Asda Says Sorry For GBP75 Online Discount Gaffe

Tue, 15 Jun 2010

 
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Asda apologised to customers yesterday after mistakenly offering hundreds of online customers a £75 discount on their shopping bills.

A computer glitch on the supermarket chain’s online store on Saturday night resulted in every first-time online shopper being offered the large discount.

Asda said the mistake was spotted after a couple of hours, but by then some customers had already taken advantage of the money off e-voucher and placed orders.

Those customers were subsequently informed of the error and told they would either have to pay the full price for their shopping when the goods arrived at their home, or cancel the order and return all items to the store.

A spokeswoman for the retailer said only a "very small number of customers" had been affected by the mistake, which was caused by a keying error, and that the company was "doing everything to contact them, before delivery, to apologise and explain".

"It goes without saying that we are sorry," she said. "We're bending over backwards to recompense the small number of shoppers who wrongly got the discount voucher . We'll give them a free delivery and a discount off their next asda.com shopping ."

She added that the website had not been hacked, and that online shoppers’ personal and banking details were not at risk.