When it comes to coronavirus, regardless of whether you are elderly or vulnerable, it is likely you will have heard that some supermarkets are providing additional online delivery slots for those considered ‘at risk’.
Well, they claim to be…
I have heard a lot about the great things supermarkets are promising for those in need. What I have not heard about is anyone who has benefited from these schemes.
As far as I am aware, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose are the two major supermarkets, claiming to be reaching out to the elderly and vulnerable, by creating additional delivery windows, exclusively for their use.
It is my understanding that these two supermarkets consult a government list, in order to determine if a customer is indeed at risk.
I registered myself for this list via a government website some weeks ago. My health conditions mean that I should have already been added – I wasn’t.
According to my GP, having previously suffered from respiratory failure does not put me at a greater risk of developing complications, should I contract COVID-19 – a virus know for causing severe breathing problems. He was in agreement with me, as to the absurdity of the list selection process.
Thankfully, my GP manually added me to the elusive list, effectively meaning that I should now be on there twice. Ha! Excuse the skepticism.
You would have thought that this would be enough for Johnny Sainsbury to realise that I was entitled to join Tiny Tim and Mr. Burns in the Poorly Persons club. Apparently not.
I haven’t seen anything on the websites of either supermarket, to suggest that this issue will be resolved any time soon.
In fact, Waitrose are advising those with similar concerns to me…
To allow us to cope with demand, we are kindly asking customers to wait for communication from us rather than trying to get in touch at this time.
Thanks for that.
Either the government are useless and not updating their ‘at risk’ list on a regular basis, or the supermarkets are useless and failing to check the list for new sickies. Let’s just say they’re both useless.
If I was the only one affected by this issue, I doubt that I would be bothering to blog about it. Sainsbury’s and Waitrose are not exactly the cheapest of places to buy your groceries, so we rarely shop with them anyway! Besides which, I can usually get a delivery slot for Tesco or Morrisons (albeit by staying up to midnight).
TALK ABOUT LATE NIGHT SHOPPING…
This isn’t really about me…
The reason for this blog post is because I haven’t learned of a single person to be offered one of these exclusive slots. Indeed, I’ve heard on the news and social media about many people far more vulnerable than me – with terminal illness or in their 90s and living alone – unable to organise a delivery. Worryingly, as these are the individuals who really need a priority slot.
I don’t know what else I can try to get the supermarkets to talk to me. Perhaps I need a password. Baa-ram-ew?
A couple of items of correspondence, I recently received.
Firstly, a text message from Vodafone…
Hello. From 30 March 2020 the cost of your plan will increase by 2.5% Cheers. We’re in the middle of the biggest worldwide disaster since World War II, and you’re squeezing more money from us. – this is in line with the UK inflation rate Is it in line with people losing 50, 80 or even 100% of their income? (measured using the Retail Price Index, March 2020). For example, a plan costing £20 will go up by 50p a month. It would have been better had they explained it, like our maths teacher taught us in school… Jenny has 20 apples. She gives Billy 2.5% of her apples. How many apples does Danny have? This change reflects the terms and conditions in your agreement with us and will be added from your April bill. Which loosely translates to “if you were thinking of complaining, don’t fucking bother”. We never want to charge you more now THAT is the funniest thing I have read in a long time., but rest assured we’re investing £1 billion this year in our network to give you the best experience we can. One billion quid? For that amount of money, I would expect to be able to use my mobile phone to teleport to the moon.We want you to rely on us, to keep you connected wherever you are. To find out more head to www.vodafone.co.uk/rpi
I also received an email from Aviva, regarding life insurance. A tad morbid, but it’s going to happen to us all one day – hopefully not for a long, long time.
They want to help? I bet they fucking do. Insurance companies around the world must be absolutely shitting themselves at the moment.
Well, guys. As my dad taught me – do not bet what you can’t afford to lose.
I take absolutely no pleasure from this. While I have been known to enjoy hearing how Mr. Joe Public received a big pay day from his insurance company, after doing something stupid like accidentally dropping his iPad down the stairs, this is very different.
If you’re making an insurance claim regarding life insurance, well… I’ll leave you to work that one out.
The header “We’re doing all we can to be here when you need us“ also made me feel a little sick, for the reasons I’ve already mentioned.
Not nice.
Across the past few days, I have been waging a war. The enemy – individuals who are happy to put the lives of others in danger and make large profits from human tragedy.
The morally bankrupt scumbags that I am trying to bring down, are not a terrorist organisation or the mafia. They are every day people, like you or I – although like me, it is likely you have a conscience. My enemies do not.
You won’t need to have read my recent blog posts to be aware that it is impossible to buy soap, hand sanitiser or toilet tissue anywhere in the UK.
This is because of coronavirus and the resulting panic buying, from the ever-calm and rational British public. Unfortunately, this has given way to a small number of individuals, who I can only describe as ‘ghouls’, purchasing these much sought-after items in bulk, only to sell on eBay for an extortionate price.
I have seen one small bottle of hand gel, which normally retails at 95 pence, being advertised online for in excess of twenty pounds!
Take a look at these items on sale, at the time of me writing this blog…
Clearly I am not the only one to have taken offence to this immoral greed. Here are some of the many negative reviews left alongside the auctions…
I fully understand the anger of those who have written a review – although wishing COVID-19 upon somebody else’s family is going a little too far.
I took the liberty of contacting some of the sellers myself. While I wanted to shout at them “YOU FUCKING DISGUSTING C***S!”, I took a more tactful approach, hoping to pull at their heartstrings, in the hope that they may remove the offensive listings.
As you know, it is impossible to buy hand gel in shops, because people have bought these products in bulk.
As a result, people without these items are unable to buy just one bottle of the gel.
This includes people who fall into the “at risk” category – e.g. the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. To put it bluntly, these people could die if they contract COVID-19.
Many of these people are also suffering financially, so are unable to pay the prices listings like yours are charging.
I suffer from a health condition and am very worried that I cannot find hand sanitizer in any shops. Listings like yours make me upset and angry, as I feel you are profiting from a worldwide disaster that is affecting the health and risking the lives of people across the world.
If you see any more gel, soap, toilet roll at supermarkets etc in the future, please DON’T buy it in bulk. Save it for those who really need it. If you must sell these items on Ebay, at least do so at face value.
Thank you.
The plan to pull heartstrings failed. Apparently, you need to have a heart for that to work.
These are the two replies I received, although they massively missed my point – either through stupidity, or because they can’t face the fact that what they’re doing is immoral.
Thank you for getting in touch and I would agree with most of your points apart from the buying from the supermarket as the stock we hold was not purchased from the supermarket. The product you should know is limited now everywhere and we are selling a limited quantity off to who needs it at a price that reflects the economic situation, put simply supply and demand. I would like to buy in the quantities required in order to bring the price down but I am unable to compete with supermarkets, munufacturers and wholesalers.
Wish you well..
Good Afternoon,
What are you talking about, my items come from wholesalers not retailer???
Regards
At least they bothered to respond, unlike the ten or so others I messaged who ignored me.
I wasn’t done there. I contacted eBay…
… and have since been reporting sellers who are selling hand sanitisers and soap at highly inflated prices.
Why not do the same as me? Just hit that ‘Report’ button and completed the form…
Some may say that I have too much time on my hands. I am signed off work on longterm sick, so maybe I do.
However, am I wasting my time and carrying out a pointless exercise by reporting those profiting from disaster and tragedy? Absolutely not.
According to Take That, it only takes a minute to fall in love. The other thing that takes less than sixty seconds, is to report an immoral pig.
If all overpriced listings were taken down and banned, the result would be affordable hand hygiene products, available to all – potentially preventing the spread of COVID-19 and even saving lives.
THIS IS GARY.
GARY MAKES MONEY FROM TRAGEDY.
GARY IS SCUM.
DON’T BE LIKE GARY.
I can’t read
and I can’t write
but that don’t really matter.
‘cos I have a job in McDonald’s
and I fry things in batter.
Excuse my rudeness towards the staff at McDonald’s. I am sure the majority are all highly intelligent and have just been stereotyped by stupid characters like the one above.
and this one…
there’s quite a few…
Enough of that now. What boiled my blood enough to drive me to pick up the metaphorical pen and blog, was what appeared in my McDonald’s order this evening.
In a bid to improve customer experience and keep Burger King at bay, McDonald’s now allow you to customise your order – this includes adding and removing bits from your burger, such as gherkins, lettuce and even the beef patty. It is that latter ingredient which caused all the trouble this evening.
I think it is fair to say that I can now consider myself a proper vegetarian and not one of those people going through a fad, after watching the movie Babe 2: Pig in the City.
Claire and I haven’t enjoyed a McDonald’s in ages – and after tonight, my wait goes on. We had planned on treating ourselves to such a takeaway this Saturday.
I ordered a Big Mac meal. Amongst a few other changes, I requested that the beef patty be removed from my burger. This order was accepted and I was left to eagerly await a meat-free Big Mac, with extra gherkins, sauce and salad.
What arrived was this…
That big brown thing is not a giant pickle – it is actually, beef. Yes, a beef patty – the one thing I asked to not be included in my Big Mac.
It’s a good thing that I am only avoiding beef because I am a veggie and not because I have an allergy or for religious reasons.
I can only assume that this terrible example of cooking was for one (or more) of these reasons…
- McDonald’s staff can’t read
- McDonald’s staff don’t give a crap
- McDonald’s staff believe vegetarians can eat beef
- McDonald’s staff are overwhelmed and overworked, so make mistakes.
Ronald McDonald has turned pretty nasty in recent years – but is he overworking his staff?
I must admit, I was a little surprised by the two delivery men, who dumped a box, presumably holding our mattress and not a dead lion (it certainly looked heavy enough), on our bed, before fleeing the house. They couldn’t have got away faster!
Would it have killed those two burly gentlemen to unbox and fit the heavy, bulky double mattress for us? Did they not notice the wheelchair ramp and stair lift? It was clear I’d be of as much help as our pet Netherland Dwarf rabbit. That left Claire to deal with all the lifting and shifting on her own!
Claire did manage to succeed, where two apparently strong delivery men from AO failed. The mattress is now on our bed, from where I am blogging, while Claire sleeps.
Initial impressions for me are good. Only time will tell if this mattress works out long-term for the two of us. If not, I’ll be phoning Dr. Walter Palmer, to ask that he deals with it. Dr. Walter is the the dentist who famously murdered Cecil the lion in 2015. Therefore he has history of taking out lions. Poor Simba.
As for AO, be warned about Laurel and Hardy – the pair of otiose so-and-sos sent to “help” us today. Let’s just hope old lady Eiffel doesn’t get the two berks, when it’s time to deliver her aga cooker…
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
