Philips have ripped me off. ADVICE NEEDED PLEASE

RowaN

Back on 31st October I ordered a charging dock for my Philips Pronto universal remote. I ordered directly from Philips, via phone, because no where else had it in stock. The price (£75) was almost double, but I figured I had no choice. At least ordering direct from Philips would mean I would be getting good service.... how wrong I was.

Over a month later, mid December, the package arrives. The box is battered, with 3 generations of selotape holding it together.. a refurb perhaps? I open the box, to find it contains the dock, but is missing the "rechargeable NiMH battery pack". This is the most expensive part of the product, because the dock itself is just a lump of plastic.. not worth anywhere near £75. The box did however, contain a little empty plastic bag...

To check I'm not going crazy, I take a photo of the box:
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3274/img13681xz4.jpg
As you can see, printed very clearly, it states "INCLUDES NiMH rechargeable battery pack". Ah.. I figure I can phone up Philips, tell them whats missing, and have it sent on to me. Wrong...

I wont bore you with details of the 6 or so 40min calls I made to Philips to try and sort this out. But to cut a long story short, they are not going to send me the missing part. They tell me no part is missing, no battery pack is supposed to come with the dock. The fact that "INCLUDES NiMH rechargeable battery pack" is printed on their packaging doesnt seem to concern them - "we find this confusing" was all they could say in response. For me, its financially confusing, because I have paid for a product and only received part of it.

With the package there was a returns form, but it said I must return within 5 days. 7 days later I was still in communications with philips trying to get a definitive answer as to whether or not they were going to satisfy my order. Now I am hesitant to send it back, because I fear it will go into a black hole. Even on the returns label, it says "please check that the following items are included in your return shipment" .. and then goes on to list the various bits, including the battery pack! They want me to return an item that they say doesnt exist!

Guys please can you help me and give me some advice on what I can do. Speaking to Philips customer services is a complete joke, because as I've explained above, they don't seem to be interested in the claims printed on their own material.

PurpleDuck

If it says on the box it should be there and you were sold it as being there and they claiming its not then take it to trading standards and show them and let them deal with Philips. If they are misrepresenting their products then Trading standards will sort it. I'm a huge fan of trading standards - can you tell? lol They have been so helpful.

codger

Rowan: are the Philips people you're dealing with in the UK?

If so, you need to forget all about expensive and undocumented telephone calls, and instead get a name and address to write to: where a court is concerned, phone conversations mean nothing; it's the written word that counts.

Sending any correspondence now is not going to achieve an early response due to Christmas & New Year hols and seasonal Royal Mail slow-down.

What you therefore need to do is email -- not telephone -- whoever you're dealing with, stating that you are distressed by the company's reaction and that you intend to seek redress for breach of contract. Your email should be tagged, using a client application such as this one:

http://www.msgtag.com/products/free/

(Although note: some mailboxes can be set to block the receipt of images, in which case mstag or similar won't work. That said, in the vast majority of cases, it does. And it's free to use).

Your email should go on to say that you will be writing to them, by Special Delivery, as soon as the Christmas / New Year holiday period is over, and that this letter will set out the facts of your complaint and form the basis of civil action against the company should it continue to reject your complaint.

You should keep a copy of your "sent" email on file. Hopefully, mstag will also do its work and you'll receive an auto confirm that your email reached its intended destination.

Naturally, you should also keep a copy of your New Year letter. You must send by Special Delivery -- not Signed For: although the receipt process is similar for both, anecdotal evidence suggests that a Court may take more notice of a document routed by SD than SF.

If the facts are as clear cut as you state, Philips hasn't a leg to stand on.

Good luck.

codger

RowaN

Thanks guys. I will have a look into these instructions after xmas. I do have a few e-mails saved up already.. 3 times IN A ROW, via seperate e-mails, they asked me "Where did you buy this product?" ... each time I replied to tell them FROM YOU, PHILIPS.... HERE IS THE ORDER REF#. I mean jesus, it defies belief.

codger: every Philips number I call seems to route to sweden. After e-mailing them instead, someone did call me up from England, but he could only deal with "CD and DVD players" questions, and gave me yet another e-mail address to write to. I never got a reply from that e-mail address.

deanos

If you paid by credit card get onto them and do a chargeback, there must be somewhere else selling them

RowaN

My creditcard (MBNA) want me to return the goods before they will start any kind of claim action. As philips have ceased their communications with me mid way though discussion into the matter, I am hesitant to do this. I dont want to end up losing both my money and the item.

codger

Rowan: The return of faulty goods to a supplier may well be appropriate to a standard claim process, but the return of non-existent goods is impossible and stipulating so, plain daft. MNBA need reminding they are not PayPal.

This appears to be shaping up into a messy affair for which some external advice & intervention seems necessary, because you need to establish with whom your purchase contract exists and, more importantly, where the hell that is: the UK? Sweden? Denmark? Outer Mongolia?

On the face of it, Philips' behaviour seems contemptible, and made worse by what appears to be some fancy footwork. I'd recommend the services of Citizens Advice Bureau -- your local branch should be in the phone book, or located online.

CAB, like Trading Standards, always has to filter complaints lest it gets bogged down in straightforward issues which can be easily resolved via the Courts Service. As this issue isn't straightforward (because the merchant seems to be intentionally, and internationally, moving the goal posts) I think CAB would wish to look into the matter on your behalf.

Sorry not to be able to offer anything more constructive.

C_Ronaldo

rowan

thats shocking service you have recieved, i hope you get it sorted soon, let us know how u get on