Tesco don't like disabled people! ~ Tesco-Complaint

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Tesco don't like disabled people!

My complaint is regarding the parking at Tescos in general but at the Blackpool superstore specifically. My personal complaint is regarding the disabled spaces but I think that the same complaint applies to the parent and child places.

Every time I visit the store, I have to drive around for ages to find a space where I can park near enough to the store for my mum to be able to walk from the car to the store. Some of the disabled spaces are at the far end of the car park, which covers a vast area. Surely the idea is that the disabled bays should be close to the store. Not every disabled person is in a wheelchair - a lot of people have difficulty walking because of other reasons, like heart problems or lung problems. When we do eventually manage to park, we find that the majority of the other disabled spaces are occupied by people without blue badges. However, when we complain to Customer Services they can't even be bothered being civil to us and simply say "nothing we can do", which is funny because other supermarkets give out tickets to people parking without disabled badges.

The custom of disabled people is obviously not valued by Tesco or something would be done about it. When I have challenged somebody myself about parking without a permit they just say "they don't bother here - anybody can park in disabled bays"

As the biggest supermarket in the country I think the treatment of Tesco to its customers requiring designated parking, whether disabled or parent and child, is shabby to say the least.

20 comments:

steveg said...

Hear hear - The only reason that my wife and I shop at Asda in the Owlcoates centre in Leeds is because the local council give out £30 parking tickets to unbadged cars parked in disabled bays. The council do this at the request of Asda.

My wife is disabled and I cannot bear to see her crying with pain because some able bodied person parks in disabled bays and she has to walk too far to get in. My solution? well before today at Tesco's or wherever, I have filled a trolley with over £100 of shopping and then asked for the manager - told him that this is the business he is losing from just one disabled customer each week - oh and by the way he can pay someone to put it back on the shelves too, then I walk out - eventually it will sink in, they must do something.

Well done for speaking out

Steve

Anonymous said...

I agreee with everything said so far.Tesco don't monitor their parking bays in anyway at all!! Mind you,you want to try working for them when you have a disabilty!! The stress and anger Tesco have caused me over the last couple of years has been a living hell.Iv'e had to fight every step of the way to keep my job.I luv my work in a strange sort of way and want to keep my job but it's been harder work to keep my job than the job i actually do! It all boils down to figures and i'm one of the figures that don't add up.They try and ware me down every step of my working life.
Good on you for dumping the trolleys Steve.Might just do it myself next time i can't find a space.

Anonymous said...

My father is disabled so I know of the problems disabled people face in parking first hand. He doesn't need a wheelchair but cannot walk very far.

It may be different in Blackpool, but round here Tesco pay a company called Euro Car Parks to run and patrol their car parks. It is the responsibility of Euro Car Parks to ticket cars illegally parked in disabled bays or otherwise. As far as I am aware ECP send somebody once a week to do this.

Of course customers realise this and (since they generally come on the same day) park properly when they are around.

I have personally witnessed people who are illegally parked in a Tesco car park receiving a ticket (the fine is £80 according to the signs) and also witnessed people complaining to the customer service desk instore because they have received one.

If the car park at this store is the same then when Tesco staff say there is nothing they can do they are not being rude or uncaring. They are simply stating the facts. Even the store manager can't change who runs thier car park even if they wanted to.

Rather than doing something as immature as leaving trollies full of shopping in the store, why not complain to the people who can actually do something about it. Write to Tesco about the state of their car parks, if enough people do so then they will realise that there is a problem.

Perhaps they need to change thier management company to one which is actually prepared to effectively manage the car parks. Either that or allow their staff to issue tickets so that perhaps trolley staff could do so. Failing that, let me do it and I'll ticket the bastards.

Anonymous said...

As far as i'm aware, the store carparks are not usually considered part of the highway, and therefore it is harder to issue offenders with fixed penalty notices.
Also, carpark management by Euro Car Parks is being phased out gradually by Tesco, who are now reverting to ANPR cameras, which log your car entering the carpark and log it leaving - overstay the allocated time (usually 2-3 hours) and recieve a warning in the post, do it again and recieve a £70 fine!
This is the subject of much controversy, not least because the cameras don't always work (there have been examples of people visiting the store twice in one day, and the cameras calcuating the entire duration of the day as time spent in the car park!) but because they cannot police the specialised bays.

Anonymous said...

See no ones blaming the idiots that park in them in the first place....

Anonymous said...

Steve has the right idea actually - Tesco deserve to pay someone to put it back as they cant be bothered to provide and look after disabled bays which they only probably have put there cos its the law.

Anonymous said...

Jim, as I already know, you're an arrogant tw@t too.

Anonymous said...

Steve/Jim.

Steve in your post you said an abled bodied person parked in the place. That is their fault not Tescos.

All you've done is shown your ignorance in the post above as it's always so much easier to blame a company than the person who's real fault it is.

Your behaviour in response to what happend just shows your less of a person than the ones your trying (wrongly) to get back at.

Anonymous said...

The Blackpool store doesn't actually have any cameras or car park management - which is the real problem.

A lot of people parking wrongly in the spaces don't seem to realise the implications when they are "just popping in the store" or "just going to the cash machine" and it is very frustrating if you are trying to get a disabled person in to the store but to you can't find a space.

I think I might set up my own firm specifically for monitoring the use of disabled bays in supermarket car parks - nobody else seems to be able to do it.

If the people using disabled bays when they aren't disabled had to suffer a disability for just one day then I am sure that they wouldn't do it again.

Anonymous said...

Anon said "See no ones blaming the idiots that park in them in the first place...."

This is true, but if there were more of a deterrant then they may be less inclined to do so. Of course the majority of them are just lazy and ignorant so I could be wrong.

Anonymous said...

Hi TM james told me you saw my last post!! hehe i dont come on here often but when i do ...how frustrating is it. I cant believe these fooking helmets are gonna go on about disabled parking so much, credit for the first complaint and there could be a fair point on how much effort is made into ensuring that we look after our disabled customers proper in the car parks even though it is a extremely difficult area to control, however as far as the other posts are concerned.... why dont you all just get a life and thank the lord you aint disabled...( or are ya im not sure if fookin brain dead falls in that category )Big up to ya TM you are doin a great job and you other syndrome fooks should come to my store and suck mi luv pump coz you are all obviously a load of lonely fags!!!!!

Anonymous said...

and that was constructive how???

Anonymous said...

I think the original poster is very sad, he could use the time he
spends filling a trolley with 'shopping' looking for a disabled space, or driving to another store.

The person who puts the shopping back will not be bothered by this, nor will Tesco be at all concerned about the loss of a £100.00 a week customer. Get a life, this is not the way to behave.

Anonymous said...

i hope it pisses tesco management off though, teach them a lesson

Anonymous said...

"My wife is disabled and I cannot bear to see her crying with pain because some able bodied person parks in disabled bays and she has to walk too far to get in."

Right theres something dodgy about that post anyway.

I visit several supermarkets in a large city which often have full car parks. I usually manage to park within 25 meters of the front everytime. I would say thats only about 10 meters more than the disabled places. If it's full I drive round one time, there will definately be a place by then.

Right, if she crys in pain why does Steve not do this? Why does he let his wife cry in pain?

Secondly. Say Steve doesn't bother looking for a place close to the front and his wife has to walk 50 meters to the store and at somepoint during that walk cries in pain as he stated. What happens on the day he gets a disabled place and she starts walking around the store?

Most shops will cover a couple of hunderd meters at least. So does she cry in apin about a quarter of the way round?

This is all true. This is based on a quote written by Steve above. The distances I've quoted are very realistic. Bearing that in mind I'm wondering why Steve's wife doesn't have a wheel chair?

Or if she does have a wheel chair. Why does Steve let her cry in pain?

Anonymous said...

It was me, It's based on logic and fact from Steves post therefore 100% genuine!

I'm surprised at your attitude to someone who is pointing obvious answers about how avoid Steves wife crying in pain. Especially seeing Steve hasn't thought of any of the above.

You don't seem to have come up with anything helpful either. Just an ego blast!

Unknown said...

Well done for highlighting the problem with disabled bays at Tesco Blackpool. Some years ago my wife was ill and we qualified for a disabled badge. The number of times we couldn't park there for BMW X5s and Range Rovers parked at angles in the disabled bays without badges resulted in us shopping elsewhere. A space was once occupied by a police car! I assumed he was pickng up a shoplifter, but no, he was buying biscuits. There's no point in allocating the spaces if they don't enforce them.

Anonymous said...

Complain about the people who actually park in the bays.

The most that could really be done, is shout the registration number over the tannoy and hope that the owner goes to the service desk.

Tesco's fining the customer's for wrongly using the bays would just lead to more bitching.

Unknown said...

What actually happens in our store is that the people who park in these bays move the parking notices we have onto other legitimate disabled customers vehicles, which leads to further distress for the people we are trying to help.

Don't have a go at Tesco, have a go at the pricks who park in disabled spaces without actually needing to use them.

Anonymous said...

In response to the gentleman who abandons a trolley full of shopping in his Tesco store, if this is true then shame on you for reacting in such an immature, destructive way.