A woman was unable to order groceries for six weeks after a "glitch" on Morrisons' website blocked her from booking a delivery. Susan Gray, 54, received her weekly online shop as usual on January 29 but an apparent billing issue soon arose.
Later that day a text arrived to say that her £47 debit card payment had failed and she should check her card details on her supermarket account. All seemed to be in order, so Ms Gray, from North Shields in Tyne and Wear, checked with her bank.
She was told that the payment had been approved and was showing as pending, awaiting Morrisons claiming the money. Assuming it was just an error, Ms Gray continued with her weekend – until she received a text and an email the next day telling her that payment had failed.
And then another the next day, and the next. In fact, she received an email and a text every day for six weeks until ChronicleLive stepped in to see what was going on.
"I called Morrisons on February 1 to see what had happened and the store said it would retake the payment the next day", she said. "They didn't call and all the while the payment was due I could not make any more online shopping orders because Morrisons' website flagged up that I owed them money.
"I called my bank again to check there was no issue with the card, which there wasn't, then I tried another three cards I have, all of which were rejected by the website. In desperation, I called Morrisons again, to be told someone would call back within two days. They didn't – and meanwhile the emails and texts were still coming every day."
Ms Gray, who normally spends anything up to £150 each week with the retailer, said she was left with no choice but to travel to Tynemouth to do her weekly grocery shop.
"I know it's not the end of the world, but it defeated the point of the convenience of online shopping," she said. "I work full time and my days are very busy caring for my elderly parents. Online shopping made life just that bit easier, and it was so annoying, especially as I had done nothing wrong.
"To make matters worse, it meant that I could not enter a competition to win grocery shopping for a year which I had my eye on. To enter the competition, you had to do one online shop within certain dates, and this mess put paid to that."
With no end in sight, Ms Gray turned to ChronicleLive to try to break the deadlock. Morrisons contacted her to take the payment on the very same day.
"It was such an easy problem to resolve, but I was getting nowhere and I was getting sick of the constant texts and emails," said Ms Gray, who is now a happy online shopper again. "I'm not sure why it took so long to resolve."
A Morrisons spokesperson said: "There seems to have been a glitch in our system on this occasion. We have contacted Mrs Gray to apologise. As a gesture of goodwill we have given her vouchers so that she can have her next online shop on us."
Ms Gray was happy with that. "The stupid thing is I wanted to carry on shopping at Morrisons all the time and even travelled to Tynemouth to do so," she said. "I am so pleased it is resolved – and the texts and emails have stopped!"
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