Tesco substituted my carefully-picked bottles for cheaper alternatives

Simon Read took advantage of the supermarket's offer of 25 per cent off six bottles of wine, but only eight of the 24 bottles he ordered were actually available

Supermarkets regularly substitute items if they're not available (Rex Features)

If you follow our regular Bargain Hunter column you would have noticed the offer of 25 per cent off six bottles of wine at Tesco that we featured last week.

It seemed such a good offer to me that I decided to order some bottles of the wine we regularly drink at home; and with the Christmas season approaching I went online to order 24 bottles, which were due to be delivered last Sunday.

When the driver turned up I got a shock. Most of the bottles I ordered weren't actually available, he told me. So, to my astonishment, the supermarket had substituted my carefully picked wines with some cheaper alternatives.

I really was flabbergasted. I know that supermarkets substitute items if they're not available, but I presumed that meant a bigger/smaller bag of carrots, not a completely different product. As far as I'm concerned, substituting a £13 Châteauneuf-du-Pape with a random £8 Bordeaux is not a reasonable or adequate replacement.

Of the 24 bottles I ordered, only eight arrived, which raises the question why the supermarket offered them for sale if they're not actually available.

Chatting to retail experts this week I got the impression that it's a common trick. They told me supermarkets sometimes try to palm off customers with whichever wine they've had difficulty shifting. They rely on the vast majority of people simply accepting the replacement with a shrug.

There's also the long-established con of click-and-switch, where unscrupulous online shops advertise hard-to-get products at attractive prices and then send cheap replacements, relying on shopper apathy to help them get away with it.

Tesco, of course, denies any such thing. It told me: "The latest deal was extremely popular, resulting in some customer favourites selling out. Customers who have chosen to be provided with substitutions for their Grocery Home Shopping orders were offered the choice of an alternative wine. Our substitutions are operated by a computer system which is constantly being updated and improved."

My view? It needs scrapping. If shops happily flog stuff they can't deliver, that stinks. Regular Tesco shoppers may be aware that they need to choose to opt out of being delivered substitutions to avoid being fobbed off with inferior wine. I had no idea, and neither did others who reported exactly the same thing happening to them last weekend.

Tesco eventually agreed to track down bottles of the wine I ordered and let me have them at the discounted price. I reordered it but – surprise, surprise – only 12 out of 18 bottles were delivered and, as I write this, I'm still waiting to find out what's happened to the missing case.

My distrust of online retailers has grown enormously in the past week. I want to be able to order with the confidence of knowing that the items I want are available and can be delivered on time. Much more of this shoddy service and I'll be heading back to the high street. What about you?