Company sent me hot chocolate with a BBE date of 4/2006!

[nbodyhome]

Okay -

I am not sure what to do here, I just contacted the credit card company. Before we went to Europe, I bought some items online so I'd not have to overpack my bag of items for friends and family on the way back. Mostly I bought from Whittard, which has great teas/hot chocolates, etc. I also saw a company that was selling Whittard hot chocolates at a great price, I figured they were just closing them out. I bought a bunch of cans of the Whittard Irish Cream (actually, I had ordered several different types, but it turns out they were out of all but the IC).

To make a long story short, we got back from vacation - I was happy to have the cans for giving out until I saw the BBE date was 4/2006 - so 6 months or so out of date. I obviously can't give those as gifts.

I've emailed the company twice so far (plus this morning), with nothing back yet from them. I ended up buying from Whittard again, just to have enough for everyone. I didn't go crazy buying, but I have 10 or so family/friends I wanted to bring back for.

Anyway - what would you do? On my reorder from Whittard, I actually ended up with 3 older cans from Whittard directly - and I wrote to them, asking if they were still fresh. They are replacing them (they said that the product isn't bad, just probably wouldn't taste as good as it's past the BBE date). I wish I'd just ordered everything from Whittard the first time, it'd have been easier and cheaper in the long run.

Thanks!

 

[Scurvy]

When I bought some candy in the Tea shop in Epcot last summer, I got outside and was about to give one to my son to eat when I glanced at the "Best before" date on it. It was something like 4 - 11 - 06, which would have been a couple of month too old, so I went back in to return it.

They told me that the format that they use is different than we typically use here. Instead of "month-day-year" that we use, theirs was in "day-month-year". So if the products that you have are labeled with three numbers, it might be worth finding out which way they label them. If they only have two, though, then obviously they are too old.

Hopefully the company is just slow getting back to you and they will fix this. And while I might use a product for myself that was past it's "Best before" date, and I certainly understand not wanting to give such a thing as a gift! I hope they are able to resolve this to your satisfaction!

 

[nbodyhome]

Actually, the BBE date says only 4/2006 - I'm pretty used to the way the English do their date system now (I have had to fill out paperwork and online forms and such for Virgin, etc. with their date format).

I wrote them the day I got the product, which was over a week ago now. I don't mind myself keeping something that is past its BBE date, I am keeping the old Whittards for myself for now (but those are 2 months past the date, and I'm not giving them out).

Next time I may just bring a spare bag with me to fill up, and it will be easier seeing what I'm getting. Though ordering from Whittard itself was the easiest - they've been great to deal with. My last order came from the UK in only 2 days! Their shipping isn't outrageous compared with doing it yourself in England - it is VERY costly to mail a package.