Two pensioners who rescued a discarded Aldi trolley near their home and cleaned it up have been left fuming after waiting seven weeks for the supermarket giant to pick it up.
Pat and Betty Burke, from Deal, Kent, took it in to their home and cleaned it up before reporting the missing trolley to the chain.
Betty, 81, wasn't able to return the trolley to the store as her husband Pat, 82, a former mayor of Canterbury, is disabled and partially-sighted and she has to be with him at all times.
She was forced to keep it in their front garden as it wouldn't fit in the car.
Betty was told by Aldi's customer services team over the phone someone would be round to pick it up, but after no sign of it being collected she rang back twice more but was still left waiting.
After visiting the store in Park Street, Deal, more than three times to report the abandoned trolley they were still left waiting and quickly became infuriated.
Betty said: "It's all been nonsense. It's not damaged so they could have come over and wheeled it back straight away. I even cleaned it for them.
"It would take one of their staff 15 to 20 minutes to walk over and pick it up.
"It seemed wicked to just leave it there. It could have got vandalised. I'm told these trolleys cost about £100 each."
Betty added: "They told us they were sorry it hadn't been collected but in the end we were told this had to be dealt with by head office."
"I don't like to see things thrown away and wasted," Pat, an ex-chairman of the city council's environment health committee explained.
"Because I'm disabled I couldn't take it back down there. I'd love to be able to."
The trolley was finally collected by Aldi on Tuesday this week after the store was contacted by a local news group on Sunday.
An Aldi spokesman said: "We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused Mr and Mrs Burke.
"We're pleased this has now been resolved by the team at their local store."
The company says a delay in response from the trolley retrieval firm to Aldi's customer services team prevented it from being collected sooner.
