complaint clearance comet auctions

bargainbagger

Sorry, handyam25, I can't agree with you.

In the last month I have won Comet Clearance auctions for 6 fridge freezers (needed for rented flats) with the following bids:-

Beko £183 (Comet price new £380)
Hotpoint £161 (Comet price new £380)
Hotpoint £117 (Comet price new £285)
Hotpoint £146 (Comet price new £285)
Indesit £151 (Comet price new £380)
Indesit £146 (Comet price new £370)

So, I've ended up usually paying less than half price - a long way from your "not a lot less than their normal shop price" assertion.

To get the items at these prices I've had to let a number of similar machines go because, just like at any auction, they have attracted too many prospective purchasers who engaged in a bidding war against each other.

The secret is to fix your maximum price and STICK TO IT and only enter just one (your maximum) bid in the last 20 seconds.;)

iangc

I bid on a washing machine just before an auction closed this Saturday and was notified that I had won. I paid and the transaction was successful. Today I received the following email from comet auctions: "Hello, We tried to reach you by phone but were unsuccessful. Unfortunately we have been informed that the item you purchased from us has been incorrectly listed. Unfortunately, as auction items have no exchange policy, we can only offer a full refund on the order." etc..

There are NO missed calls on my mobile or landline. What do they mean by incorrectly listed? put up for auction in error; wrong model; wrong condition. Is this even legal? It would appear that Comet Auctions is a scam. I have emailed them back for clarification and I will let you know what they come up with.

DeanosB

I had what has turned out to be the misfortune of winning a bid for a Bosch dishwasher (A+ energy) which I thought would be a prudent upgrade from my existing electricity hungry Servis (C rating). When paying for the Bosch i also took advantage of the service to take away the old appliance. You guessed it....
The Dishwasher that arrived was not the one that had been advertised. It was important to us that no damage would be visible, and given that the machine would be under a worktop with cupboards, that meant only no damage to the front. The bid we had won had scratches to left, right and rear only -fine. The machine that arrived had no scratches to the sides or rear, but did have scratches on the top front rim (visible) and a dent on the front. I can understand perhaps dents appearing during transit, but just how do scratches disappear too? Curious.
The machine we won was described as having no hoses, so I bought some in readiness. The machine that arrived did so with its hoses. More curious and slightly annoying given the outlay.
So we attached the hoses, filled with salt, rinse-aid and a tablet for the inaugral "load" to be greeted by a grinding noise followed by silence and 2 flashing lights (Check Water and Rinse-aid). A quick check of the photocopied manual told us that....... they had provided the manuals for the wrong model.
The Comet helpline is 10p per minute, so I rang Bosch. The lights mean that either the inlet hose is blocked or there is an electrical fault, but the in-built reset feature will not reset until this fault is cleared. Until it is fixed it will remain broken. I then submitted an online enquiry including all the facts and updates using the category "not as described" which has since been closed without ever enjoying response or acknowledgement. Using saynoto0870 i found the necessary number to speak to the comet service desk who tried to deal with the problem but ultimately referred me to the auctions version where I went through it all again, before they referred me to "somewhere else" who arranged an engineer visit 4 days later. In the meantime, and 5 hours after delivery spent on the telephone to numerous script-readers, I had a broken dishwasher sitting in the space previously taken by a working dishwasher.
Now i've waited the 4 days and the engineer has been and the machine has been certified Dead on Arrival.
It is still in my kitchen taking the space of my previously working dishwasher before I decided to do business with Comet Auctions.

A number of quite frankly unpleasantly over-heated discussions has resulted in Comet shifting significantly from their forthright bullish no-nonsense opening stance of simply refunding my money, to now offering me a similar model from the auction inventory in recognition of the fact the goods were not as described, didn't work, and have left me in a worse position than before i began. They currently have just one to suggest to me -with a "Large Dent". I am negotiating hard but every step is tortuous, and i still have no dishwasher.

Topical update. I just rang back to ask why the Manager (Paul) had not called me back as promised (given that it was a friday and that I was keen not to lose even more time over a weekend) to be told that he is in a meeting. I asked that he ring me as soon as he comes out, to be told

"With respect sir, he is a Manager -he might decide just to go home"

---

& I never got that callback..

joelkafetz

On the 25th October 2011 I made the mistake of bidding on a INDESIT BAN12NFS fridge freezer on the Comet Auction website. Big mistake.... Although I bought the fridge freezer at a substantially discounted price it is now 18th December 2011 and I still don't have a working fridge.

This is what happened -

• Comet did not deliver the fridge freezer in the 8am-6pm time slot they were supposed to and it took me no less than four calls to find out that it was not going to be delivered that day. One of the customer service staff was extremely rude to me, they were all unhelpful and when the delivery man phoned me at 7pm he was rude to me as well. Eventually Comet agreed to deliver the fridge freezer three days later and didn't even bother to apologise to me....
  
• The fridge then arrived an hour late on the second delivery day so I had to take two days off work.
  
• The fridge broke down 30 days after it was delivered, Comet refused to refund me for the fridge as it was over the 28 days as per contract (again another man in Customer Services was unnecessarily rude to me on the phone).
• An engineer came to fix the fridge on 24th November (another half day of work), didn't have the correct parts and it is now 18th December and I don't have a working fridge for Christmas.
• I emailed the Managing Director of Comet on 8th December to complain (bob.darke@comet.co.uk) and Samatha Grey from his office replied to my complaint email on 14th December saying she will get back to me shortly - I have heard nothing more from her yet,
  

My experience has been making over 20 calls to the expensive Comet customer service centre, unnecessary rudeness from their staff, two and a half days taken off work and so far no working fridge for Christmas when I ordered it on 25th October. I have emailed the names of the customer service staff with the details of what they said to me to the Managing Director suggesting they should be trained not to treat customers as second class citizens. I felt some of them spoke to me in a way which is unacceptable. I am a lovely person and I always speak to people on the phone politely and with respect.

My recommendation is whatever you do don't deal with Comet under any circumstances unless you want a lot of unnecessary hassle. You have been warned!

I will post what happens next on this website. I expect a refund and compensation.

If anyone can help me please get in touch.

Joel Kafetz

joelkafetz

Comet arranged for the fridge/ freezer to be repaired on 22nd December as a result of me contacting them and writing about my experiences on this forum. No word about compensation as yet for the inconvenience.... I will update when I hear back. The lesson I've learnt from this experience is not to buy high value electrical goods online unless you want to risk spending a lot of time speaking to faceless voices in call centres if it goes wrong! I will be going to John Lewis next time and pay a bit more to avoid the hassle! Joel

Duvarayi

Sorry to ask this.
Does buying from this comet auction mean no credit card section 75 protection then? Also can the manufacturer come fix faulty comet bought appliance if you have bought the 5 year protection insurance or only comet engineers?
I hope I'm not asking a stupid question.

brendang_2

hi,im wondering if anyone at all can help me to obtain an email address for someone at comet who is in a position to help with regards to comet auctions,the reasons are that on the 13th march i won a hotpoint washing machine total cost with delivery was £253 a saving of £180,the machine was delivered on the 19th march and broke down on the 20th march after the initial empty wash cycle you are told to put it through prior to use,i telephone comet and told them about this on the evening of the 20th march and was told an engineer would call and fix it on the 26th march,the engineer came as agreed but did not bring the parts with him to repair it(comet told me the faulty parts would be replaced on this date due to the fault being an f09 fault which the machine continuously showed when it stopped working,anyway i phoned comet an after about 40 minutes a customer service man called ed told me that due to all my problems they would generate me a code for a new machine as the parts required were expensive and along with the problems i had had this was a way of compensating me,they duly did generate a code for me and told me to go to a local comet the next day to purchase the newer model of the machine i had won,however on the morning of the 27th they phoned me saying the code was invalid and that they had decided to write my machine off,i disagreed with them and told them i had signed for repairs to take place initially and that it was them who offered me a new machine if i would let them collect the faulty machine as all i initially wanted was the machine repaired but quickly,they have now informed me it will be another 8 days to send another engineer out to repair the machine,i have had no use what so ever of this machine,im having to use a launderette while waiting for the engineer and all comet are doing is delaying the situation and the repairs,can someone please help me with some contact details for a manager/director at comet auctions as im at my wits end ,thanks

unholyangel

I can't fault them personally. I got a £500 fridge freezer for £200.

It was £225 initially but when it arrived, one of the pins on the plug were damaged. Originally they were going to issue a refund - but after using their online enquiry....I too (like previous posters) noticed they'd deleted my enquiries - although I still had the copy of them that had been sent to my email.

I then contacted the MD's office, who initially were going to refund, I said i'd prefer a repair (just wanted a working FF asap!) and she seemed surprised at this but was more than willing to offer this instead. It was a simply job of changing the plug but I explained I didnt want to do it myself as I didnt want t invalidate my warranty etc.She said no that was fine. Guy came out 2 days later, changed plug and away.

She called me to check everything had went fine and informed me she was crediting £25 back to my card.

Any company can make a mistake and (at least in my experience with them) comet came up trumphs.

vuvuzela

brendang wrote: »

hi,im wondering if anyone at all can help me to obtain an email address for someone at comet who is in a position to help with regards to comet auctions,the reasons are that on the 13th march i won a hotpoint washing machine total cost with delivery was £253 a saving of £180,the machine was delivered on the 19th march and broke down on the 20th march after the initial empty wash cycle you are told to put it through prior to use,i telephone comet and told them about this on the evening of the 20th march and was told an engineer would call and fix it on the 26th march,the engineer came as agreed but did not bring the parts with him to repair it(comet told me the faulty parts would be replaced on this date due to the fault being an f09 fault which the machine continuously showed when it stopped working,anyway i phoned comet an after about 40 minutes a customer service man called ed told me that due to all my problems they would generate me a code for a new machine as the parts required were expensive and along with the problems i had had this was a way of compensating me,they duly did generate a code for me and told me to go to a local comet the next day to purchase the newer model of the machine i had won,however on the morning of the 27th they phoned me saying the code was invalid and that they had decided to write my machine off,i disagreed with them and told them i had signed for repairs to take place initially and that it was them who offered me a new machine if i would let them collect the faulty machine as all i initially wanted was the machine repaired but quickly,they have now informed me it will be another 8 days to send another engineer out to repair the machine,i have had no use what so ever of this machine,im having to use a launderette while waiting for the engineer and all comet are doing is delaying the situation and the repairs,can someone please help me with some contact details for a manager/director at comet auctions as im at my wits end ,thanks

Just a word of advice - a lot of people (including me) won't have the patience to plough through this as a massive block of text is hard to read. if you break it down into paragraphs and use some full stops where appropriate you might get a better response.

Mupette

brendang wrote: »

hi,im wondering if anyone at all can help me to obtain an email address for someone at comet who is in a position to help with regards to comet auctions,the reasons are that on the 13th march i won a hotpoint washing machine total cost with delivery was £253 a saving of £180,the machine was delivered on the 19th march and broke down on the 20th march after the initial empty wash cycle you are told to put it through prior to use,i telephone comet and told them about this on the evening of the 20th march and was told an engineer would call and fix it on the 26th march,the engineer came as agreed but did not bring the parts with him to repair it(comet told me the faulty parts would be replaced on this date due to the fault being an f09 fault which the machine continuously showed when it stopped working,anyway i phoned comet an after about 40 minutes a customer service man called ed told me that due to all my problems they would generate me a code for a new machine as the parts required were expensive and along with the problems i had had this was a way of compensating me,they duly did generate a code for me and told me to go to a local comet the next day to purchase the newer model of the machine i had won,however on the morning of the 27th they phoned me saying the code was invalid and that they had decided to write my machine off,i disagreed with them and told them i had signed for repairs to take place initially and that it was them who offered me a new machine if i would let them collect the faulty machine as all i initially wanted was the machine repaired but quickly,they have now informed me it will be another 8 days to send another engineer out to repair the machine,i have had no use what so ever of this machine,im having to use a launderette while waiting for the engineer and all comet are doing is delaying the situation and the repairs,can someone please help me with some contact details for a manager/director at comet auctions as im at my wits end ,thanks

bob.darke@comet.co.uk