I’m thinking of asking for my money back



We got a couple of baking potatoes at the grocery store very recently, along with a sealed sack of clementines. I made one of the baked potatoes yesterday, but when my husband cut into it it was green. As in literally green.

Then I emptied out the bag of clementines. There were 16 in the bag, and 4 of them were very, VERY obviously no good. So I threw those out, thinking that at least I’d still have quite a few good ones. Well I peeled one that seemed acceptable, but when I started to eat it I discovered that it wasn’t any good. Further gentle squeezing revealed that five more of the clementines are likely bad as well.

So that’s $7 in mostly-bad food. I’m thinking of asking for my money back, but the thing is that they’ll have to just take my word for it that the food was bad. What would you do in this instance?

I wish we got good fruits and vegetables here.

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Posted in Spending money on Aug 27, 2008

5 Responses to “ I’m thinking of asking for my money back ”

  1. # 1 Steve. Says:

    Take it back on your next trip even if you don’t have your receipt. Most stores guarantee their produce but some will say it is an ‘act of God’ a la Seinfeld so it is worth a shot.

    I have taken back bad apples before and they gladly refunded my money. Most people don’t return it and they want to keep you as a customer so most likely they won’t put up a fight over $7 to make you happy.

  2. # 2 Clifford Says:

    I had this same problem with shredded cheese. As much as I don’t like the stuff, sometimes it’s a necessary evil. Each time the bag is thoroughly inspected before it goes into my shopping cart.

    If the bag wasn’t transparent, I would buy it at all.

    Defintely take it back. No one can argue with moldy food.

  3. # 3 MoneyBeagle Says:

    I would recommend two things: hold on to your receipt, and call the store. We were in a similar situation a few weeks ago but it was with a bad watermelon. I called the store, and they took our name down, asked that we bring the receipt, and specifically asked that we not bring the watermelon in. When we went in, they had our name written in a log and after checking our receipt, gave us a refund plus a $5 gift card.

  4. # 4 revanche Says:

    Definitely take it back. I’ve called to check on the policy, and brought the produce back with my receipt but the produce stocker didn’t even bother to look at it. He just replaced the produce and gave me a full refund.

  5. # 5 Big Winner Says:

    It’s very frustrating to get bad produce and several times I’ve been in a hurry and bought groceries (including non-produce items) only to find they were expired.


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