TOPS

[bluesofa]

14 minutes ago, Fex Bluse said:

59 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

I have 3 problems with Tops.  1.  The stuff in the freezers has all been re frozen.  You can tell by the ice in the bags (thaw and then freeze again).  All the freezers all the products must turn the temp down at some point to save money.  2.  Slicer in deli never sharpened so can't slice thin.  My wife won't let me show them how to sharpen it.  3.  All the bakery products dry as a result of over baking.

 

I'd send an email if anyone has the man in charge in Thailand's email address. 

Silly issues you list. If you don't like shopping there, shop elsewhere. 

I would agree with marcusarelus being keen to take it further.

If nobody says anything, then how can they improve on their service. It could well be lax management in one particular store, that the main office is not aware of.

 

[Fex Bluse]

Just now, bluesofa said:

I would agree with marcusarelus being keen to take it further.

If nobody says anything, then how can they improve on their service. It could well be lax management in one particular store, that the main office is not aware of.

 

In 30 years of experience across the Thai world, each day I grow only more confident that they, generally, are at best indifferent and at worst fiercely against improving. 

 

Sending complaints to a Thai will generally only serve to waste the sender's time. 

 

Thais have developed an entire cultural tradition around indifference to poor performance. Hence, Thailand. 

[bluesofa]

4 minutes ago, Fex Bluse said:

In 30 years of experience across the Thai world, each day I grow only more confident that they, generally, are at best indifferent and at worst fiercely against improving. 

 

Sending complaints to a Thai will generally only serve to waste the sender's time. 

 

Thais have developed an entire cultural tradition around indifference to poor performance. Hence, Thailand. 

I wouldn't agree. If an issue riles me, I'm prepared to be pedantic about complaining.

 

Last year when SCB issued me with a new 'chip & pin' ATM/debit card, it ceased to work in Big C.

The manager said they were waiting for 'head office' to upgrade their software in order to accept the new cards.

She was quite open when I said I would complain to Big C head office about it, as she said it might make them get on and sort out the problem.

I did that, and also emailed the Bank of Thailand about their lax policy on allowing the card merchants to chose the card verification method themselves - between a signature or PIN.

It took a while, but now I can at last use my card in Big C.

It's almost as entertaining as TVF!

[Fex Bluse]

28 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

I wouldn't agree. If an issue riles me, I'm prepared to be pedantic about complaining.

 

Last year when SCB issued me with a new 'chip & pin' ATM/debit card, it ceased to work in Big C.

The manager said they were waiting for 'head office' to upgrade their software in order to accept the new cards.

She was quite open when I said I would complain to Big C head office about it, as she said it might make them get on and sort out the problem.

I did that, and also emailed the Bank of Thailand about their lax policy on allowing the card merchants to chose the card verification method themselves - between a signature or PIN.

It took a while, but now I can at last use my card in Big C.

It's almost as entertaining as TVF!

Happy you had some success. I have several expat friends who are similar. 

 

I also know of a couple who got themselves into serious situations by forcing complaints on Thais. Although, in nearly all the cases, the issues were significant. 

 

I don't trust most Thais not to hold a permanent grudge after being forced to address a conflict. I don't want to risk them poisoning my food or similar, so I simply avoid dealing with them wherever and whenever possible. 

 

Works for me ????

[bluesofa]

5 minutes ago, Fex Bluse said:

Happy you had some success. I have several expat friends who are similar. 

 

I also know of a couple who got themselves into serious situations by forcing complaints on Thais. Although, in nearly all the cases, the issues were significant. 

 

I don't trust most Thais not to hold a permanent grudge after being forced to address a conflict. I don't want to risk them poisoning my food or similar, so I simply avoid dealing with them wherever and whenever possible. 

 

Works for me ????

Ha ha, yes I'd agree about the chance to poison the food.

 

I tend to keep my complaints at company level. I can imagine the volatility of a Thai becoming very upset.

 

I've had success when complaining at local government level too regarding documents they initially refused to issue, After escalating it to Bangkok they had to back down. At least I didn't have to buy their soup!

[luckyluke]

Very pleased with Tops Thonglor. 

 

Open 24 hours. 

 

I have a "The 1 Card", many items are cheaper than. 

 

Shows on your cash desk ticket how much you spared that particular day. 

 

Foodland Thonglor is good too, always someone to help you at the cash decks. 

 

They have a Foodland 366 Award app, but seems only to work for Thai (13 digits ID necessary). 

[smutcakes]

4 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

Very pleased with Tops Thonglor. 

 

Open 24 hours. 

 

I have a "The 1 Card", many items are cheaper than. 

 

Shows on your cash desk ticket how much you spared that particular day. 

 

Foodland Thonglor is good too, always someone to help you at the cash decks. 

 

They have a Foodland 366 Award app, but seems only to work for Thai (13 digits ID necessary). 

Unfortunately for you it is closing soon.

[luckyluke]

2 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

Unfortunately for you it is closing soon.

Tops or Foodland? 

I suppose Foodland, never a lot of customers there. 

[smutcakes]

Tops. I believe Siam Futures who own Market Place (as well as J Avenue, Mega Bangna and others) are planning to redevelop the property into office and mixed use. Not sure who told me that, just a rumor i heard. I can definitely believe commercially there are better uses for a site like that in that location.

[fruitman]

14 hours ago, samsensam said:

 

ah, tops... i wish they'd ensure special offers advertised on the shelves are programmed into the cash tills - check your receipt when buying special offers as more often than not they charge you the full price. then when you raise the issue with the staff they act all unaware...

 

they close the bakery cash till and put a sign to pay at the nearest other till, but when you go there the cashier has to take the bakery good back to the bakery till to process...

 

and their current 'one day a month' going plastic bag less is a joke.

 

tops stores are managed by idiots.

One day i bought minced meat in Tops, the packages were leaking blood but they were the last ones. I paid at the bakery, drippings of blood all over the counter but they didn't care at all.....thailand only krab.

[fruitman]

3 hours ago, cmarshall said:

I go to Tops Chidlom the clientele of which includes more foreigners than other Tops locations.  So, they have a good variety of the imported items that I am looking for.  I think they are an excellent store.  Deliveries are free for orders over ฿1500 and always on time without ever losing anything.  The cashier is always willing to check the wad of coupons I hand her, which I am not.  

 

The bakery is especially good for euro-style breads.  I never buy frozen food.  I pay by US credit card and they always charge me in THB without my having to insist.

Yes Chidlom is the best Tops. But the queue's can be terrible there...to avoid the queue last week i went to those self payment machines which are new..they were soooo complicated that even my educated wife didn't understand them so an assistant came to help but it still was very complicated...it's not like you scan your stuff, put money in the thing and go...far from that.

 

Also there's far too much staff in that supermarket and they even are scammers. Last time i saw Aussie plums which looked like pluots...i asked the 2 promoters if those were pluots  which they confirmed. Then another staffmember came and said they were plums...i asked the other 2 again about what it was and now they said plums...idiots they are. That's all they have to do all day those 2, sell/promote plums...so why can't they answer my question correctly?

[marcusarelus]

2 minutes ago, fruitman said:

Yes Chidlom is the best Tops. But the queue's can be terrible there...to avoid the queue last week i went to those self payment machines which are new..they were soooo complicated that even my educated wife didn't understand them so an assistant came to help but it still was very complicated...it's not like you scan your stuff, put money in the thing and go...far from that.

 

Also there's far too much staff in that supermarket and they even are scammers. Last time i saw Aussie plums which looked like pluots...i asked the 2 promoters if those were pluots  which they confirmed. Then another staffmember came and said they were plums...i asked the other 2 again about what it was and now they said plums...idiots they are. That's all they have to do all day those 2, sell/promote plums...so why can't they answer my question correctly?

Did you speak Thai? 

[marcusarelus]

14 minutes ago, fruitman said:

One day i bought minced meat in Tops, the packages were leaking blood but they were the last ones. I paid at the bakery, drippings of blood all over the counter but they didn't care at all.....thailand only krab.

Did you find fresh minced beef?  I've only found the frozen.  All my minced beef problems were in the West where the inside beef was spoiled when the outside was bright red. 

[marcusarelus]

3 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

To be specific, poorly run. 

 

Silly issues you list. If you don't like shopping there, shop elsewhere. 

I would if they had a Foodland in Rayong unfortunately they don't so my only alternative is to improve Tops.  My complaints are specific and can be fixed where your are just the usual anti Thai stuff.  

[fruitman]

3 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Did you speak Thai? 

Mate i'll repeat it again since you act like you know it all but has never been to Chidlom...They sell 10.000+ baht beef there and also speak english. Do you even know where Chidlom is and what's all around it?

[zhangxifu]

44 minutes ago, fruitman said:

Yes Chidlom is the best Tops. But the queue's can be terrible there...to avoid the queue last week i went to those self payment machines which are new..they were soooo complicated that even my educated wife didn't understand them so an assistant came to help but it still was very complicated...it's not like you scan your stuff, put money in the thing and go...far from that.

 

Also there's far too much staff in that supermarket and they even are scammers. Last time i saw Aussie plums which looked like pluots...i asked the 2 promoters if those were pluots  which they confirmed. Then another staffmember came and said they were plums...i asked the other 2 again about what it was and now they said plums...idiots they are. That's all they have to do all day those 2, sell/promote plums...so why can't they answer my question correctly?

I would ask you what are pluots but maybe I shouldn't. That would make me feel like I was working again. I encounter this same situation almost everywhere I go as a customer to purchase items in Thailand. I find myself solving retail issues/problems for the shop I don't work for just to get the items I require and to get out of there as fast as possible. In lots of cases, I have learned not to take no for an answer if I need something. It is never fast though.

Tops Chidlom has the best selection by far in Thailand and the service as well, as do the other central locations. Maybe the OP had his experience in some provincial branch? I have noticed the selection and experience of service often lacking in the quieter locations. My worst experience lasted almost two years when they opened the brand new TOPS on Khao Noi at Chilled in Pattaya. It took them over 10 months to learn to use my european credit card which is a combination card. I believe part of the problem was the inferior internet connections they had for some reason. There were a huge amount of other issues which the management should have solved. Due the proximity to me I was almost a daily customer and man the disgusted looks me and my wife received for the 20 months we lived there. Shopping there was just an experience of continuous failure in everything possible from the people who receive salary for supposedly working there. And I was the obvious problem. Man the time it took to buy anything there. I did observe a few things improved after the first year though.

[Fex Bluse]

1 hour ago, marcusarelus said:

I would if they had a Foodland in Rayong unfortunately they don't so my only alternative is to improve Tops.  My complaints are specific and can be fixed where your are just the usual anti Thai stuff.  

Your complaints are specific and will NOT likely be fixed within your window of interest. 

 

While my view is consistently negative, many would say it's more realistic. Sometimes life isn't fair, your hosts harbor a secret hatred for you and every local who smiles doesn't do so out of goodwill. 

[zhangxifu]

4 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

In 30 years of experience across the Thai world, each day I grow only more confident that they, generally, are at best indifferent and at worst fiercely against improving. 

 

Sending complaints to a Thai will generally only serve to waste the sender's time. 

 

Thais have developed an entire cultural tradition around indifference to poor performance. Hence, Thailand. 

I would look into the reasons why it is like this in Thailand. It would greatly help to understand how the thais see their country and government. I would guess most people feel quite let down by the government and it's over complication of most issues. Schools, everyday local bureaucracy not really meeting the standards but just feeding the selfish. It seems in a world as such it's personally easiest to just shut up and ignore it all. The power of example is great and rarely found here in the positive sense. Things are always improving though and the young generations are truly growing to international world view in big cities and why not elsewhere with the internet.

[kkerry]

 

 

 

[fruitman]

1 hour ago, zhangxifu said:

I would ask you what are pluots but maybe I shouldn't

A pluot is a hybrid fruit, plum/apricot and very nice, from australia.

 

They look exactly like plums though hence my question to the staff which were promoting them. They just said yes these are pluots but they were plums. They promoted plums this time but have promoted pluots some weeks before.

 

Just to sell them to this stupid farang they told me they were pluots but i didn't buy that and found out they were plums by questioning more staffmembers. My wife also couldn't believe it that these staffmembers were trying to cheat me. Disgusting behaviour...during questioning my wife noticed a sign above their stall which said they had aussie plums for sale.

 

Nothing wrong with Tops Chidlom but it's the thai staff which is only chasing their sales-bonus and go very far for that. 

 

If you ever see pluots for sale (sometimes they have them in Thailand) you should buy them because they are much better than a plum...mind you, there are many different pluots though, i only tasted one variety in my life.

[marcusarelus]

44 minutes ago, fruitman said:

A pluot is a hybrid fruit, plum/apricot and very nice, from australia.

 

They look exactly like plums though hence my question to the staff which were promoting them. They just said yes these are pluots but they were plums. They promoted plums this time but have promoted pluots some weeks before.

 

Just to sell them to this stupid farang they told me they were pluots but i didn't buy that and found out they were plums by questioning more staffmembers. My wife also couldn't believe it that these staffmembers were trying to cheat me. Disgusting behaviour...during questioning my wife noticed a sign above their stall which said they had aussie plums for sale.

 

Nothing wrong with Tops Chidlom but it's the thai staff which is only chasing their sales-bonus and go very far for that. 

 

If you ever see pluots for sale (sometimes they have them in Thailand) you should buy them because they are much better than a plum...mind you, there are many different pluots though, i only tasted one variety in my life.

Do you know for a fact that they get a sales bonus.  I've never heard of this in Western grocery stores. 

[fruitman]

11 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Do you know for a fact that they get a sales bonus.  I've never heard of this in Western grocery stores. 

Sure i know that.

 

Last week i was in Central Chidlom and wanted to buy 5 boxershorts. There was no sales around so i grabbed 5 of them and went to the cashiers, gave them 2000 baht and the items. Then they had big problems because there was no salesperson with me so they didn't know how to proceed...after 5 minutes waiting for that bs i demanded my money back and left the shop...i asked the informationdesk what was wrong with my 1000 baht billiets but they said nothing was wrong with those. So i asked why the cashier wouldn't let me pay and go and they couldn't answer that.

 

Sometimes i get so very very tired of Thailand, this was one of those days. I'll buy boxershorts in Singapore where they are much more developed and customer friendly.

[marcusarelus]

3 minutes ago, fruitman said:

Sure i know that.

 

Last week i was in Central Chidlom and wanted to buy 5 boxershorts. There was no sales around so i grabbed 5 of them and went to the cashiers, gave them 2000 baht and the items. Then they had big problems because there was no salesperson with me so they didn't know how to proceed...after 5 minutes waiting for that bs i demanded my money back and left the shop...i asked the informationdesk what was wrong with my 1000 baht billiets but they said nothing was wrong with those. So i asked why the cashier wouldn't let me pay and go and they couldn't answer that.

 

Sometimes i get so very very tired of Thailand, this was one of those days. I'll buy boxershorts in Singapore where they are much more developed and customer friendly.

I meant at the grocery store as your assertion was they received a sales bonus for selling plums which is of course nonsense. 

[fruitman]

13 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

I meant at the grocery store as your assertion was they received a sales bonus for selling plums which is of course nonsense. 

How do you know that's nonsense?

 

Maybe they rented the space in Tops to sell aussie imported fruits there? Just like every brand rents a place in Homepro and gets a bonus for the sales.

[marcusarelus]

19 minutes ago, fruitman said:

How do you know that's nonsense?

 

Maybe they rented the space in Tops to sell aussie imported fruits there? Just like every brand rents a place in Homepro and gets a bonus for the sales.

Have family who work at grocery stores.  Tops, as you suggested, don't pay produce clerks a bonus for sales. If you want to change your story now to private shops and not Tops start a new thread as this one is Tops.

[fruitman]

2 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Have family who work at grocery stores.  Tops, as you suggested, don't pay produce clerks a bonus for sales. If you want to change your story now to private shops and not Tops start a new thread as this one is Tops.

I see, so because you have family who work at grocery stores (not Tops) it can't be true that those guys get a bonus for all the sold pluots/plums...

 

Now i don't care if they get a bonus or not in Tops Chidlom, that supermarket is full of hi-so customers and they shouldn't lie to them about what they are trying to promote! A plum is a plum and will never be a pluot.

[marcusarelus]

2 minutes ago, fruitman said:

I see, so because you have family who work at grocery stores (not Tops) it can't be true that those guys get a bonus for all the sold pluots/plums...

 

Now i don't care if they get a bonus or not in Tops Chidlom, that supermarket is full of hi-so customers and they shouldn't lie to them about what they are trying to promote! A plum is a plum and will never be a pluot.

Admit it you lied.  You have no information that Tops pays grocery clerks a bonus for sales.  You should not make up stuff and represent it as facts.  You claimed Tops clerks get bonuses for sales it is incumbent upon you to prove your unusual assertion not on us to disprove your nonsense. 

[fruitman]

4 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Admit it you lied.  You have no information that Tops pays grocery clerks a bonus for sales.  You should not make up stuff and represent it as facts.  You claimed Tops clerks get bonuses for sales it is incumbent upon you to prove your unusual assertion not on us to disprove your nonsense. 

Get a life dude, you're annoying..,again.

[smutcakes]

35 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Admit it you lied.  You have no information that Tops pays grocery clerks a bonus for sales.  You should not make up stuff and represent it as facts.  You claimed Tops clerks get bonuses for sales it is incumbent upon you to prove your unusual assertion not on us to disprove your nonsense. 

Oh jesus, the irony

[marcusarelus]

15 hours ago, smutcakes said:

Oh jesus, the irony

There are enough things wrong with Thailand that one does not have make up stuff to get your point across.