, couldn't afford to eat out. (I don't know when this was, for all I know, it could have been during the depression). So she came up with an "ingenious" way of getting free meals. It just so happened that she had easy access to capture cockroaches, and would bring one into a restaurant with her, and when she'd eaten her fill, would surreptitiously plant the insect in her food, and, according to my dad, was often successful in getting her meals for free.

[Argabarga]

You don't find bugs in sal-lad!

You don't find bugs in sal-lad!

/obscure Simpsons ref.

[SailorMan]

We're only about 50-100 years distant from when most Americans lived in rural areas, vice urban. I imagine people back then bought more produce from local farmers and or direct-from-the-farm markets, and had a more realistic approach to 'Nature' suddenly appearing in their immediate environment. Now, we're so used to food items arriving to us in an artificially sterile medium of presentation, that we act as if it's somehow 'contaminated' if the force-field of sterility has been breeched.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would've laughed their asses off at us.

[Aria]

We're only about 50-100 years distant from when most Americans lived in rural areas, vice urban. I imagine people back then bought more produce from local farmers and or direct-from-the-farm markets, and had a more realistic approach to 'Nature' suddenly appearing in their immediate environment. Now, we're so used to food items arriving to us in an artificially sterile medium of presentation, that we act as if it's somehow 'contaminated' if the force-field of sterility has been breeched.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would've laughed their asses off at us.

I've stopped peeling my farmer's market, organic carrots because I want to eat more dirt.

I'm turning into a hippy.