Does Ocado have a problem with Wanstead?

Picture: Ocado
Picture: Ocado

Online supermarket Ocado, whose vans are a familiar sight around Wanstead, has told one Wansteadium reader that it is not registering new customers in the area because of levels of fraud.

The reader, who asked not to be named but lives in central Wanstead, placed an order as a new customer but was then informed the delivery had been cancelled by Ocado because they had been ‘unable to verify the payment details’. She rang the supermarket to complain, and was told that the given explanation had been incorrect.

She says: “[The Ocado customer services person] then advised me that the actual reason is that Ocado have chosen to stop serving my area completely due to the prevalence of fraud, which seems rather implausible to me as Wanstead is packed with Ocado vans – I saw two today.”

On writing to the supermarket to enquire further, she then received a fuller reply which said it was just new customers which were not being accepted. She was told:

Unfortunately we are not accepting any new registrations to your area as there has been ongoing problems within the area which has resulted in us making a business decision not to deliver as the risk of further problems is too high.

This is intriguing: are high levels of fraud in Wanstead really putting it out of step with other areas? Have any other readers had problems registering with Ocado recently?

Wansteadium has asked Ocado for further details and comment.

5 thoughts on “Does Ocado have a problem with Wanstead?”

  1. The Ocado delivery man was telling me that people order to an address and as the van arrives they are outside the property having ‘just popped outside so leave the shopping here’ and off they go

  2. I moved to Leytonstone E11 3 years ago, no idea it had been or is a ‘hot’ postcode. Signed up with Ocado no probs 2 years ago, and have been using it ever since — hope that doesn’t change.

    Wonder what the ‘ongoing problems’ are. Quite a mix of explanations for the new user. And maybe I’m naive but struggle to think what lucrative racket one could do with fraudulent grocery orders.

  3. Sounds odd:

    1 that statement from “Ocado” is very ungrammatical.

    2 what sort of fraud? Ocado validate your credit card details before delivering.

    3 how wide is the non-delivery area? not E11 2 surely!

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