Service complaint - PepsiCo/Simba Chips

This is not a product review but a service Complaint.

I am writing on behalf of a friend in Zimbabwe who is severely immuno-compromised and has to be exceptionally careful with what she consumes. One of her most severe intolerances is to gluten.

On 31 May she emailed PepsiCo at *** asking the following: Do any your crisps come in contact with gluten - wheat, barley or rye. Any chance of cross contamination?

The next day she received an autoresponse from that same email address giving the usual platitudes and asking for her telephone number, to which she responded giving three contact numbers but stating at the top that she is in Zimbabwe.

She has heard nothing from Simba since so she asked me to follow up which I did on Wednesday 07 June. I spoke to an agent Jayden and explained the situation to him, even reading him the emails and the email addresses involved. He wanted to assist me with the product information but the whole point of my getting involved was to highlight the fact that they had not contacted the consumer about a legitimate and important request for product information. He told me that he would sms me the correct email address for email contact.

I eventually (3 hours later) got the sms giving me the exact same email address that my friend had used AND that I had told him she had mailed to!! I phoned again and another agent (who I did not want to have to tell the same story to over again) said that Jayden would phone me back. I gave my cell number.

Needless to say, I have not heard from him AND my friend in Zimbabwe also has not.

This level of service is SHOCKING for a multi-national, multi-brand conglomerate like PepsiCo and is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

I told my friend to register on HelloPeter to lay a complaint but unfortunately you require a South African contact number. Hence my getting involved on her behalf.

As a matter of interest, Checkers, Woolworths and Dischem have all previously responded to her queries but Tiger Brands, and now PepsiCo, do not bother.

Not a good recommendation for those multi-brand conglomerates!!!