SOUNDING OFF:Visiting his local Superquinn in Limerick, David O'Connor was surprised to see two large carousels full of cuddly toy dogs with a big sign overhead saying, "FREE, bring one home today".

Being very sceptical of free offers, he looked more closely at the offer and discovered it came with conditions written in small print "on a small card in a small holder attached to the carousel".

In the checkout queue he saw a young mother with a toddler in her arms clutching a free cuddly dog, he says. "Behind me was another mother with a four-year-old, sans cuddly toy. The mother with the toddler put her free dog on the line with her groceries, and was informed it was not free but conditional on her buying €250 worth of goods."

The mother told the checkout assistant to keep it and the toddler burst into tears and had a tantrum because her free toy had been taken from her. "She was placed on the ground while the confused mother packed her groceries. The mother behind me said it was disgraceful, as her four-year-old had seen and read the 'FREE' sign and naturally wanted one, but was told it was not free and he could not have one. 'He thinks I am an ogre for not getting it,' she said."

O'Connor was so upset by the lack of care for the upset mother and toddler that he asked to speak to the manager in order to make a complaint. "He listened but would not accept that the 'FREE' advertisement together with the quantity of dogs displayed was a devious and underhand way of getting children to put pressure on parents to take a free (€250) doggy for them."

He points out that sweets have been removed from the till area in order to prevent just such a situation, "but now it appears to me that Superquinn have found a new way to circumvent this. This offer is only available in Limerick, Waterford, and Clonmel," he writes.

We contacted the store and were told that while Superquinn was "obviously sorry that the child was disappointed in this particular case, the dog promotion has been one of our most successful promotions and customers have taken home 40,000 dogs already, with not one customer complaint coming to our Customer Service desk."

The statement said the process of redeeming products with collector tokens was "a tried and tested mechanism which we believe customers are used to and understand well". It said that it was made very clear at the point of sale "that customers must have 25 tokens in order to bring the dog home for free and refers the customer to the collector leaflet for full details. All terms and conditions are reiterated and very clear in the collector leaflet attached to the dog stand."

You've met your match

Joseph O'Reilly from Booterstown has another issue with the same store. He was recently walking around Superquinn in Blackrock for the first time in a while and noticed a large number of promotional signs on a number of different products which were emblazoned with the phrase "Price Match". "The sign caught my attention as a potential promotional item which I should investigate further. It went on to list the price of the item in Tesco, Dunnes and Superquinn as exactly the same." He thought it was odd that Superquinn was trying to sell him the product by claiming their price was exactly the same as at Tesco or Dunnes.

"It occurred to me that such evidence in any other business would be seen as 'cartel-like activity' and anti-competitive. An alternative view on this 'Price Match' approach is that Superquinn is really trying to tell its customers that all products without this sign are in fact over-priced in comparison to Tesco or Dunnes. Which is it?"

We contacted Superquinn again and on this occasion recieved the following short statement: "It is important that we offer our customers value across our ranges. The price match communication in store is to reassure our customers that we do offer them value."

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