An elderly couple who decided to do a good deed by rescuing a dumped supermarket trolley were left feeling frustrated after it took seven weeks for Aldi to come and pick it up. You can see the couple talk about their experience here:
Pat and Betty Burke came across the abandoned trolley near their home in Deal, Kent, and decided to take it off the street and even give it a clean.
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But after contacting Aldi to let the company know they had one of its trolleys, the couple were left with a lengthy wait before it was collected.
Betty, 81, said she wasn't able to return the trolley herself as it was too big to fit inside their car and because she is a full-time carer to husband Pat, 82, who has a number of health conditions, including partial loss of sight.
With no room inside their home and no other choice, the couple had to leave it in their front garden while they waited for it to be picked up.
Betty was initially told that someone would come to collect the trolley, but when no one arrived she got in touch two more times to try and get it sorted. Neither of which proved fruitful.
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The couple even visited a local branch of Aldi three times to let them know about the trolley, but again, had no success.
Betty said: “It's all been nonsense. It's not damaged so they could have come over and wheeled it back straight away. I even cleaned it for them.
"It would take one of their staff 15 to 20 minutes to walk over and pick it up.
"It seemed wicked to just leave it there. It could have got vandalised. I'm told these trolleys cost about £100 each."
Betty added: “They told us they were sorry it hadn't been collected but in the end we were told this had to be dealt with by head office."
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Pat, who is the ex-chairman of the city council's environment health committee, said: “I don't like to see things thrown away and wasted.
“Because I'm disabled I couldn't take it back down there. I'd love to be able to."
Eventually, after intervention by a local newspaper, the trolley was picked up on July 5 and the supermarket chain has since apologised.
An Aldi spokesperson said: “We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused Mr and Mrs Burke.
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“We’re pleased this has now been resolved by the team at their local store.”
The company says a delay in response from the trolley retrieval firm to Aldi’s customer services team prevented it from being collected sooner.
Claire Reid