Re: Co-op Charlbury

Sun 22 Sep, 21:49

Almost every Co-op round here is run by Midcounties Co-op – it’s the successor of the Oxford, Swindon & Gloucester Co-operative Society, which in turn is the successor of the Chipping Norton Co-operative Society.

The Witney one, however, is the Manchester Co-op (aka the “Co-operative Group”) because they bought out Somerfield a few years back. So anything that used to be Somerfield is a Manchester Co-op and you can’t use a Midcounties card there (or vice versa).

There was a big push towards all using the same logos 20 years ago, which made it hard to tell the difference between Co-ops. But then the Manchester group’s banking division employed a guy with a crystal meth addiction and everything went to pot. The bank effectively went bust and had to be bought out by private finance. Since then they’ve started moving away from each other a bit more.

Sun 22 Sep, 18:46

The Midcounties Co-op has a different rewards card to the Co-op UK.  I joined the Co-op about 25 years ago in Scotland and when I moved to Charlbury ten years ago I struggled to get my rewards until I re-registered with the Midcounties Co-op.  I re-registered and all was well again.  I would recommend re-registering with the Co-op Midcounties.

The Co-op's in Charlbury & Chipping Norton are Midcounties Co-ops and the Co-op in Witney is Co-op UK.  

Sun 22 Sep, 17:03

As far as I remember, in the dim and distant past, this only ever became apparent if you needed to write a cheque (!) to pay for goods, in which case you would have to write something like "West Oxfordshire Co-operative Society" in the payee line. 

Perhaps the reason why cheques became less popular?!

Sun 22 Sep, 15:57

I had this same thing - my mum gifted me a CoOp card a couple of years back, and I tried to spend it in Chippy CoOp - but no, turned out I had to spend it in Witney, because it is part of the right group, whereas Charlbury and Chippy aren't. So evidently the Co-Op isn't the Co-Op wherever you go! Annoying.

Sun 22 Sep, 14:25 (last edited on Sun 22 Sep, 16:03)

Thanks Adrian but having posted it I’ve  decided this is not the right place for this. 

Mods please delete at will