Woolworths don’t send a text with actual estimated time in slot like Coles. For the benefit of others, I think what Coles actually do is text you when they have planned the route (~8-12 hours prior to arrival) and not when you choose the window. I agree that this is very useful. Incidentally Ocado (in the UK) offer choice of 1 hour slots (which is even better). I don’t think Woolworths email with pre-advice of missing items or substitutions. To be honest, only the latter is of any real value to me as pre-advice of substitutions allows me to think about whether I want the sub.
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Cancelled due to security reasons could simply be the goods have been stolen or possibly contaminated or that the drivers can’t deliver to an area because of safety concerns
I love it when they ‘leak’ useful email addresses - file this one for future use ! 
I recall Coles being OK and easy to deal with mistakes/missings - Woolies seem less flexible on delivery, seriously, one reason to do this is to save time, for me especially as a single parent - Dealing with Woolies seems like it would be like an NBN appointment …
There’s places near me where Ambo’s won’t go without police (and police won’t go there without more police) - I’d be very surprised if the supermarkets deliver there … I wonder how many places in Australia have real safety concerns? certainly they exist …
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Haven’t ever use Woolies, but they are probably similar in complexity for the first time. You do need to take time to set up your preferences, but that applies with anything for the first time - prospective partners included! 
Once set up, Coles is a breeze. The only complaint is that the custom “Bought before” shopping list doesn’t allow you to remove items although it adds things automatically for you to choose from. If you buy something once and hate it, it will remain on your preferred list forever.
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Looks like you should have shopped online at Coles today.
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Im so annoyed.
Its quite simple… they are criminals protected by the law . !
The terms and conditions is a bunch of crap that lets us know that if they do wrong by us its our fault because we agree to it the moment we use their services …
I bought a bunch of $200 wish egift cards .
5x $200 . Each 1 had their own transaction . Because i used different credit cards to buy them.
I got email confirmation for all of them. They all said
Order placed thank you with a big green tick immediately after submitting my payment.
Then… i 2 of the egift cards were delivered to my email… the other 3 are delayed im assuming… afterall it does say they can take up to 48 hours .
Couple of hours later . 2 emails telling me this…
Order Cancellation
Thank you for your interest in Woolworths Gift Cards.
Unfortunately, there has been an error processing your order.
As a result, we are cancelling the Gift Card item(s) from your order #******
We apologise for this inconvenience.
Note:A pre-authorisation charge may appear on your credit card.
It may take up to 10 business days for your financial institution to remove the pre-authorisation charge from your account.
If you would like to place another order, please visit giftcards.woolworths.com.au
So i call them … 2 ask why . Im told that because my email i use with Woolworths… differs from the email my bank has… they cancelled these 2 orders… HOWEVER… i can go make the same purchases again and because i called them they will not cancel them this time…
I said alot of the obvious stuff ( i wont go into every detail)… then i remembered… there’s still another 1 that i havent yet received and it also hasnt been cancelled. . Im put on hold again and eventualy am told that the payments team allowed it … ( like they just did me a favour and i should be happy they did a good thing by me ) … she said it may take up to 3 hours to get gift card because they manually did it…
Im wondering if they did it manually because they had in fact cancelled that one too but reversed it. I dont know .
So 10 business days for my refund. Of $400 ( it was saturday the day this all happened) . I dont have a spare $400 laying around to end the call … then go do what i had already done hours prior all over again … so i can recieve what i should already have !! .
The answer i got was… they can speed up the refund to 3 business days and theres nothing else they can do to undo what happened . And they are sorry
Sorry doesnt help me … also im sorry that i wasnt full of joy when they offered me the refund process to be 3 days instead of 10 …
There is a part 2 to this story . I have to tend to my children before i type it.
So woolworths. Where in the terms and conditions does it say that u guys have to do things right . Or where does it say if woolworths does wrong by their customers and ruin their week its totally fine!!.. NOWHERE.
How about give me $400 if your really sorry!! $400 is NOT alot of money to woolworths. On the flip sife of things though $400 is what i need to keep my kids and myself alive with for the week. ! Ill serve up “sorry” for dinner tonight to my kids . It will be delicious and fill their stomachs.
Someone even had a nerve to ask me why so many egift cards were of such importance amd urgency… the answer is… its none of your business. Since when does the criminal put the vivtim through trail. … also . The bank did not raise red flags to woolworths . Why did woolworths look at me as a potential threat? And then treat me like i indeed am a threat.
If I were a merchant I might behave similarly to Woolies to protect my customers’ accounts.
Although you got confirmations for each of the individual purchases, it reads like they were done one after the other from your same computer (IP), some with different emails and each with a different credit card, and some of the details between your purchase and the accounts did not match so they cancelled some of purchases to protect you. I presume that does not at least look suspicious to you by your post.
Gift cards, and especially iTunes cards, are the currency for scammers. Not an ideal situation for the days taken to reject/cancel some of the card purchases, and that could raise one’s ire, your transactions flagged the security concern rather than the bank. I presume Woolies had your phone contact details but did not use them to verify your purchases. That is a fail.
As for your banks, since the bank(s) was approving multiple credit cards its systems did not ‘see’ the chain of purchases while Woolies POS systems did.
The time it takes for credits to go into one’s account is agreed to be ridiculous since the charge approval is virtually instantaneous, but that is another issue, and a universal one, with card purchases.
You may not be happy with your experience, but I suggest you step back and accept that what they did was with the best of intentions. Your complaint might best focus on why they did not ring you to confirm when they detected a possible problem.
As a global citizen of sorts I have a CC I use for travel and the bank computer learned my habits after 10 years (!) so I rarely have problems these days, but if I forget to update the bank on my current locale they still sometimes freeze my card until I check in with them. It is a pain but better that pain than having my account compromised.
It appears we each look at our protections differently.
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I received an offer recently from Woollies to spend at least $100 in one or more online transactions by 16.12.2019 to receive a $20 gift card.
I placed an order yesterday for around $60 to collect at lunch time today and I tried to place another order early this morning to hopefully collect at the same time.
I wanted some 10 packs of Kirks Dry Ginger Ale which went on special today, but whilst all the other flavours of Kirk’s 10 packs were on the website, ginger ale was not so it could not be ordered online.
I called into the store today before picking up my order and saw Kirks Ginger Ale was in the soft drink aisle, as well as a stack of it at the end of an aisle.
I asked an assistant manager why it is missing from the website but he had no idea and said that there was nothing that they could do about it.
Whilst waiting to collect my order, I saw my name on a door on the multi-comaprtent freezer, but when the staff member brought my order, she said it was complete, much to her surprise.
I asked her about my frozen stuff which did not show uo on her handheld device, so she checked and returned with the frozen items which were actually included on the included Tax Invoice.
Whilst in the store, I also noticed this fantastic markdown on Woolworths Beef Chevaps.
Whilst the photo is not very clear, one can see that they have been reduced from $7.00 to $7.20.
Bargain.
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My observation is Woolies corporate culture is pretty ordinary. My local Woolies ‘managerial’ staff routinely respond to issues with ‘it is the rewards program’ or ‘it is them’, and ‘nothing to do with us’. Some of their departments are lax in even posting prices for various F&V or some grocery items. The outcome is most of my grocery spend is across the street at Coles where all their staff do their best to provide customer service and when necessary, support. eg. I only buy things from Woolies that are not offered at Coles.
Did your docket show you saved -$0.40 or had a special markdown notation for the chevaps? 
BWS is another Woolies company. I ordered some wine from Cellarmasters, another Woolies company. No shipping costs to pick up from BWS, which is convenient for me anyway.
When I picked up they dutifully got me 1 box of wine and went missing. I knew there were two and had to get their attention again. The docket clearly showed 2 boxes. A few minutes later they re-materialised with the 2nd box and a ‘no worries we found it’ attitude.
It seems pervasive. I oft wonder why Woolies is the bigger of the two gorillas with this seemingly consistent ‘customer experience’, although Dan Murphys, another Woolies company, has been pretty good in-store and on-line, even for resolving problems.
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I did not buy them. I merely placed them int the trolley for the “photo shoot”.
There was a price sign on the shelf for $9.00 each which had not been updated to $7.00 each.
Looks like it all just got much too hard
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Interesting … Discover - Woolworths Online
Refunds
- We will not provide any refunds for the Delivery Unlimited Subscription at any time.
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Nope. Once you pay, its upfront for the year and even if you move to somewhere theres no Woolies… tuff. That said, I prefer Woolworths online to Coles online, and coles for in house shopping.
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Change of circumstances for the customer is outside of Woolworths control, but to make a blanket statement there are no refunds would seem to be contrary to Consumer Rights, for example, it is illegal to display a sign in a shop indicating a blanket ‘no refunds’ policy “as they imply that it’s not possible to get a refund under any circumstances” - I’m not sure how an online T&C page would be treated any differently.
While it might be seem unlikely, it is quite conceivable that situations could arise where the service does not provide what it claimed to, or not to the standard it claimed to, and it seems clear that a refund would apply if one could establish this, along with potentially other remedies.
I’ve had reasonable experience with ordering online, but a ‘no refunds’ statement seems contrary to ACL.
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Absolutely agree, and if it was challenged I think WW would have to capitulate. I havent felt tempted by the offer in any case. Its a bit like taking a phone on a plan and contract… you end up locked in… because you need to take advantage perhaps more often than you would, otherwise.
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Coles is no different - Coles Plus
30…You will not be refunded for the remainder of the Subscription Period in which you cancel the auto-renewal of your Coles Plus subscription.
I take these would be legal under the ACL and similar to travel services disrupted because of COVID. Where T&Cs cover cancellation by a consumer, the T&Cs apply. It relates to cancellation by a consumer which is different to that covered by the consumer guarantee where a service is cancelled because the service…
- provided with an unacceptable level of care and skill
- unfit for the purpose you asked for
- not delivered within a reasonable time when there is no agreed end date.
Even if one moves to an area without Woolworths /Coles delivery, this still doesn’t meet the above requirements for a refund. It doesn’t hurt in asking though.
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That is exactly what I’m referring to - the blanket ‘no refund’ statement implying there is no scenario where a refund would be available under the ACL, which I would take to be unlawful - the ACL states signs in premises to this effect are lot lawful, so an online statement implying the same should be treated the same. Point 23 of the Woolworths that I quoted does not limit the ‘no refund’ to cancellations - there is another point that deals with that specific scenario similar to the Coles reference.
- If you notify us that you wish to cancel your Delivery Unlimited Subscription the cancellation will take effect from the end of the relevant Subscription Period and you will continue to have the benefit the subscription for the remainder of the relevant Subscription Period that has been prepaid. You will not be refunded for the remainder of the Subscription Period in which you cancel the Delivery Unlimited subscription.
Moving or cancelling a service for some customer driven reason wasn’t my point.
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No that’s not the case. Where a consumer cancels a service, this comes under a change of mind and the retailer can nominate terms and conditions associated with the cancelation. It falls outside the ACL. As the ACCC states:
Consumers’ rights are not limitless and the consumer guarantees do not require you to provide a remedy unless one of the guarantees has not been met.
For example, you may not be required to provide a remedy if a consumer:
- simply changes their mind, decides they do not like the purchase or has no use for it
- discovers they can buy the goods or services more cheaply elsewhere
- has damaged the goods by using them in a way that was unreasonable.
If say Woolworths or Coles cancelled their delivery service (which is highly unlikely since this is where they see future business expansion, then the ACL would apply.
I agree, if the service fails to perform to the negotiated/expected/required level of service it is a failure under ACL and is not a change of mind. In this regard a cancellation by a user is not “a change of mind”. There are circumstances where ACL will trump a no refund and the ACCC should have them amend the terms to reflect that.
The ACL covers this as you also noted:
"If you have a major problem with a service or a minor problem that can’t be fixed within a reasonable time you have the right to cancel a service contract, when it is:
- provided with an unacceptable level of care and skill
- unfit for the purpose you asked for
- not delivered within a reasonable time when there is no agreed end date"
About no refund they are as equally clear
"Signs that state ‘No refunds’ are unlawful.
The following signs are also unlawful:
- ‘No refunds on sale items’
- ‘Exchange or credit note only for the return of sale items’.
However, signs that state ‘No refunds will be given if you have simply changed your mind’ are acceptable."
And the remedy may include:"
- If relevant, also ask the service provider to compensate you for any damages or losses caused by the problem.
- If you’ve paid for the service and it has already started or been delivered, negotiate a refund to cover the services that failed and any advance payments."
If a simple I don’t want it anymore or I don’t use it enough, or it wasn’t what I wanted (but not a negotiated one, which is different and is covered by ACL) then these are change of mind and no ACL protection for the user.
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One has to read Woolworths standard T&Cs in conjunction with the delivery T&Cs. The standard T&Cs make it clear that rights under the Australian Consumer Law applies for any transaction with Woolworths.
As the delivery terms and conditions state:
By purchasing the Delivery Unlimited subscription you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions which are to be read in conjunction with Woolworths Online Terms and Conditions.
This means that both sets of T&Cs apply to the unlimited delivery offer. As indicated above, if Woolworth’s cancels the Unlimited Delivery offer, then the ACL apply as outlined in the standard Woolworths T&Cs. If a consumer cancels the offer, it is considered a change of mind and the special clauses under the delivery T&Cs apply.
If they fail to deliver, damage the goods, lose goods then this is not a change of mind and is certainly covered by ACL and a person may cancel in those circumstances and that won’t be a change of mind. To simply say that no refunds will be made because a person cancelled the service is unlawful, there are circumstances where a person may cancel a service and be entitled to a refund. To say that no refund is available because the person had a change of mind is lawful. They don’t state that, they just say “We will not provide any refunds for the Delivery Unlimited Subscription at any time”…I think it is a clear breach and should be reported to the ACCC.
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