Coles Supermarkets Australia
Reviews and Complaints

I purchased 3 gingerbread house kit from coles in castle towers australia on 01 december 2012.
The marking on the box indicates
Imported by coles supermarkets
Best before 23-apr-2013
12206a/1 14:24

We made up 2 of the houses and noticed that all the candy was very very hard and initial thoughts were that it was plastic. We did not use it on the gingerbread house.
After applying the icing, we left the house to ‘set’. 2 children ate the ‘creation’ at a later point and were both violently ill.

My son (7 years old) has vomited a total of 6 times during the day and is not well at all. The other child (9 years old female) who also ate the gingerbread house has also been vomiting and ill all of today.

The gingerbread houses have been thrown away and I am going to return the final unmade gingerbread house kit to coles supermarkets and insist on a refund. I will also caution them as to what happened and inquire if there have been any other complaints about this product.

Sydney, australia

Due to a dispute between the Landlord and the online shopping delievry person 'before' I had moved into the house, I was recently evicted by the Landlord because I was going to use Coles online shopping and because I may have been late in collection, the Landlord was afraid that Coles would not deliver to the address any more. I was evicted because of being considred 'argumentative'. I have been persecuted because of a disagreement between the Landlord and Coles online delivery. I ask that Coles permanently puts a stop to the delivery to the address from Friday 14th of December, 2012.

To whom it may concern,

I recently purchased a serving of your chicken and garlic balls from the Army base "Robinson Barracts" and to my disappointment as I was taking a bite felt something sharp, grinding in my teeth. At first I thought I had chipped my tooth but soon though there's too much in side this chicken ball. I managed to search through my mouth full, and to my absolute disgust I found what I believe to be small, very sharp shards of this plastic or glass.
I am a very regular consumer of your products. I purchase them myself when shopping and also buy them from the canteen where I work. I informed the canteen of the incident straight away and they appologised deeply, however the blame still belongs to Coles as the foreign objects where definitely inside the product before they were cooked!
I really hope that this case is treated with great concern by your company as it could have very easily ended up being very dangerous!

Some three months ago I tried to find Coles Julian Carrots either 500gr or 1 Kg of this product. I went overseas for 6 weeks hoping to find said product which I seemed to be missing due to my late shopping. However, upon returning to OZ late last month I was disturbed to find that no longer (according to your staff) is this product now available. Thanks for nothing, as a person suffering from arthritis, it's nigh impossible to make Julian carrots. Will you advise me as to why no longer we can buy this product as I've found many people in this are have found themselves like me.

Mr. J. Can-nan [protected]@westnet.com.au

I would like to make a formal complaint about Coles Seville Grove Armadale, W.A 6112 - I have brought home bottles of A2 milk that has a use by date of a week to go, yet when the bottles are opened the milk is off! Plus also have brought home bottles of milk that have holes in them, the vegetables and fruit in the shop are disgusting half the time, the shelves are all full of dust its just feral!

I have been searching for any type of meat ribs excluding lamb and finally come across beef ribs with smokey BBQ sauce last night at our local Bi-lo in our small beach side town where Bi-lo is our only grocery store for the next 25kms or so. I ended up purchasing a 1 kilo bag of the ribs and anticipated my families dinner. Having cooked them for the 6 hours in a slow cooker as stated on the packaging. Imagine my dismay, after checking on the ribs that had been cooking for 4 hours, when I saw the meat had retracted from the 2 inch bones and was around the size of a square cm cube of meat! 8 pieces of ribs is all that's in this bag! Anyone can tell that this is not going to even feed 1 adult! All in all, I'm very disappointed at the price, having paid $15 for something i could have improvised with chuck steak! I would like Coles to up their game and really start keeping the prices down as it states on their freekishly loud and annoying mantra. I'll know better next time and will be spreading the word...

I went into Coles a few months ago and this woman who works there by the name of Isobel, was yelling at an employee, infront of me and other customers, to the point where the young girl was reduced to tears. I went home and then rang the store manager about her behaviour and he said, he'd look into it. Last week I went back into this store, and there she was again, yelling at the girl working the check-out saying things like 'are you stupid?'! Don't Coles have a code of conduct to follow? Why is this woman supervising or even working at Coles with that attitude? I used to shop at this coles quite alot in the past, with what I keep seeing and hearing, I will never go into this store again.

I bought 5 bottles of the coriander seeds to use for beef jerky. Lucky for me I used a big pan to roast them quickly, and noticed something shiny. It turned out to be small sea shells. What bugs me is that I did the same last week and hubby did the roasting, now the question is, did I give jerky away with shells on grrr. Not sure I will buy Cole's brand again.

On saturday 16th of June I purchased $35 worth of lamb (receipt number 3102). Upon eating the above I quickly realised that I was eating mutton. Not all the meat was mutton, it was obviously mixed in with some lamb steaks. my guess about 50:50. This is not the first time, about 18 months age I bought what was packaged as veal (at randwick) to find out when I got home someone had cut some ?topside very thinly and placed in in water so as some of the colour would drain out. That went to the dog. I am a good customer and I buy on average the majority of my food etc thru Coles and I don't expect the be short changed. I am very disappointed, yours sincerely Toni Saville

I purchased a 6 pack of Coles branded variety mix yoghurt from the Northcote Plaza Coles Shopping Centre.
When eating the Peach, Mango and Passionfruit flavour, I was disgusted to find a long strip of transparent pale orange plastic (8.5cms in length) inside the yoghurt which i nearly swallowed.
As I buy this yoghurt for my seven year old, I was so thankful that it was I who opened this particular tub and not he as he could have easily choked.
I would expect this matter be fully investigated and product recalled if required as there would be many other children who consume this brand of yoghurt and needless to say, would be a disaster

I bought 2 bags of brown rice from Coles Noble Park a few months ago and kept the bags of brown rice are kept in a big tub of white rice.

Today I went to use some of the brown rice (half used) and noticed that there was a live maggot hanging from the bag (on the outside). I checked the white rice in the tub and noticed that there were little moths inside. I threw out the half open bag of brown rice and got the unopened bag and noticed that this one had about 3 moths and large maggots moving around inside of it.

As the source of the maggots and moths was clearly the bag of brown rice, I went into the Coles from which I had purchased the rice from to ask for a refund for the two bags of brown rice and the tub of white rice (25K worth) that I would now have to throw out.

The store manager apologised and agreed to refund the two bags of brown rice but said that he did not have 25K's of white rice. He advised that I could take a bag of white rice but offered no other resolution. I declined this offer and told him that I only wanted to be compensated for what I lost - nothing more and certainly nothing less. I advised that I could take a couple of 10K bags of white rice and went back to his office.

I then collected 2 bags of brown rice and 1 bag of 10K white rice as there was only one 10K bag of the type that was close to what I had. I took them to the counter and the girl who had been left to deal with me looked confused and said she was only aware of refunding 2 bags of brown rice. She went to the manager's office to check and another person came out - his name was Phil.

He asked about the situation and I said that I wanted a voucher - to which he cut me off and said abruptly - you're not getting a voucher. I explained once again that I only wanted to be compensated for what I lost and said that the manager had told me that they didn't have 25K's of white rice and there certainly wasn't on the shelves when I checked so I would like a voucher for the difference to purchase the remaining bag of rice another time. He then went somewhere and came back with another 10K bag of the same white rice and slapped it on the table and said again, here - you're not getting a voucher.

I found this to be extremely hurtful, that I was being treated like some kind of opportunist when I had not asked for anything more than what I had lost. I had not even asked to be compensated somehow for the fact that I may have consumed maggots from the first bag.

Bought coles sticky date cookies, as i m eating one a large pip lodged in my tooth and cracked my tooth, do you know how coles handled it, i suffered for two days in pain with a cracked tooth, (also i told them they dont have to fix tooth as im through medicare scheme for fixing my teeth)..After a month i got a letter from coles saying sorry these things happen heres 10 dollar gift card (good will) and we hope you enjoy it..look im not one to ask for hand outs, but im a disability pensioner who has 3 compressed discs and i i suffer sever post natal depression.. i think the matter should have been treated much much better i feel degraded and belittled with there goodwill 10 dollars, nothing would have been better...i just thought a multimillion dollar company would look after their customer more better

yesterday 7.3.12 time 9.07 am I bought a loaf of Coles White Bread, went to have a sandwhich for lunch, bread was Not fresh only fit for toast, I do 99.9% of my shopping at this supermarket and have always bought bread there at around 8.00am as i was told that is around the time the fresh bread arrived. Same thing happened on Monday with bread rolls, fresh that day, not fit to eat, unless toasted, I do know that the bread rolls are baked in store and have had the same thing happen before with them, some lame excuse about why they were not as fresh as the ones I had bought the day before, i know that the bread is only $1 a loaf, but living on a pension, a $ is a $ to me i find this quite upsetting, had to put it in freezer, at least that way I can thaw it out to the freshness it should be., not a happy customer, on the odd occasion I bought bread from Woolies it has been of the highest standard, and stayed fresh for up to 3 days

Dear sir/ Madam,
I have multiple allergies and Coeliacs disease. I find it increasingly difficult to cater to my special dietary needs at my local Coles supermarket since items that I know I can eat without ill effects are constantly being deleted from the shelves. Coles have made unavailable a "naturally Good' product, e.g. Carob covered rice cakes. Coles told me the product had been made unavailable by the supplier. I have contacted the manufacturer of "Naturally Good' products, and their written reply clearly advised me that Coles deleted them from their ordering list. Despite me having placed an order with Coles for these items I have never had a call from Coles and the item has NOT been returned to the shelf. I have complained to Coles but the generic response was most unhelpful. Further efforts by me to contact Coles has been ignored. As an individual needing a particular diet, I find Coles irresponsible and discriminatory in their actions of deleting specific food items known to be purchased by specific customers. Thankyou

I mobeen Zeeshan citizen of Australia, located at melbourn. I had made shopping at Coles, coburg branch, sydney rd, melbourn Australia on 21/01/2012 at 8:10 pm. At this time there was Mr. Asad working as a member for greeting Coles customers from blue star company. So I wanna to submit the complaint against him. What he did, he abused me and said I am a brother of zaidi, he has laughed on me in bad style with neck and head movements like a non professional person. Also before this instant 3 weeks ago I was with my customer and I was inside the same Coles branch and he that time bulling me as well and said come here old man mobile man in bad way. If you wanna to confirm please follow up this complaint asap, and see camera movie inside Coles and pls follow up and please give me a reply on my email [protected]@hotmail.com ASAP. I have a customer's prove with me. I can provide u any details regarding this mater. And also I already submitted the complaint in that branch same time to Mr. Sunny duty manager that time in my hand writing and he gave me a copy of this complaint with Coles code number which is 0592. Pls follow up this complaint and I will appreciate u.

Cheers.

Mobeen Zeeshan.

Mobile number : [protected]

I have been shopping at this Coles supermarket for over 2 years and the product select and sustomer service was the worst I have every seen it. I arrive at 9.05am Sunday morning and only had a select of Coles bread baked or yesterdays bread the shelves were empty. Went to the deli and no Virginia ham until monday & no sun dried tomatoes either in the deli but told I can purchase them already packaged! Had to ask for a cauliflower to be cut in 1/2 as only full ones on the shelf-it seem to be an inconvenience-it was the worst shopping experience I have every had at coles.

I bought a 4 litre lite milk date was 13th jan to expire but was off on 08 jan after pouring onto my cereal
and eating it, i spat it out in shock to find it was off. I had another 4 litre lite milk that I had bought as well and
that was ok on the 08th jan but by the 11th jan the same thing happened. I am assuming you have a lot of complaints
about the milk that was sold in the westcourt coles at cairns westcourt shopping cetre.

Please refund me two 4 litre bottles of milk.
batch 363 [protected]

hi we have been purchasing the coles brand choc mint crunch lollies for some time now, i thorougherly enjoy this product.
but we have noticed the last three months or so that there has been quite a few lollies with out the chocolate centres they have just been solid centres instead and this is a dissapointment as we like the chocalate in the middle and this is happening very frequently.
this is supposed to be an australian product and coles say they stand by there product and we are just bringing this matter to you attention so that it can be rectified but other wise we enjoy them very much we also do all our regular shopping with coles and have done for sone time now as we prefer your products hope to here from you soon

regards no chocalate centres.

This is the second time in 2 years that I have personally witnessed junior staff being bullied by so-called managers. The first time was at the new Aldi store in Wentworthville when a supposed "manager" was addressing a junior staff member about store issues. This was done in full view of customers and was very humiliating for the junior staff member. If there is any issue to be raised with a member of staff it should be done privately so that it doesn't cause embarrassment to the worker or customers. I complained about this incident and I have not seen that particular store "manager" since. When I witnessed the same scenario in Coles, Parramatta/Westfield, I was horrified once again. Here was the store "manager"
reprimanding a junior staff member in full view and earshot of customers. Two things came to mind:- 1. where on earth did he receive management training?, and 2. if this is the disrespectful way he treats his staff, then what is his true attitude towards his customers? I'm aware that everyone these days is overworked and underpaid, but that's simply no excuse for bullying. On a positive note, the manager at Coles, Stockland Mall, Merrylands, seems to know what he is doing, and in my experience has always been polite and respectful towards staff members.