Anglian windows - hellllpppppp

mandragora_2

Double posting - sorry if this is against the rules, but hope someone can help, and I'm not sure that this is the right board.

My husband is furious - let me explain why.

My mum in law is 88, a widow and is disabled with MS and had a stroke last month. She lives independently, and does pretty well by and large, though she is frail and easily confused.

She was worried about her door and a well-meaning relative put her in touch with Anglian Windows. She had the rep round; he told her that they were running a 'special deal' on the door she wanted. Normally it retails for £2,500 and she was very very lucky because she could have a 'special' deal for £1,480. :mad: She signed and paid a deposit of £300; we didn't find out till two weeks later, so past the 'cooling off'period of a week.

We rang them on Saturday and cancelled, confirming by email, but the stuff I'm reading on t'interweb isn't very re-assuring. Does anyone have a direct line or email for the MD? I'd like to get her her money back soonest, as she's very worried and upset. I think that if I can get through to the MD him/herself it will save a lot of grief and distress.

In the meantime, we've got a reputable local company coming round to look at the job and give us a price on Friday. I imagine it won't come to a grand and a half.

nickj_2

try trading standards or if you don't get anywhere with them or md go to the press

ormus

a new door should only be 400/800 quid. max.

mandragora_2

Thanks for this - have copied trading standards in on my cancellation email, and left it as a CC at the top so that Anglian know we've done this. It will make an appealing photo in the local paper and on local BBC - she'll be in a wheelchair if I take her to the local showroom; she's raised thousands for charity over the years and featured in the local tv news as a 'Sterling Citizen' as well as being a 'Volunteer of the Year' in the local paper a few years back. Should get some coverage, if I need it. I'd just rather not put her through all the hoo-haa. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll try small claims court on the grounds that the contract arose from mis-selling, which is what I think has actually happened.

I'm expecting the proper price to be around £600 or so. We had ours done last year, and got a great door for the money.

mandragora_2

I've found him and copied him in on the email. Lets see what luck it brings!


*edit - well it may be him. I guess there could be a lot of Danes called Stig Hansen... Definitely going to try and trawl Nordea bank email addresses and see if I can get an exact one for him.

sashman

Stig Hanson isnt the MD, try Mottershead he's the CEO.

http://www.anglianjobsearch.co.uk/messageFromCEO.asp

If that fails try the GGF, they have a FREE to consumer arbitration service and Anglian are important members. Thats why customers should buy from GGF member companies because they ensure fairness.

www.ggf.org.uk

If the surveyor hasnt been round then they dont know what size to make it yet, so cannot have incurred any manufacturering costs. They may have paid the salesman and that may be an issue, as they generally pay once the cooling off period has closed.

sashman

mandragora_2

Thanks for this - we've managed to get it sorted. Despite the phone response being that I 'MUST' send in the 'blue form' I found that when I read the blue form, you could cancel by email. I did so (on the M-I-L's behalf) stating that as (I!) was 88, disabled, suffering the after-effects of a stroke and a widow with no way of knowing what a door ought to cost, it took me a little longer than the usual 7 days to realise that a starting price of between £2.5 and 3k was not reasonable or likely to be true. Oh, and by the way, I was copying trading standards in on the email, as I'd be taking further advice... Got an email back from them by the end of Monday agreeing to cancel the deal.

M-I-L is happy; the local chap's been round and is going to price up the door she's chosen - we reckon around £700 total; in the meantime I've also remembered that a friend is a former double-glazing fitter and lives very close to her. He'll pop round next week, measure up, see what she wants and see if the local wholesalers have anything similar. He'll fit it -again, I'm sure for a fair wedge less than £1500.

It scandalises me, it really does. The bleeding nerve of them - to go round to a very old lady's house, tell her a door costs three grand, and then do her a "very special deal" and sell her said door for around double the price that it should really cost. I know how traffic wardens and bailiffs sleep at night - it's these b'stards I don't get.

nickj_2

unfortantely big companies like these rely on people being daft enough either not to get another quote from a smaller local company and just pay their extotionate prices without quibbling

sashman

but not every one is the same as the "commission only salesmen" that the big boys use.

Some of us sleep at night because we provide all the info a client (not customer) requests and allow them time to read our written proposal, and decide in their own time if , what we have said, is the best solution.

9/10 times we get the work, so we like that approach but it doesnt guarantee sales and big boys need to feed their factory daily, it wouldnt work for them.

sashman

becs

I honestly can't see how Anglian are still in business and obviously have a lot of business. When we were having a new conservatory a couple of years ago I did ring them and ask them for a quote because I thought they must have changed to still be in business. But within 2 minutes of the salesman arriving I knew they were as bad as ever. Fortunately we weren't gullable and did know our stuff, but talk about hard sell! The salesman was exactly that, a salesman who came with his standard pitch and "special offers" only available that night etc etc etc. We never even got a quote out of them because unless you signed there and then they wouldn't deal with you. It's scandalous that trading standards don't have the power to stop this sort of nonsense in this day and age.

mandragora_2

nickj wrote: »

unfortantely big companies like these rely on people being daft enough either not to get another quote from a smaller local company and just pay their extotionate prices without quibbling

or old enough, or vulnerable enough, or suggestable enough