A Complaint with Very.co.uk

Gimmeago

This is a copy of an email I sent to network@veryhq.co.uk on Monday 10 February. It is now Saturday and still haven't Haidas reply or acknowledgement.

I will not be shopping with Very in the future!


Dear Very,

I'm sorry to say I am feeling utterly dumbfounded by the level of customer support I have received over the last 2 weeks. I have repeatedly had to call Customer Services to try and find out why my order has been delayed (on a rather expensive number!), and nobody seems capable of answering even the most simple of questions.

On Tuesday January 28th I placed an order for a Samsung monitor for one of my computers (Item code 3PM3W) which was listed as being "In Stock", and available for delivery within 3 working days. The confirmation email I received stated that it would be delivered on or by Friday January 31st. Tracking the order on your website revealed that your supplier had received the order on Wednesday afternoon, and that the order was being processed. Ever hopeful, I assumed that this meant I would get my order on time. As subsequent events have shown, I was being overly optimistic. Within minutes I received an email from Very stating that the delivery date would now be Monday February 3rd.

On Thursday January 30th I checked the tracking system again and there was no change and the delivery day was still shown as being the next day. There was nothing to suggest that the order had been shipped, so late that evening I called Customer Services to see if there was a hold-up, as it seemed unlikely that the order would be delivered on time the next day. I was told that there was no need to worry, and to wait and see if the order arrived. I told them about the email from Wednesday and they didn't know anything about it.

On Friday January 31st there was no sign of the delivery, and the order tracking status showed that it was still being processed. I called Customer Services who said the item was indeed due to be delivered on the 3rd of February. I asked if someone would try and chase up the supplier to make sure that there would be no further delay, and to reassure me that I would not be waiting for ages. The man said he could not do it personally, but would pass my request on to the relevant people before taking my number and promising that they would call me back. Nobody called back.

On Monday February 3rd, I once again checked the order tracking, and the delivery date had been changed to Friday February 7th. I called Customer Services again, to be told that there must be a problem with the supplier and that there was nothing they could do until the delivery date had passed. I did explain that you had now missed 2 delivery dates already, but that seemed to fall on deaf ears. I said that in light of the 2 missed deliveries already it would be nice if they could at least knock the delivery charge off the order, which the operator seemed happy to do, informing me that he had updated his system and removed the delivery charge. As I right this, the order is still showing the price for the monitor plus the delivery charge, so I'm sceptical as the whether anything has actually been changed there.

I continued to check the tracking daily. I also kept checking the item listing on your website. Up until Wednesday February 5th the monitor was still listed as being In Stock and available for delivery within 3 working days! On the Wednesday, the item listing suddenly changed to "Delivery within 4 weeks" so I called Customer Services again to see what was going on. Once again, the staff seemed completely un-fussed by my concerns, simply stating that I should wait until the delivery date shown on the tracking page before they could make any inquiries.

Guess what! Friday came and still no monitor. What I did get was a nice shock when I checked the tracking page to find the delivery date had been changed to "By February 21st", another 2 weeks away. I called Customer Services (again!), who were as unhelpful as usual. I was told once again that there was nothing anyone could do to chase up the delivery until the delivery date had passed, despite me repeatedly telling her that you had by now missed 3 delivery dates. I asked to speak to a manager there as I was really not happy with the level of service I had received up to that point. The operator said "Um, let me see if I can find one." and disappeared briefly, before saying that she couldn't see one anywhere and could they call me back when somebody was available. I gave them my number, but never got a call back.

By Saturday I was furious. I called Customer Services and immediately demanded to speak to a manager. Once again I was told that nobody was available. The operator then appeared to give in to my requests for some way of contacting the suppliers directly and said that the monitor was being shipped directly from Samsung, and after disappearing for a few minutes returned to give me a number which she assured me would yield the answer to when my monitor might actually arrive.

Well, I immediately called the number I was given, to be told by the very polite gentleman at Samsung that I had been given the number for their Technical Support branch!

I nearly broke the buttons on the phone as I dialled your so-called Customer Services again. Somehow I managed to remain relatively polite to the poor person who answered, and demanded that I be put through to somebody higher up. Eventually I got to speak to someone calling himself Damien, who said he was a Customer Service Manager there. He listened to my story and offered apologies here and there. He eventually gave me the number for your "Customer Excellence" team, and a Parcel UKD(?) number which he said would allow the Customer Excellence team to track down my order and let me know exactly what was going on.

I've just got off the phone with this "Customer Excellence" team, who seem to be just as disinterested as your front line Customer Service team. Without even being to relate half the details of my story I was told that there must be some hold up at the supplier and I should simply wait until the 21st to see if my order arrives. Nobody seemed remotely interested in the apparent Parcel Number I had been given, so I now wonder if that was just given to me to fob me off.

To summarise, I have now spent a considerable amount of time and money on the phone to Very, just trying to find out when my order is likely to be delivered. I have repeatedly been given the run-around by your staff, and you seem to be moving the goalposts wherever and whenever you like without being willing to address reasonable questions. Your website was still selling the item, reporting it as "In Stock" after you had missed 2 prior delivery dates, so I dread to think how many other people are waiting for this to arrive. If a company such as Amazon lists an item as being in stock it generally seems to imply that the item is physically there and ready to be shipped as soon as somebody sticks a shipping label to it.

I originally saw this exact same monitor in my local computer shop. I could have had it at home and working that same day, but I opted to buy it from Very because you were listing it for £10 less and I was able to use you BNPL option. This has now turned into my worst experience with ANY company's customer service department ever. Oh, and just to rub salt into the wound, my local shop has sold of of that model now too.

I would be extremely interested to hear your views on my recent experience with you, and whether or not you plan to address any of the shortcomings demonstrated by your staff. I would just cancel my order, but after all the aggravation I just want my order to arrive.

Sincerely

Andrew Browne

custardy

Gimmeago wrote: »

This is a copy of an email I sent to network@veryhq.com on Monday 10 February. It is now Saturday and still haven't Haidas reply or acknowledgement.

I will not be shopping with Very in the future!


Dear Very,

I'm sorry to say I am feeling utterly dumbfounded by the level of customer support I have received over the last 2 weeks. I have repeatedly had to call Customer Services to try and find out why my order has been delayed (on a rather expensive number!), and nobody seems capable of answering even the most simple of questions.

On Tuesday January 28th I placed an order for a Samsung monitor for one of my computers (Item code 3PM3W) which was listed as being "In Stock", and available for delivery within 3 working days. The confirmation email I received stated that it would be delivered on or by Friday January 31st. Tracking the order on your website revealed that your supplier had received the order on Wednesday afternoon, and that the order was being processed. Ever hopeful, I assumed that this meant I would get my order on time. As subsequent events have shown, I was being overly optimistic. Within minutes I received an email from Very stating that the delivery date would now be Monday February 3rd.

On Thursday January 30th I checked the tracking system again and there was no change and the delivery day was still shown as being the next day. There was nothing to suggest that the order had been shipped, so late that evening I called Customer Services to see if there was a hold-up, as it seemed unlikely that the order would be delivered on time the next day. I was told that there was no need to worry, and to wait and see if the order arrived. I told them about the email from Wednesday and they didn't know anything about it.

On Friday January 31st there was no sign of the delivery, and the order tracking status showed that it was still being processed. I called Customer Services who said the item was indeed due to be delivered on the 3rd of February. I asked if someone would try and chase up the supplier to make sure that there would be no further delay, and to reassure me that I would not be waiting for ages. The man said he could not do it personally, but would pass my request on to the relevant people before taking my number and promising that they would call me back. Nobody called back.

On Monday February 3rd, I once again checked the order tracking, and the delivery date had been changed to Friday February 7th. I called Customer Services again, to be told that there must be a problem with the supplier and that there was nothing they could do until the delivery date had passed. I did explain that you had now missed 2 delivery dates already, but that seemed to fall on deaf ears. I said that in light of the 2 missed deliveries already it would be nice if they could at least knock the delivery charge off the order, which the operator seemed happy to do, informing me that he had updated his system and removed the delivery charge. As I right this, the order is still showing the price for the monitor plus the delivery charge, so I'm sceptical as the whether anything has actually been changed there.

I continued to check the tracking daily. I also kept checking the item listing on your website. Up until Wednesday February 5th the monitor was still listed as being In Stock and available for delivery within 3 working days! On the Wednesday, the item listing suddenly changed to "Delivery within 4 weeks" so I called Customer Services again to see what was going on. Once again, the staff seemed completely un-fussed by my concerns, simply stating that I should wait until the delivery date shown on the tracking page before they could make any inquiries.

Guess what! Friday came and still no monitor. What I did get was a nice shock when I checked the tracking page to find the delivery date had been changed to "By February 21st", another 2 weeks away. I called Customer Services (again!), who were as unhelpful as usual. I was told once again that there was nothing anyone could do to chase up the delivery until the delivery date had passed, despite me repeatedly telling her that you had by now missed 3 delivery dates. I asked to speak to a manager there as I was really not happy with the level of service I had received up to that point. The operator said "Um, let me see if I can find one." and disappeared briefly, before saying that she couldn't see one anywhere and could they call me back when somebody was available. I gave them my number, but never got a call back.

By Saturday I was furious. I called Customer Services and immediately demanded to speak to a manager. Once again I was told that nobody was available. The operator then appeared to give in to my requests for some way of contacting the suppliers directly and said that the monitor was being shipped directly from Samsung, and after disappearing for a few minutes returned to give me a number which she assured me would yield the answer to when my monitor might actually arrive.

Well, I immediately called the number I was given, to be told by the very polite gentleman at Samsung that I had been given the number for their Technical Support branch!

I nearly broke the buttons on the phone as I dialled your so-called Customer Services again. Somehow I managed to remain relatively polite to the poor person who answered, and demanded that I be put through to somebody higher up. Eventually I got to speak to someone calling himself Damien, who said he was a Customer Service Manager there. He listened to my story and offered apologies here and there. He eventually gave me the number for your "Customer Excellence" team, and a Parcel UKD(?) number which he said would allow the Customer Excellence team to track down my order and let me know exactly what was going on.

I've just got off the phone with this "Customer Excellence" team, who seem to be just as disinterested as your front line Customer Service team. Without even being to relate half the details of my story I was told that there must be some hold up at the supplier and I should simply wait until the 21st to see if my order arrives. Nobody seemed remotely interested in the apparent Parcel Number I had been given, so I now wonder if that was just given to me to fob me off.

To summarise, I have now spent a considerable amount of time and money on the phone to Very, just trying to find out when my order is likely to be delivered. I have repeatedly been given the run-around by your staff, and you seem to be moving the goalposts wherever and whenever you like without being willing to address reasonable questions. Your website was still selling the item, reporting it as "In Stock" after you had missed 2 prior delivery dates, so I dread to think how many other people are waiting for this to arrive. If a company such as Amazon lists an item as being in stock it generally seems to imply that the item is physically there and ready to be shipped as soon as somebody sticks a shipping label to it.

I originally saw this exact same monitor in my local computer shop. I could have had it at home and working that same day, but I opted to buy it from Very because you were listing it for £10 less and I was able to use you BNPL option. This has now turned into my worst experience with ANY company's customer service department ever. Oh, and just to rub salt into the wound, my local shop has sold of of that model now too.

I would be extremely interested to hear your views on my recent experience with you, and whether or not you plan to address any of the shortcomings demonstrated by your staff. I would just cancel my order, but after all the aggravation I just want my order to arrive.

Sincerely

Andrew Browne

nice extra long and hyperbole filled complaint.
Short and to the point gets replies

DevCoder

Agree with custardy, too OTT, too emotional, too long and filled with spelling mistakes.

Very will read the first few paragraphs and then click delete.

For the sake of £10 you should have bought local and supported your local shops.

Elimae09

I made the error of ordering through very.co.uk and I have regretted it ever since. The order process and delivery was great.. But then came the problems... It was purchased on a BNPL but on the first statement they started charging interest!! So I called them to ask why! Well the customer service was shocking no body could explain why and nobody could rectify what they had done, so I asked for a manager only for a operative to come on the phone and pretend to be a manager .. So rude! I then wrote a written complaint outlining the complaint and still a month and a half on I am awaiting a reply!! In the meantime they have debited money from my bank with out my say so as they have the details for when the plan ends. Awful company and I will take this further if I get no appropriate action.

Before very.co.uk reply advising to contact them on the HQ email. I have done this three times in the vain hope it may help... I would not recommend this company to anybody. Yet littlewoods there sister company are soooo much more helpful x

ab2643

I hope that any one that reads this will steer clear of very.co.uk


Good evening




I'm afraid that I have to bore you again with more of a complaint about very's shocking service.


Still not had a reply to my original complaint on this email - I had to waste more of my time and phone bill money in calling in to the call centre to get my original complaint resolved.


I Managed to speak to a sensible member of staff in your call centre. Yes I was shocked as well !!!
She advised that yes I can have the side board at the same price as it was a return so they would have to charge me the £239 but as soon I received the side board to call in and they will price match it - fair enough I was happy with that. The delivery was arranged for the 24.05.14


I waited in all day on the 24.05.14 and called at 5pm to ask was it even arriving ? the rude member of staff asked me loads of security questions then told me as I was not the account holder she could not tell me - so why waste my time asking me questions about the account holder in the first place ????
My husband was at work all day so I had to wait till the 25.05.14 to call and find out where the side board was !


spoke to another miserable member of the call centre staff and I did shout at her which I have apologised for - if you record all your calls then please feel free to get you quality team to listen to the calls.


I demanded a manager and was put through to a nice lady ( didn't get her name but she had a Liverpudlian accent) she advised that because I was being charged the full price £239 for the replacement that pushed it over the credit limit on the account - after me explaining that is not my problem as the original side board was faulty and I should not be charged she forced the order through as I would be returning one at the cost of £119 off the account and when I got a new one it would be priced matched to the £119. After thanking her for helping me she arranged a delivery for 31.05.14 and put me through to another miserable member of call centre staff who logged the return and advised that the courier company will be in contact in 3 days to arrange the collection of the faulty item, I tried to explain I want it on the same day of the delivery 31.05.14 he just interestedly told me to arrange it with courier company.


The courier company rang mark on the 28.05.14 and offered the collection on either Monday 02.06.14 or Saturday 07.06.14
Being as we both have to work full time Mark picked the Saturday.
I called in to the call centre on the 28.05.14 and advised the operator that I want to speak to a manager. She enquired as to why and I explained the whole sorry story to her, she promised me a manager call back advised it might not of been tonight may be tomorrow but promised that she would get some one to call me.


29.05.14 - I am having to waste my phone bill and family time being as I have been at work all day - to speak to another miserable member of your call centre. I was very frustrated and was rude to her when she was asking me questions but I advised her from the start of the call that I was not getting of the phone until I got to speak to a manager, and as she was trying to ask me questions, I advised her to read the notes as any decent call centre would have a system when the customer calls in notes as to why the customer has called in about - so I told her that im not explaining myself again and to get a manager and read the notes.


after being on hold at my cost for a while I spoke to the most rudest supervisor I have ever spoken to ****** she was clearly not interested in a word I had to say, and could not of been bothered to try and turn my shocking customer service experience around to a positive experience.


All I want is for some one to arrange with the delivery company when they drop a new side board off pick up the faulty one on the same day !!


she could not help and could not be bothered to just simply told me she cannot book a collection until after the 02.06.14 I tried in vain to explain I work full time all week, the weekends is the only time I get to shop and clean my elderly parents house and look after them. I also have family of my own that I have to clean shop and care for. So was she going to offer me compensation to wait in for another day ? ****** told me that I would have to write in, I stopped her then and explained that I have already emailed and no one contacted me ( on this email thread)
then she told me I would have to write in ! I explained this would not resolve my issue before the delivery on the 31.05.14 ! uninterested she then told me that she would offer me compensation now but then I would just call back in and ask for more ! I found this very offending im not that hard up for money that I will keep calling you for compensation !! I advised ****** to take the compensation and pay the deliver company extra to get the item collected at the same time as the delivery - oh please listen to that call as she highly contradicts herself which I point out to her


I asked to speak to her line manager she of course was not available and her name was ******* and she was available 9am til 5pm, I advised ****** that I will be calling celeste tomorrow as I want this resolved.


I am now requesting a copy of the call recordings under the freedom of information act and I also think this should be fully investigated and some one should call me to explain to me how very.co.uk has failed me as a paying customer ?


I will now be coping and pasting this email to any review website I can find on google , and there are lot to make your other customers aware of how very.co.uk treats its customers.


It that the kind of publicity that very.co.uk want ?


please again free feel to contact me before the 31.05.14

tomtontom

Too much waffle ab2643, a more succinct email would attract a more constructive reply. Also you should be requesting recordings etc under the DPA, not the FOIA.

mrbax81

Few months ago we bought a sofa at Very. We have chosen to pay nothing for 6 months and then pay off the sofa in full.

After first month I checked the account and found that there was missed payment fee added to my account. After contacting the customer service I was told that the buy now pay in six months option wasn't checked - although this was one of the reasons why we went with very. Anyway - I swallowed my pride and paid the fee and after that I set up a direct debit to pay off the rest of the sofa in monthly installments.

Month later I found out that the money have not been taken from my account (although I received a letter stating that DD was set up and the money will be taken on a given date) which resulted in another missed payment fee and additional interest charges. After calling customer services again demanding explanation as DD was set up and it was them who didn't take the money all I got was that it was my fault as I should have paid the monthly installments until the first direct debit would come out of my account. I even sent them a copy of their own letter stating that DD was set up and the money will be taken on the given date.

Overall - I paid the sofa in one go and asked to shut my account down and remove all my details from their system. It has been a month nearly and my account is still there and I am still getting their amazing e-newsletter and leaflets by post. So much for data protection act eh?

DO NOT USE VERY - as it is VERY disapointing.

Jpink100

Hi,

I wouldn't usually be one to complain however after reading all these emails I see I am not the only one on the receiving end of Very's appauling customer service. I ordered a new bed and mattress for my little girls room. The bed eventually came over 2 weeks later (6 days later than scheduled) and there wasn't one screw or instructions to put the bed together. I rang the customer service and to cut a long story short after everyone passed the buck I finally got through to the correct department which then had another 9 minute waiting time. I decided to email about my problem instead and they responded to say they would pass it onto the correct department (passing the buck again) and they would get back to me within 3 days. I wasn't happy with this and after reading these posts I found another email address in here which I then contacted. After eventually establishing my problem and explaining it once again the guy on the email informed me that he parts would be posted and with me in 10 days. I think this is an absolute disgrace that I now have a mattress and all the parts of the bed and have to wait a further 10 days to get it built. That will be almost a month by the time my little girl eventually gets to sleep in her new bed. I can't understand why they can't do next day delivery when it's their fault, if I was buying something and paying for it then next day delivery wouldn't be a problem. I just can't understand how such a huge company like very don't have a better policy for handling complaints!!!

wealdroam

Jpink100 wrote: »

After eventually establishing my problem and explaining it once again the guy on the email informed me that he parts would be posted and with me in 10 days. I think this is an absolute disgrace that I now have a mattress and all the parts of the bed and have to wait a further 10 days to get it built.

Is it just possible that Very did not have the necessary parts in stock and had to order them in?
That may well account for the delay.

They probably don't get asked for that very often.

Alan001

Hi Guys recently I opened a account for Very.co.uk, they had a good deal on a washing machine, quick delivery, and for an extra £5 take old machine away, this was for my mother in law who is partially sighted and other issues etc, they delivered as promised but somehow forgot to remove old machine, a few days later called customer services who promised to rectify, I paid the account off and closed it, from then they are playing hardball refusing to honour the contract of removing the machine which I have paid for, they keep threatening on refunding the £5 for the removal but I refuse and now after loosing the will to live and having many arguments with there customer services I may think about using small claims court.

This is probably the worst lot I have ever had to deal with but I am determined to win.