What a dreadful experience
There are four elements to this review of a purchase of a 5 ft Oxford garden bench
Order and delivery. After taking the order online there was no communication regarding delivery etc; the courier just arrived one day with the item. Not very good customer service by today's standards.
The bench. Delivered flat packed as expected. All the troubles began when trying to put it together. Instructions made no sense whatsoever in terms of the order of construction. It just would not have worked putting it together as per the instructions. The labels supposedly allowing for ease of construction were actually all the wrong way round. It was as if someone had gone out of their way to do so. All the following difficulties I wrote down at the time. The side rails on the seat were too long to fit behind the front legs. The rear tenons on the seat were angled too much to fit into the mortises on the back. The tenons on the front ends of seat struts did not properly align with the mortises in the front seat rail. Resulting in the pushing out of the front seat rail such that it bowed out. Also on the front seat rail the tenons would not go fully into the mortises of the front legs. Something not cut correctly. At the top of the back the tenons did engage properly with the mortises but none of the dowel pin holes In the mortise lined up with the holes drilled in the tenons. Two of the pre-assembled rails had splits one to breaking point. All in all this was a catalogue of manufacturing errors which I would have found difficult to have expanded on even if I had tried.
The return of the bench. After my initial phone call, what now follows is a word for word copy of the email exchange. Please read it all. Me “ Hi, I spoke with someone, name not known, half an hour ago. I was told you would arrange collection of this faulty bench and arrange a refund. Can you let me know when it is likely to be collected and how you want me to prepare the bench for carriage. It was part assembled but now it is back in the five pieces” . Humber - “Please pack up as best you can, the couriers will contact you regarding the collection. Please ring me when it has been collected and I will issue the refund”. Me - “I have it all boxed up and ready to go. I have heard nothing from the couriers. But the courier has just turned up. But I have no labels, no address, no phone calls, no emails, etc. He said I should have had all that from you by email. He could not wait and said he'd come again after presumably getting fresh instructions to collect. Quite embarrassing really. Can you advise please”. Humber - “You do not need labels just give the courier the bench, you do not need anything just give them the bench!” Me - “Well I'm sorry but the courier would not take the bench. It's in the original box without a label. What was I to do? In case it happens again can you just give me the address anyway and I'll write it on the box. Are you arranging for them to call again and to let me know next time when they are going to call as you had said previously?” Humber - “Couriers create the label at the depot, the box does not need a label. As I said give them the bench then ring me and I will issue the refund. I couldn't have made it plainer.”
Please draw your own conclusions on the level of customer service that prevails here. And bear in mind this was a 5 foot long, 25 KG box.
Well eventually, cutting an even longer story short, the item was eventually collected. Thankfully, the one thing that did work as promised, was the refund.
All quite extraordinary.
11 June 2020
Unprompted review