Home Base???

brummybloke

i have done several jobs in my time, i even worked at currys part time while at uni.

never, ever in my life have i recieved such shocking 'customer service'.

i purchased a shower at the end of november 2005 from home base, i explained to the lady at homebase who worked in that department that this is the 4th shower in 7 year as they always seem to pack in just after the warranty has expired. i asked what the proceedure was for returning the shower if it became faulty in 12 months and was told not to worry about the box or anything, just keep hold of the receipt and bring the unit back in if faulty.

today i did this having first had electricians out to see why the shower had stopped working, they eventually removed the shower fter checking the wiring and tested it, one of the heater elements had broken.

i was told by the help desk that i couldnt return a faulty shower to the store i needed to phone the manufacturers who would come out to check the shower.
i explained that the shower was infront of them and i was told to bring it back.

the manager or someone in a jacket came up and refused point blank to exchange the shower unit. infront of 5 or 6 customers we then started to argue about the sales of goods act and that my contract is with home base, not the manufacturers.

the man kept on repeating it was home base company policy that they will not accept back a faulty shower, that it breached health and safety (??) and that i would have to go home and phone triton.

by now i was getting more than a little miffed, i asked the man for the area managers telephone number and his name, the man REFUSED to give me the details, bloody refused point blank!!!!

i then managed to get the head office number, took his name and went back to my car with the broken shower.

45 minutes on my mobile telephone to head office customer services and still no joy ( although this person was alot more helpful and sypathetic to what was happening).

another 25 minutes to someone from the directors section ( i re phoned and asked for one of the directors) and i get it sorted.

however can i take it back to the place i got it from, 5 minutes drive down the road on a clear day??? nope.

despite being told by 3 different people ( and seeing them in the shop) i was told that they didnt have any in stock and i would need to go to another branch.

the other branch is probably only 5 miles away from the branch i went to , however if you know selly oak and kingsheath you will know it is a good 40 minutes stuck in traffic.

i eventually get it changed over.

i havent even gone into half of it on here.

i also asked if this was company policy , why were no notices put around the shop or on my receipt telling me i could not exchange the faulty shower, and despite mentioning the sales of goods act on faulty products ( merchantable quality) the manager still didnt budge.

no doubt i will now have a whacking great mobile telephone bill, what a great way to spend my day off work.

wobbley

Very annoying this, I've had a few similar situations. I remember one such episode , with a faulty CD Rom that the shop wanted to test but had nobody to test it. The shop closed at 5:30, so I went back at 5:20 and refused to leave until they did something! - It was then sorted straight away and as they were hurriedly locking up the shop the manager told me he knew I was in the right but had to follow company policy which he knew was unfair and possibly illegal.
I've never had any problems with Homebase though but it is most infuriating when so called "company policies" think they are exempt from the Sale of Goods Act. What is really annoying is when staff have been on training courses within a company and have had such policies 'drilled' into them until they believe they are above the law.(Orange is one such example)
One thing you can do is wait for your mobile bill, then write to them enclosing a copy and ask for compensation for the calls that you shouldn't have had to make.

Katie_Bell

Just spoken to my husband, who's a manager at Homebase. He said that manager didn't handle it very well, but here's the situation...

Once a shower is fitted and then develops a fault, Triton's policy is that their engineers have to be involved. Basically Triton like to see the shower in situ, to see if it is a faulty shower or poor fitting. Homebase have to adhere to Triton's policy otherwise Triton will not reimburse them for the faulty product which in the long term who be costly for them. I fully understand that your contract is with Homebase, but as it is an electrical product that has been fitted.

I understand its frustrating for you, but they can't really help being out of stock. I completely think the service you received is poor. If you would like to also complain to the regional manager, I may be able to get the details for you.

trickytrolleys

Homebase have as much right to sue Triton for a faulty product as the OP has to sue homebase - both TRiton and homebase will be well aware of this and they are just excuses aimed at avoiding refunds IMO, it infuriates me when shops try and pull this type of stunt and the reason they dont have notices to this effect in the shop is because TS would whoop their backsides into court quicker than they could blink!

brummybloke

Katie_Bell wrote:

I understand its frustrating for you, but they can't really help being out of stock. I completely think the service you received is poor. If you would like to also complain to the regional manager, I may be able to get the details for you.

thanks, they did have stock as there were 15 in the store when i took mine back, i saw them on display, was told at the service desk there were still 15 so had a look while wiating for the bloke to arrive.
was also told there were 15 ( must have all been on shop floor!) by head office and by the director.

unless homebase had a massive surge of jade 2 showers in selly oak on wedneday 4th jan 2006 ( which i doubt) it was purely the bloke being even more of a plonker and trying to save face.

i have drafted a letter to the head office which i will be sending out recorded delivery.

has really made me think twice about setting foot in homebase again ( although the manager at kingsheath was a nice man)

Zziggi

Katie_Bell wrote:

Just spoken to my husband, who's a manager at Homebase. He said that manager didn't handle it very well, but here's the situation...

Once a shower is fitted and then develops a fault, Triton's policy is that their engineers have to be involved. Basically Triton like to see the shower in situ, to see if it is a faulty shower or poor fitting. Homebase have to adhere to Triton's policy otherwise Triton will not reimburse them for the faulty product which in the long term who be costly for them. I fully understand that your contract is with Homebase, but as it is an electrical product that has been fitted.

I understand its frustrating for you, but they can't really help being out of stock. I completely think the service you received is poor. If you would like to also complain to the regional manager, I may be able to get the details for you.

My OH is an ex-homebase manager and i just asked him the same thing (before i saw Katie's response.) What Katie has written is EXACTLY what my OH said was company policy right up until he left.

Whatever the rights and wrong of the situation you did receive terrible customer service. You've got good grounds to complain about that to head office (and generally get gift vouchers from H.O. just for bad service whatever the issue with the product)

Basically in the triton shower box there is information that says that if a fault happens then you must leave the shower fixed up and ring triton then they will send an engineer to check it out. If you remove the shower yourself then triton won't touch it with a bargepole. This information is provided when you buy the shower as it is in the box (not that most poeple read it). Technically & legally you can return it to the store but the store won't accept it (because when they return it to triton, triton will refuse to refund the store because they always make a visit to look at the fault).

BTW my OH says that it is a 2 YEAR waranty you get from triton showers (double check your paperwork).

Fraserca

I may have got it wrong but is Homebase saying that you should deal direct with Triton ? If they are then that would be reasonable IF Triton were acting as Hombase's agents in repairing the items under warranty at home.

If that is the case then you are being offered service IN ADDITION to your rights under the Sale of Goods Acts. Face up to it - Shower units are items to be installed by well trained or experienced people. The service being offered by Homebase ( which is not a wholesaler of plumbing items ) is designed to keep the average consumer happy.

I know myself that if I fitted a shower unit and it went wrong, I would not want to unplumb it off the wall - disconnect the electrics and probably break the tile grouting around it, take it into Homebase and have hastle. I could simply have called their helpline and got a nice man out to change it all for me.

Seems a reasonable deal to me.

Katie_Bell

brummybloke wrote:

thanks, they did have stock as there were 15 in the store when i took mine back, i saw them on display, was told at the service desk there were still 15 so had a look while wiating for the bloke to arrive.
was also told there were 15 ( must have all been on shop floor!) by head office and by the director.

unless homebase had a massive surge of jade 2 showers in selly oak on wedneday 4th jan 2006 ( which i doubt) it was purely the bloke being even more of a plonker and trying to save face.

i have drafted a letter to the head office which i will be sending out recorded delivery.

has really made me think twice about setting foot in homebase again ( although the manager at kingsheath was a nice man)

I'm sorry that they've messed you around. I know from experience of being a Saturday girl @Homebase that showers at my branch were stolen all the time. They pick them up and leg it out of the store with them or take them up quiet aisle and take them out of the packaging and put them in their rucksacs!! Its unbelivable what they do. Unless a store checks and updates their stock levels on a daily basis, the figures the computers display are never correct I'm afraid.

I don't know why someone in that store couldn't explain that to you. I hope you get the response you were looking for from Homebase. I've found that their customer relations department respond well to emails, so it might be worth doing that too, there's a link on their website. Good luck

gromituk

A technical point: when the shower is switched off, does it let the water run without the heating element on for a few seconds? If not there will be a rapid temperature rise around the heating element which will put it under strain. I imagine if you switch the shower off with the pull switch isolator, it will suffer this problem.

EMPTY_PURSE_5

Regarding Homebase,

Can anyone shed any light on Spend & Save ?

Foned the number on the card to find out my balance and was advised that I had spent 973.00 on my card.... they would send me £ 53.00 of vouchers just now and i would have 32.00 of vouchers on my account which I would have to spend more money to make up to 50.00 of vouchers before I could receive the remaining !!!

Also 53.00 and 32.00 does not add up to the 973.00 on my account, namely 97.30 !!

And where does it say on the T&C for Spend & Save that the 10% off all purchases, after you have spent £ 400 in first year, you only receive in these vouchers and not at the till ???

Katie_Bell

EMPTY_PURSE wrote:

Regarding Homebase,

Can anyone shed any light on Spend & Save ?

Foned the number on the card to find out my balance and was advised that I had spent 973.00 on my card.... they would send me £ 53.00 of vouchers just now and i would have 32.00 of vouchers on my account which I would have to spend more money to make up to 50.00 of vouchers before I could receive the remaining !!!

Also 53.00 and 32.00 does not add up to the 973.00 on my account, namely 97.30 !!

And where does it say on the T&C for Spend & Save that the 10% off all purchases, after you have spent £ 400 in first year, you only receive in these vouchers and not at the till ???

The system is tiered. I can't quite remember how it works as its changed since I left, but I think it is 2% back for the first £400 you spend on the card and 10% afterwards.

One thing to note is they implemented this thing where you only acrew (sp?) points on the first £75 of each transaction. So if you're planning on buying a lot, its worth breaking it down into lots of £75 transactions rather than one big one as you can earn more vouchers back. Does that make sense or am I waffling?