On December 3, we purchased some goods from the Lidl store in San Ġwann. These included a pack of Milbona eight-tub natural yoghurt with an expiry date of December 23. On December 8, when we were about to consume the contents of one of the tubs, we discovered that, unlike previous purchases of the same product, the colour of the yoghurt was off-white as opposed to white. We opened a second tub and this too was off-white in colour. The taste was also unpalatable.

On December 9, we sent an e-mail to Lidl to ask what action we had to take to secure a replacement for the “faulty” product and we received a reply (from formclient@lidl.it – possibly indicating the complaint was being handled by Lidl in Italy) within a couple of hours asking for information such as purchase chit number, where purchased, lot number etc. We submitted the information available that same day.

As we had no further communication from Lidl by December 13, we decided to take the “faulty” goods back to Lidl in San Ġwann only to be told that we had to first wait for a reply from Lidl to our complaint before any action by the store could be taken.

We sent a follow-up e-mail on December 14 to both Lidl in Italy and Lidl in Malta. To date, we have not had a reply from either.

Ironically, the reply from Lidl on December 9 starts and ends as follows:

“We are sorry to learn that the relationship of trust that joins us to our customer, born thanks to the high quality of our products, has been compromised.”

“Your communication contributes to increase the satisfaction and the security of our products. Thank you for contacting us.” Normally, action speaks louder than words. In this case there has been no action and their words are full of empty nothings.

So much for customer care. Has Lidl forgotten that the customer has a choice?