Garden Buildings Direct/kybotech

mdcastle

We have an ongoing problem regard a play house we bought from them, but I won't go into too much detail. They say their products are child safe and EN71 compliant and yet they send out products with lots of nails sticking out by over an inch. Also the product we bought was poorly developed/designed and I had to spend time strengthening the flooring. Also many parts missing or incorrect with a three week wait for replacement parts on a half built product.

Customer aftercare is dreadful, worst I have ever come across. They will offer a tiny goodwill gesture and not go further. Considering civil action.

I am sure there are many people out there that are happy with what they bought, but following my experience don't go near them unless you are handy with tools and are prepared to do lots of adaptions, and accept that you are dealing with a company who do not give a damn about good customer relations.

florence220

I ordered BillyOh 4000M Lucia Tongue & Groove Summerhouse6x8 on 23rd May2013. When it was delivered I was not notified, therefore,although a signature should have been got it was left on my front drive. Onestrap holding wood together had split and the materials had moved on mydriveway. Therefore I had no one to take the wood to my garage, as I was goingto arrange for my son to be there. We started treating the wood and in doing sonoticed a lot of substandard material eg: wood split, screws poking throughwhere they shouldn't be pieces of wood broken off, in fact substandard material(I emailed the company 8 photos). These were the worst in fact there were more.

I emailed them on Monday 17th June, I got a replyon Friday 21st July saying they would replace the parts if I toldthem which ones. Remember we had alreadytreated the whole summerhouse, taking pictures as we went. Also I hadcontractors coming on Sat 22nd June to erect summerhouse. As I wouldhave had to pay contractors for a wasted time, I emailed:

“Thank you for getting back to me. I don’t think sendingreplacement parts is going to work, I feel I am going to have to put up withthe sub-standard pieces and have them repaired as is possible during erection.

The reason for this isthat the work has already started, the wood has now been treated with 2 coats,and the contractors are coming tomorrow to erect the summerhouse. At this latestage it would cost me more to pay them extra for waste of a day.

As I have to pay thecontractors extra for the repair work, it might ease the situation if you wouldgive me discount for the sub-standard pieces.

When I took thepictures I didn’t write down which piece it was, I didn’t expect there to be somany, and the ones I sent were only the worst ones there were others whichweren’t quite so bad, but still sub-standard.

I did not get a reply to this email.

So the erection finished with the contractors making goodthe pieces which were substandard. Come Sunday 23rd June thecontractors were going to put the syrene in, only to find it was the wrongsize, there was no way we could make it fit.

Email again to notify them of the mistake in the wrong sizewindows.

No apology, nothing, except a delivery notification that thecorrect windows are going to be delivered Friday 28th June tomorrow.

I telephoned because the email looked like I was being sentanother summerhouse and I didn’t want that. I was only going to receive thewindows.

I mentioned about the fact that I had asked for a refund dueto the fact of substandard materials, lack of notification of delivery and alsohaving the wrong windows sent. I was told that there would be no refund they don’tdo that. I mentioned I was going to write a negative report on the internet andwas told in not so many words to “Go ahead”.

macsbig

Ordered a Billyoh greenhouse from this shower. Delivery date after delivery date passed without receiving the greenhouse.

Untruth after untruth were used as explanations, e.g - after ringing them to check the delivery time on one "delivery day" we were told "we left a message at 8:12 this morning informing you that due to a problem with a shortage of drivers we can't deliver to you today". this was the THIRD failure to fulfill a date, and a quick check with BT's last number rang service and checking of our mobiles call register/voice-mail confirmed no call was ever made - although they insist their log shows they did - so we must be liars then!

Emails would also not be answered and promised phone calls not returned when managers were "in a meeting".

Very frustrating company will never-ever use them again, the customer service is abysmal - really have to say probably the worst I've ever experienced.

AVOID unless you enjoy a challenge - and don't suffer from high blood pressure!

visidigi

Interesting - My order turned up next day as promised, Was exactly what I ordered and despite it saying it required two people to build it, I built it myself without a problem.

Was a BillyOh metal shed, made in the UAE and all the holes lined up nicely

vikingaero

visidigi wrote: »

Interesting - My order turned up next day as promised, Was exactly what I ordered and despite it saying it required two people to build it, I built it myself without a problem.

Was a BillyOh metal shed, made in the UAE and all the holes lined up nicely

The BillyOh metal shed is probably a standard metal shed made in the UAE and rebranded. If it came from the UAE it would be a bulk stock item - you can't order from the UAE each time a customer orders online.

With wooden sheds it seems to be different. Not just Kybotech/Garden Buildings but even my local shed suppliers seem to have complaints. I imagine they get enough orders and then make a batch of that shed size - so you might have to wait - but they won't tell you that because they want and have your money....

visidigi

vikingaero wrote: »

The BillyOh metal shed is probably a standard metal shed made in the UAE and rebranded. If it came from the UAE it would be a bulk stock item - you can't order from the UAE each time a customer orders online.

With wooden sheds it seems to be different. Not just Kybotech/Garden Buildings but even my local shed suppliers seem to have complaints. I imagine they get enough orders and then make a batch of that shed size - so you might have to wait - but they won't tell you that because they want and have your money....

Oh it is a rebrand, but that doesn't bother me. Its not a cheap Argos product with crap instructions. I had absolutely no problem - mainly because the rebrand was an American company - durasomething or other.

Wooden sheds have so many variables and from speaking to people before I bought and built mine they had ALL tried to build it on uneven ground.

Our shed was built on a nice, freshly built flat deck. Worked perfectly for us...

vaporate

hi all,


ordered a 8 by 6 shed from these idiots and took a day off to be at home to sign for the shed.


phone call from courier later, after waiting from 6am to 2pm, and they said their vehicle broke down (cobblers).


I cancelled it there and then and the courier website was updated as being said to be returned with date and time. I phoned this so called company up and they said it was signed for and delivered.


As I explained the guy on the phone called me a '!!!!!!' under his breath and so I called him out on it and will be taking this through my bank in future.


Sent my bank (NatWest) the proof consignment details of it being returned along with all emails and awaiting a refund from these pratts.


I hope they go out of business.


Purchased on credit card thankfully.

GWaterman

Ordered a 5.5m x 4.5m summerhouse. One side wall supplied for a 5m depth, the other for a 4m depth. Other pieces missing. Supply of replacement parts almost impossible to achieve and with an interminable wait for deliveries. Wish I'd read more reviews on-line (and there are many here and elsewhere) before using them. Cannot stress strongly enough that you should not buy from them.

Mummabear

Unfortunately they have got to be the worst company I have ever had dealings with. I won't go into the whole storey but the building arrived with missing parts and wrong bits, when reported it has taken 9 emails and 12 phone calls and we are still no better off.

There is a complete lack of communication within departments. I have now been told they never even manufactured the missing parts and that they send the buildings out without the right parts and I should source it from 'somewhere else? They have since promised they will eventually deliver the parts but I have totally
Lost Faith in the company.

Save yourself the stress. If you have already ordered from them and are awaiting missing parts - I truly hope you have more Luck than we have had ! when prices are cheap it usually is too good to be true. You get what you pay for (or not in our case

rykishu

what a waste of time and money, was delivered 8.30pm, waited in all day. Wrong roof delivered, missing parts and wrong size supports.
Getting it rectified was a nightmare,
PLEASE NOTE, sales staff are in the uk, so quick to take your money. any problems or after sales care is done by a call center in the Philippines. DONT TOUCH THEM.

When calling you wait ages to speak to them and then they cut you off forcing you to call them back and wait again. if you give them your money its a roulette, you will either get something close to what you order or you wont. Dont bother asking for a refund.

TOP TIP. If you order a wooden construction please buy a few tubes of clear silicon to fill in all the gaps.