One time I bought a 12-pack of Mountain Dew and two cans were completely empty. No punctures, no open tops, just empty. I called their customer support and they promptly mailed me coupons for two free 6 packs of 20oz bottles and a slew of $1.00 off coupons for general Pepsi products. Very satisfied here.

I had the same thing happen with Huggies diapers (112 pack missing an entire stack) and Contessa shrimp (foul tasting). Both companies hooked me up with coupons and earned repeat business from my family.

Most of the larger companies are pretty good at giving out freebies to unhappy customers.

I bought a box of pizza roll once, and when I opened them the appeared to have been thawed out and refrozen as wells as flattened. They were nothing but mush.

I called the company and they sent me two coupons for 1 free pizza rolls package each.

THe coupon didn't specify which size so I went to BJ's and picked up 2 10 pound bags of pizza rolls and ate all of them.

I no longer like Pizza Rolls.

.....And, if he worked for us, the route salesman who stocks that machine lost his gainsharing bonus for the quarter.

I once had a defective 12-pack of Diet Dr Pepper. Well, the whole thing wasn't defective.

One can was only half-full, and another's tab came off in my hand when I tried to open it. I called Cadbury-Schweppes and had a voucher for two 12-packs about a week later.

Frito-Lay is very good with comping a freebie if you call them to say you've got a stale bag of chips.

I'm not sure I would count anyone sending me a coupon for free soda as doing me a favor, no matter what the circumstances were.

I think I told this story here already, but I scored a free box of Fiber One granola bars and a $1 off coupon for any other General Mills product when I e-mailed them about a package that contained about 2/3 of a bar. I always kind of assume that customerservice@companyname.com messages are generally routed to /dev/null, but not only did they respond, they were apologetic and hooked me up!

How old does Mountain Dew have to be to go bad? From the 70's I'm guessing.

My brother once opened a box of Tony's microwave pizzas that had rat feces in the packages. When he complained to the company, they send him a coupon for a free box.

Needless to say, it went unused.

Damn, I usually just eat the loss. I mean, it seems like too much trouble to go thru for something from a vending machine. I have gotten expired candy bars, candy bars with the wrapper ripped, a cinnamon roll with mold on it, and many more. I just never thought of calling them to complain.

.....@faust1200: 26 weeks from the date it was canned.

yeah, i'm surprised pepsi even took responsibility here--isn't it really the vending machine stockers' fault?

At least the Mt Dew was just stale and not a mixed brew that turns into Benzine like the Coke product Vault (great article I read here this week). But the big chains and the newer ones starting out do try to take care nice to see Pepsi up to the challenge.

Pepsi does love you. They have this commercial about useless facts, ultimately explaining that diet pepsi has more cola taste than diet coke. Then they say that its a fact you can use two to three times a day! Wow! I can't wait for the post-tobacco lawsuits twenty years from now.

The thing is that Pepsi makes a killing as selling you sugar water. Keeping your loyalty and repeat business is in their best interest. The cost for a 20oz bottle of soda costs maybe 20c total to produce and stock in the vending machine that sells it for $1.00. That's a lot of profit!

If they lose a couple bucks, they'll make it back shortly if they can keep you buying their product.

I've has similar experience with Golden Grahams and Fritos... With the Golden Grahams there were a few unidentified objects in the cereal and with Fritos my chips were burnt. Both times the company sent me coupons for a free product.