A few months ago, I was passed the Domino’s Express Card by one of the PR companies for whom I regularly post press releases on Juniper’s Journal Facebook. Upon activation of the card, I could redeem a Personal AND Regular pizza of my choice. Sounds so easy, right? However as with many free things here, nothing is smooth sailing.
Firstly I had problems completing my profile on their website which was a prerequisite to activating the card. Every time I tried to fill in my name, address, phone number and other details, a message would come up saying there was an error. I tried this multiple times to no avail so left with no choice, had to contact their customer service who advised me to send a screenshot of the message so that they could forward it to their tech department. Over a week passed with no update from them, I emailed again and this time they said the matter had been resolved and I could complete the profile.
True enough, I could complete the profile and was given 2 e-vouchers as promised. The Personal pizza voucher had an earlier expiry date than the Regular pizza voucher so I redeemed the former first. I had to pay an additional RM1.50 but since it is a nominal amount, accepted it.
Then came time to redeem the Regular pizza and after choosing the pizza and checking out (this time there was an additional RM4.50 charge because I chose a Prawn Pizza), a message popped up saying the Regular pizza could only be redeemed with the purchase of a Personal pizza. I was livid because nowhere did it say I had to purchase a Personal pizza first. The e-voucher could have informed me of that condition. Why make me choose the pizza and the outlet to pick up from, check out and then only tell me that there was such a condition? To make matters worse, after that the e-voucher disappeared!
A free product should be a free product as promised with no strings attached. It’s like me having a product giveaway and when the time comes to announce the winner, I inform the winner that she has to purchase something from me before I will send her the prize. There needs to be greater transparency for all consumers here. I’m a little tired to all these offers which really don’t mean much. Nothing is truly free and the consumers don’t really benefit from these offers if they are always made to pay something for what should have been complimentary.
