Wren Kitchens - My Review

june2014

I wished I read these posts before we purchased our Linda Barker kitchen. Our first delivery was 3rd June and our (hopefully) last was 3rd October, due to so many doors having to be replaced again and again. I chose a grey door most of which had marks which meant you could see white paint underneath. Eventually when this had gone on for too long wren sent someone out to have a look(I had sent photos of 32 such marks on various doors) he then 'touched up' the marks with a grey pen and told my husband (I was at work) that if I wasnt happy he would replace the doors...... well excuse me but I definitely do not want a kitchen, which cost thousands of pounds, to be touched up....hence the last delivey!!!
we have bought much cheaper kitchens off the shelf and they have been much better than this kitchen. My advice DONT BUY from this company

C4MRC

My mother-in-law had a Wren kitchen fitted in early August, she is an elderly, frail widow and was dependant upon the level of service delivered by Wren's Oxford branch. In fairness the work and the quality of units was fine but the designer had over-ordered on units which had to be returned (full payment had been made). Despite numerous phone calls and visits to the Oxford store and promises of payment by the end of October nothing had been done. I hold power of attorney for my mother-in-law and contacted the store to be told that 'there was no record of a request for a partial refund' (even though I had been able to name the fitter who had returned the goods and the assistant with whom my mother-in-law had spoken. I sent an email to the store manager Stephen Hinitt pointing out that unless I had a satisfactory response I would be taking the MD Armando Sanchez to the the County Court. I have since tried twice to speak to Mr Hinitt who has failed to even acknowledge my email, eventually, today, one of his assistants confirmed that a note had been sent to their head office and that a refund might be forthcoming between 14 and 21 days. So I am now going to draft a letter of 14 days notice before action to Mr Sanchez, if the correct refund comes through then fine if not I will see him in court. Clearly these people have no conscience about treating and elderly lady with such contempt (how would they feel if their own mothers were treated in this way?). Therefore my advice is do not give them an inch if you have a genuine complaint and they do not respond go straight to the MD Armando Sanchez, The Nest, Falkland Way, Barton-on-Humber DN18 5RX, detail the case and give him 14 days to respond - if he does not go on line and issue proceedings at the county court, do not let them get away with it!

ppegoraro

I had to am a victim of Wren. Unbelievable, I received delivery of my Linda Barker handle less Kitchen back in Feb 2014 and my kitchen is still not finished, and I am still waiting on doors, other issues are, the design is wrong, most cupboards don't line up, wrong colour, poor quality, basically the same as every other complaint mentioned before, what a disaster.


I just read another post on here "Wren Kitchen Issues" and it there is a some information regarding compensation. Worth as shot as I am sure Wren would not like to pass out refunds and I am £2K out of pocket

marckt

I'm in a similar situation. Kitchen started to be fitted July 7th and its still not finished now (almost 6 months on). Only a few days ago we discovered the fitter hadn't connected the extractor fan correctly, instead he'd stuffed the ducting behind some boxing and let it then run loose on top of the boiler so that when we were extracting any cooking smells it just pumped them back into the kitchen. Had we not got another contractor out to look at the extractor fan we would never have know! This is just one of MANY incidents that we have dealt with and the 'fit' has been littered with delays, terrible installation (cupboards about by 4mm, taps shooting off in our hands) a difficult fitter (who after 5 months of messing us around decide to smash his work benches all over our front drive, he also only worked 6 hours a day as opposed to the 8 hours i thought we had paid for) and there is absolutely zero consideration for the customer, no one seems to be willing to take responsibility and you have to constantly chase to get anything done.

It is quite simply the worst experience we've ever had and this post doesn't even scratch the surface of what we've been through. I would urge people to take these reviews seriously before purchasing a kitchen from Wren.

I wrote a 10 page review of our experiences and sent this in to the directors office only to receive a generic email back saying that because i hadn't filled out the correct form my case had been closed and we weren't going to receive any compensation!

I then had to spend more of my time trying to get hold of someone to say that this wasn't acceptable. I eventually managed to speak to the MD who made me feel as if the whole problem was out fault. He didnt explain why any of things we had encountered had happened and after all we had been through offered £250 in compensation, which quite frankly was insulting and didnt go anywhere to even covering meals we had to fork out for during the 6 or so weeks we were without a kitchen, nevermind all tpoor standard of fitting, delays and poor customer service. Upon protestation this was begrudgingly upped to £500 (4% of the total cost) before being withdrawn in its entirety when we again said that wasn't good enough. The call ended with the MD telling me to 'go legal' which is unfortunately what we are now having to do - yet more time spent on something which we quite frankly just want to get a fair and just settlement on..

My experience was with the Oxford store as well.

ppegoraro

marckt
This is such a joke, Wren are a complete waste of time. They have another delivery in store for me, Tuesday 18th, and still waiting for the manager to check the items before sending out, but I can guarantee that even after their so called QC checks and the managers checks that there will still be something wrong. I have a magic corner with no door for 9 months, they can't even get that right, flippen pathetic.


Don't quote me on this, but I am about to research into what someone has mentioned to me, You can either make claims under you home insurance under the Goods and Services Act 1982, also if you have paid by CC you may be able to get some compensation from Section 75 Customer Credit Act 1974,


I think that was correct, will be reading up about it and hopefully might be able to claw back the additional £2K I had to spend due to their incompetence, and not to mention the fitters cost to come back and finish the kitchen if they ever sort out my doors

marckt

yes i had a look at the goods and services act - that's forming part of my claim to the ombudsman. Thanks for the heads up and all the best with your claim!!

viet2468

We have also had a really bad experience with Wrens in Hull. In late Oct we put down a deposit of £450 for a new kitchen, after a change in our personal circumstances we called Wrens the following week to cancel the order for the kitchen but asked them if we could keep the oven, hob and extractor fan as we had put a deposit down and naively felt we had wasted a bit of there time with measuring up and designing our kitchen. The store manager said no problem and we agreed to pay the outstanding amount for the said appliances. This is were our problems started.
First the manager "accidentally" overcharged our card by approx £200, I called him back straight away and he put on a show of apology and said he would refund the money BUT he couldn't do it until after delivery !! which was approx three weeks time.
Then a week after the delivery should of been made I got two separate emails saying there was a delay on our order and after calling into the store the same manager confirmed two of the three items wouldn't be delivered until the new year (original delivery date was week commencing 22 Nov)
I explained this not no good to us and could we have a full refund, again lots of apologies and smiley faces and yes the money would be refunded straight away, since then I have called them numerous times only to be told the manger is busy and he will call me back later, he never does. I have been back to the Hull store three times to ask for my refund, the first time the same manager checked our records and put on a bit of a show saying how head office and messed up and he will get it sorted straight away, after another week passed and still no refund I went back and this time was told by the same manager that the person who "authorises" refunds was not in that day but would be in tomorrow and as soon as he was back he would get our money refunded, again nothing happened and no promised call from the manager to confirm the transaction.
I just went back this past Saturday and have been told the man who "authorises" refunds is in the store and has already approved my refund, still nothing in our account, the person who the manager sent to speak to me did say that the money would not get into my account until Wednesday but I fail to see why if it has been authorised that it cannot go back in straight away, I really feel this is just another stalling tac tic and do not expect to see any money refunded on Wednesday which will mean I will have to drive 10 miles each way back to the store again ( they don't return phone calls ).
The thing that really irks us is that we thought we were being fair with them by not asking for our deposit back and using it to buy the appliances, then to be overcharged and the manager admitting he had overcharged but still avoiding paying any monies back at all is just dishonest and deceitful.
I will let you know how I get on this Wednesday but I after reading this and other message boards I don't expect any good news.

birdfeedersfull1

Has anyone got problems with paint chipping off their Linda Barker handleless gloss doors/ panels? This would be useful as we have had to resort to the small claims court due to the quality and lack of meaningful response from Wren kitchens.

sensiblethinker

Viet2468. further to earlier reply, if the company took extra money "by mistake" and did not refund immediately, it is probably technically theft. You should have had thaqt money back immediately. Def call credit card company!

Al_Ross

viet 2468

We had a similar experience trying to get an expensive large kitchen sink that the designer sold to us refunded (they messed up as there was only room for a single sink and I was told to go into town and purchase one localy to allow their fitters to fit it).I had many ,many phone calls and that is when I first started posted on this site. After 6 months I finally managed to get my refund.
I would be very surprised if you receive yor refund next week,but good luck.