New World Supermarket complaint: Misled with promotion

New World ran a promotion that promised if you collect a certain number of stickers you would get a free knife. I collected the required amount, but when I tried to redeem the stickers, they claimed they had no more knives — that they had all been given out. This is happening all over New Zealand. The store was kind enough to give me a list of other New World stores throughout New Zealand which were ALSO out of the knives. The promotional literature says, While stocks last, so the store could legally have purchased one knife and given it to the first person who redeemed the stickers, then told everyone else that the knives were out of stock. While not technically illegal, it reeks of fraud and business practices which should be illegal. Customers were clearly led to believe that if they collected the stickers they could redeem them for the knives.

To make things even more bizarre, New World gave me MORE stickers based on my purchases that day. That is, more stickers which I can’t redeem because the alleged rewards don’t exist.