Loblaws.ca

Loblaw company has recently introduced its PC Express grocery delivery service, to add to their curbside pickup service. I've tried the delivery twice so far, with disastrous and costly results. I won't be using it again.

I've used grocery delivery services in the past. Both had high ($20+) delivery fees and they jacked up the price of the groceries by a third. Loblaw's delivery is cheaper where I am in Toronto ($9.95, may vary by location) and they promise that the prices are the same as if you shopped in person. They also promise to give delivery shoppers the same PC Optimum points. I'm disabled and normally I do the painful walk 2 km each way pushing a wagon, to buy my groceries. Afterwards I'm too tired out and sore to do much for the rest of the day. So I was looking forward to skipping this hassle during the winter.

The first time I tried PC Express, I found their website confusing and grocery items difficult to find. It's not an intuitive website, they default to "pickup" and it took me over an hour to figure out how to switch it to "delivery". I had to spend half an hour memorizing a bunch of rules and technicalities and terms of use before I could even start my order. When I checked out, they screwed me out of my PC points because their site wouldn't accept my PC Money card. I had to go into the PC Optimum site to claim my missing points after I placed my order. Later on I figured out that I had to enter my PC Money card as a PC Mastercard for it to work. This is common with Loblaw owned point of sale systems including the self scan terminals at Shoppers. They push a PC Money account on customers and then their point of sale systems aren't equipped to take the card, sites like Joe Fresh won't take it at all, and their cashiers aren't trained on how to ring it in. They also offered a 10,000 PC points bonus for first time PC Express delivery customers, with a code to enter at checkout. Predictably, the code was refused and I didn't get my bonus points.

When my order was finally delivered - it was left lying on the floor in the hallway outside of my apartment door for hours because the delivery person couldn't be bothered to knock on my door or ring my prominent, lit up video doorbell. He just dumped my perishable and frozen groceries on the floor and took off. Eventually a neighbour saw the pile of groceries lying in the hall and rang my doorbell. By the time I got there, ice cream was melted all over the floor mingled with packages of raw meat, and my frozen items were all defrosted. It took me half an hour to mop up the mess and more than half my groceries ($150) were ruined. All because some third world mong couldn't press a doorbell button. My doorbell cam caught him dumping the order and running without going near the door to ring or knock. When I went to the Loblaw site to find their number and complain, I found out that this jerk was supposed to have called me when he was on his way so I'd know to expect him.

Another issue was that many items in the order were just wrong. Wrong brand, wrong item, wrong flavour. And these weren't substitutions, they were just too careless and illiterate to read my order hard enough. For example I had ordered a couple of cases of flavoured sparkling water in two different flavours. I got two cases of a third flavour I didn't ask for and don't like.

Then I called the Loblaw "customer service" number and found out how useless their customer service is. Third worlders again, barely able to spit out a sentence in English, poor phone connection, clueless and untrained staff. They had no clue what to do when I called them to complain about half my order being ruined. I was given a "case number" and told someone would contact me. It's been two weeks and you can guess the rest. Not a dime in compensation for the groceries they ruined, and I had to go out and buy everything again. A $200 grocery order cost me over $300.

I was going to go out again two weeks later, but the weather was supposed to be unseasonably cold with rain and high winds for several days. So, I took my chances with PC Express again. This time ordering was easier because I had gotten used to their site. I ordered about $250 worth of groceries. I also figured out their non intuitive substitutions system where you can choose which items can be substituted and with what. Hopefully this time I'd avoid getting the wrong items.

This time the delivery person called ahead and rang my doorbell as per their rules. But when he brought the items, there seemed to be too few bags. Once I got everything into my apartment I realized what was wrong. They hadn't delivered ANY of my fresh meats or dairy items. That was $90 worth of groceries which I had paid for and didn't receive.

So I called the useless call centre again. Apologies galore, but no offer to refund my money until I demanded it several times. Finally they offered to refund the delivery fee with a voucher they emailed to me. They also admitted that "someone" on their end didn't hand all of my order over to the delivery person, which is why half of it was missing. As to the value of the non-delivered items, I was told I'd have to wait a few days but it would be deposited back to my bank. In the meantime I was told to re-order the missing items. When I was going through my previous order to see which items were missing, I noticed that they had simply deleted a fresh chicken I'd ordered. No substitution. I wasn't informed that they didn't have it. They just quietly deleted it/greyed it out in my order. (screenshot attached) I received the remaining items the following morning.

But then that day I checked my bank. I found that PC Express had made an extra, fraudulent and unauthorized charge for $93.86, on top of the charges for the first order which they delivered only half of, and the second order I placed to get the items they didn't deliver. I checked their website listing my orders (screenshot attached) and there was NO order associated with this unauthorized third charge. Needless to say I was livid. I called their useless call centre and spent half an hour arguing with a third worlder who kept insisting it was "just an authorization hold for the two orders" - I had to repeat at least 10 times that both of those orders were already received and paid for in full, there was no cause for any further "authorization holds" and they had no right to take this money out of my account. They wouldn't transfer me to a manager and they just kept repeating their nonsense about an authorization hold and claiming that the stolen funds would somehow just magically reappear in my account. I gave up and hung up on them, but I'm searching for a means to escalate this matter at Loblaw head office. It's Saturday so I won't know what will happen with my bank until Monday.

Groceries are expensive enough these days without having to deal with a bunch of incompetents who forget/lose/destroy groceries, steal your money and then argue with you on the phone. Once again a $250 grocery order has now ballooned to over $400 in double charges and Loblaw's unauthorized plundering of my bank account, and I don't know how I'm going to afford groceries for the rest of December because my grocery budget has been blown out of the water. Merry Christmas at the food bank for me. Next time I need grocery delivery I will bite the bullet and pay the higher delivery fee and grocery prices from a competitor, it's still cheaper than PC Express.

Do yourself a favour and stay far, far away from Loblaw's dumpster fire of a delivery service.