Debenhams wedding lists - unbelievably bad

Doozergirl

I remember some of our guests had issues with substitutions but I'm sure when we married that there was something that asked whether they could substitute or not as some people got phonecalls and others just had stuff swapped.

I can't remember what Debenhams did to us, but I remember part of it was an item that had been bought after the wedding that they failed to tell us about. We'd gotten a lot of money on giftcards too so I waited for the sale and it was only when I went to close the account to get some kind of bonus that I discovered this stray gift from months before. I'm pretty sure I'd had a huge row with someone on the phone too.

It must have been the last straw because when I finally got to speak to the manager, he gave me, half price, anything I wanted from the remainder of our list. Considering that a lot of it was in the sale, my God, I got a lot of stuff that day!

talksalot81

lebly wrote:

Subs are only made where necessary. The staaff try to see if they can get the item locally (from another local store) or see when the item would be coming in. They try their best to get the itme requested, the itme requested may have been discontinued so no more available (this could be due to season change etc). If you have a problem with the way the staff are dealing with the problem then my suggestion is to go into the store you list is held at and talk to the staff face to face if you get no response/ help speak to their manager!

They are not al stoppy monsters you know!

That is what we thought but that is not what seems to be happening. If the item is not there on the day, they immediately substitute and make no attempt to order the item so they have stock next time. These are not discontinued items nor are they difficult to obtain (le creuset for instance). Nor are they short of time, there were 3 months when they first substituted! Even when requested they are almost entirely unwilling to order an item. It is as if a gift list is something removed from normal business - in normal practice you would expect a store to order what you want if they dont have it, not lead an individual to believe they have paid for something and then change it without even offering a choice.

This may well be something limited do Debenhams Belfast, but it is not just me. Many have commented on the troubles they have had with this same store.

On the 'free £50': consider the prices debenhams are charging. For china, crystal and high end cookware, they are charging every penny they can. A set of le creuset I could get for 20% less elsewhere (without even looking too hard!). Do not think this is a freebie - if you have any real value of list then your guests are paying for the privelege of this £50! I guess if you are sneaky and end up with only an egg whisk and a napkin ring... you will have done rather well!

RunningRach

We had our list with Debs at the Trafford Centre in 2002. The list was dealt with fine but the offer they had on for us then was 10% of the value of the purchased items back in vouchers. We went on honeymoon for 2 weeks the day after the wedding and then went to Debenhams to pick up our vouchers the day after we returned only to be told that we had to claim the vouchers in person within 7 days of the wedding date or the offer was void! The member of staff we dealt with was absolutely immoveable and basically said that it was "our fault" for going on honeymoon!

Our solution was to then spend the next half an hour stood in the wedding list registration section approaching the prospective list customers and warning them that they wouldn't be able to get their vouchers if they went on honeymoon so they had better look elsewhere. Once the member of staff realised what we were doing she flew out to us with allthe vouchers we were entitled to plus an extra £25 worth "to make up for the misunderstanding"...

Hope it doesn't come to that with you!

MrsTinks

Well I'll register with them for the £50 and depending on how good they are when I deal with them I will send out my list to my guests or I will just stick to the strickt minimum to get the £50... So I'll give them the chance to win my business - it'll be entirely up to them

talksalot81

tine wrote:

Well I'll register with them for the £50 and depending on how good they are when I deal with them I will send out my list to my guests or I will just stick to the strickt minimum to get the £50... So I'll give them the chance to win my business - it'll be entirely up to them

Just make sure you have a second list - if they start screwing around, remove everything from the list and then your guests can just go to the other list. If, like us, you send out invites with only debs, it is almost impossible to change (not without sending out a new set of letters!).

ooo000ooo

We have our wedding list with debenhams in belfast, i think only one gift has been bought from it so far so hopefully we won't have too many problems. We found their site a royal pain in the a55 to get logged into and ended up having to reset the password about 10 times as every time we changed it to something we wanted it wouldn't let us log back in again. we eventually gave up and just stuck with their password.

jo_b_2

tine wrote:

Well I'll register with them for the £50 and depending on how good they are when I deal with them I will send out my list to my guests or I will just stick to the strickt minimum to get the £50... So I'll give them the chance to win my business - it'll be entirely up to them

When I used the Debenhams Wedding List service last year there wasn't any 'minimum' spend. We got given a £50 gift card on the same day that we set up the list, so it wasn't dependent on anybody even buying any items on the list.

Obviously, this was last year so the T+C might have altered recently.

Personally, I didn't have any problems with the service I received. The only slight criticism that I did have was around difficulites logging into the online wedding list bit as somebody else has also mentioned.

lebly

t&c have you get £50 once list scanned. If you have a problem tell someone!

Substitutions are probably also made if item has a long wait on it ie months after wedding etc.

talksalot81

lebly wrote:

Substitutions are probably also made if item has a long wait on it ie months after wedding etc.

That would be reasonable but it simply is not the case for us. They have not even looked into ordering the item or checking if it is due to come back into stock. Unfortunately everyone so far has given the same story and said tough luck. Unfortunately I really have no leg to stand on because it is in the t&c. There seems little point going to anyone else only to get the same message.

november

jo_b wrote:

When I used the Debenhams Wedding List service last year there wasn't any 'minimum' spend. We got given a £50 gift card on the same day that we set up the list, so it wasn't dependent on anybody even buying any items on the list.

Obviously, this was last year so the T+C might have altered recently.

Personally, I didn't have any problems with the service I received. The only slight criticism that I did have was around difficulites logging into the online wedding list bit as somebody else has also mentioned.

We had exactly the same experience as you. Debenhams web site can be a bit of a nightmare especially when they have a sale on.

When it came to spend our gift vouchers we found them very helpful. They advised us to wait until a certain date as there was a sale on and some of our items we hadn't got would be in the sale. As we couldn't make the sale date as we were working the assistant put the items up and we bought them via the phone on a sale date at sale price and they delivered them for no charge. Her customer service was excellent with a vengance - very helpful indeed although I suppose that depends on the branch.

Another extra touch I loved was the Xmas card we received for our first Xmas together with our names on the front. :T