Posted by Gregory
2 commentsSaturday 10 April update:
Delivery time was scheduled between 8AM and 12PM, I got a phone call at 7:11AM.
“Morning, we have your delivery and will be there within 20 minutes”.
7:30 AM We finally had our new cooker but in all the refunds and new receipts the part about removing the cooker from the packaging had been omitted leaving me with a cooker and enough polystyrene to build a – well something big made out of polystyrene.
Typical though – after all the time waiting for it to arrive it is perfect barbecue weather.
Now I just have to wait a short while for my tame gas fitter to wake up.
Good luck in the Grand National all :)
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Friday 9 April update:
The store manager failed to contact me, instead getting somebody from the delivery depot to contact me to explain the problem
“The oven dial looked like it had a printing error and appeared to show the wrong temperature values so we would not ship it due to health and safety concerns.
We contacted Belling who told us that there was no printing error and the values were in the correct location.
We are willing to refund your delivery charges and can deliver at your convenience.”
I told him that I had not actually paid a delivery charge as it had been price matched from the Comet web site and said that I would happily accept the £44.95 as a goodwill gesture to which he said that he had the power to authorise that and he would indeed do so.
I asked for delivery tomorrow (Saturday) and he said he would check on it and get back to me within 30 minutes.
True to his word he did call me back and offered me a Saturday morning delivery 8AM to 12PM and confirmed he was authorising a goodwill payment of £44.95 which would be credited back to my card and if it was not forthcoming within 28 days to contact the 0844 telephone number.
I will return to the store in the near with my card as I was informed previously that the only way I can get a refund is instore with the card.
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A little background first: I am married with 3 children aged 5, 3 and 2 that purely because of what has happened with Comet are living on takeaway food as I have no cooker and therefore no way to cook for them.
I recently purchased a Belling Range Cooker CCANG from Comet Walsall. Let me tell you all about it.
We decided to purchase a Range sized cooker as we are a fairly large family and will make use of the extra rings and ovens on a daily basis.
We decided to go for an all gas model rather than dual fuel and discovered the Belling CCANG available on the Comet web site for £799.99 with free delivery.
We visited Comet Walsall and after asking a couple of pertinent questions regarding the gas we made the purchase instore there and then.
Comet offer a price match in their stores so they agreed to waive the usual £45 delivery charge and promised to deliver Easter Sunday, which to be honest I had to double check with them – who would want to be working on a weekend during a holiday – but it was correct.
I was given a timeslot of 8 AM to 6 PM for delivery which tied me down to the house – no delivering Easter eggs to my family that day but for a Range cooker it was worth missing out on my Smarties cup egg for a day.
Expecting the company to deliver as promised I sold my cooker ready for the new cooker to arrive and be fitted by a gas safe friend who was waiting for my call.
Comet have online delivery tracking available so I could check constantly which I did.
I checked just before 5 PM and all was well, the delivery was still proceeding as normal. At 5:10 PM I checked again and saw this message:
Delivery and/or collection not confirmed.
Please ring us on 0844 800 95 95 so we can advise you on your delivery and/or collection. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
I didn’t quite grasp the message – delivery not confirmed – maybe I had missed their phone call? I checked the telephone and nobody had called so that wasn’t it.
I called the number and a recorded voice informed me that the lines were closed at 5PM and to call back the next day at 9:00 AM.
This I found annoying – why have deliveries scheduled and close the call centre that deals with delivery issues before the deliveries have finished? Surely it would be viable to have call centre workers working between 8AM and 6 PM in case of problems arising in the course of a normal day.
I phoned back the next day (Easter Monday) and spoke to one of the call centre staff who informed me that the cooker had been damaged and could not be delivered.
I was asked if I wanted a new identical cooker delivered, but the first available day would be Wednesday (8AM to 12PM) which I accepted.
As soon as I got off the phone to the call centre I phoned back and spoke to their customer support line to let them know that I was upset at their failure to keep their delivery promise.
In the time between paying for the cooker and Easter Monday the price of the cooker had dropped by £50 from £799.99 to £749.99 so the call centre agent I spoke to informed me I was entitled to the price match guarantee and if I took the receipt into the store they would refund me £50 onto my card.
I went back to Comet Walsall with my card and receipt and asked them to price match me the difference which they did immediately, but the only way they could do it was to cancel my existing order from 26 March and create a new order. They put the new order through and kept the same Wednesday delivery slot.
Wednesday morning came and just after 9 AM I had a phone call. “Great the cooker is arriving” I thought so I cheerfully (yeah, me at 9 AM and I was cheerful!) answered the phone expecting “We’ll be with you in 20 minutes”.
What I got instead was a call centre agent informing me that the cooker had a problem and wouldn’t be delivered that day and that the next available delivery would be Thursday morning.
I again phoned customer services to register another complaint.
I made another trip to the store and talked to a sales manager who offered to upgrade me to the next available model as the problem was with the entire batch of Anthracite Belling CCANG.
He checked the computer and found that the next model up was £1200 so he told me that he would not make a goodwill gesture for that much.
He checked the computer and said they had a silver coloured cooker identical to the one I had originally ordered that they could deliver and would be willing to deliver it next day at no extra charge.
He said in conclusion to the conversation that if the silver cooker had a problem the only recourse he had would be to refund my money.
I accepted the silver cooker delivery promise and left the store.
Thursday (this morning) came and I got a phone call just after 9 AM. It was the same person I spoke to on Wednesday. My first words were “tell me it’s about to be delivered” and her reply was “I am sorry but the silver model has exactly the same fault as the anthracite model so we can’t deliver this one either”.
I was fuming at this point and involuntarily almost swore “oh for f” and cut myself off before I finished the sentence.
I phoned the store and spoke to the sales manager I had met the previous day. He told me to come back to the store and he would refund my card. I asked to speak to the store manager but was told he was off until Friday (tomorrow). The sales manager took my mobile number (he already had my home number from the order) and promised me the manager would call me tomorrow.
I came off the phone to the store and again rang the customer support line (option 4 option 2 – I know it by heart now) to complain again.
I told the customer support agent what had happened not once, not twice but three times now and that it was completely unacceptable.
I also told her about the conversation I had with the sales manager where he offered to upgrade me to the next model but balked at the £1200 price tag. I asked her if the store manager himself would have the discretion to upgrade me to the next model and she told me that he did have the power to do that but there was no guarantee that he would as £400 is a large amount and maybe he would consider meeting me halfway.
This puts me at right now, where tomorrow I will speak to the manager and find out where I go from here.
My ideal outcome would be a new cooker – the one I ordered or alternatively the next model up with the same features.
My guess is that they will refund me and lose a customer for life. A customer that impulse buys cookers costing nearly £1000 without thinking twice.
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