This is Mat Amp reporting for Listen Up on the 13th February 23.

Just a very quick report to tell you about something that happened last week. For our research projects, we send people vouchers and I sent someone a voucher for a certain supermarket.

I’m not going to name them because I don’t think that’s the point of this. Naming and shaming never goes well. I just don’t think is it’s it’s the way to go. I just want to point out the dynamics of something.

I sent someone a supermarket voucher, they went to the supermarket and they scanned it with their phone and it wouldn’t take it. So they phoned me up and told me this and I’ve had to provide them with another one, which didn’t work either.

So basically, bottom line is I’ve had to give them the voucher for another supermarket. I’ve done some research into this and right now that supermarket is having a problem with their vouchers, but they’re not telling you when they buy them.

And the real nub of this is when this person couldn’t use this to buy the food they were almost dreaming of at that point because they didn’t have any other money and they were hungry and they were told to just put it on their credit card or pay through some other way or means.

And when they said they didn’t have another means of paying, they were tutted, treated like a thief, told that they were being fraudulent, before it emerged that this supermarket has a problem with their voucher system.

And they’ve been openly selling the vouchers, even knowing that 30% of their outlets can’t handle the new system. Well, that’s how it was explained in the end, after I’d done some research. Can you Imagine how that feels when you are given ten or £20 vouchers to go and spend at a supermarket, it is the last money that you’ve got in the world.

You go and buy yourself that food and instead of apologizing and providing you with the promissory note of what’s on that voucher they mock you and make you feel small and irrelevant. It is absolutely disgusting. And people just don’t realize how damaging that is when you’ve got nothing, to be treated like that, with that much disrespect. Thanks for listening. 

Photo Mat Amp Instagram: matamp67