Corban Direct - Awful customer service

Wiganwishes

I wish I had read this thread before placing an order with Corban Direct.

I placed the order online 10 days before the delivery day requested by me, had confirmation of it by email, and waited for the contact quote "by email and/or text" from the delivery courier with a time slot on my appointed day.

When no message was received I tried an online chat conversation with them. They said that there were supply/courier delays and the courier service would contact me to arrange a new date. They said they had tried contacting me.

When I asked how they had tried, they said by phone on 07714xxxxxx which was not my phone number! When I pointed out that they had my correct phone on the system (I had checked My Account that morning) and on the order form I was told that sometimes when they update the system it changes peoples' phone numbers but they had now changed it back to the correct one!!!! Who are they kidding.

They had not tried to contact me by email either.

I have asked for a refund, but reading some of the other posts I should not expect it too soon.

Krisitian72

Although I had checked reviews I was swayed to order a bed due to the next day delivery service.... After 48hrs I had a message left stating that would be delivered the following day. I called to enquire about the delay, I was informed they forgot to put it on the van...... My trust in what was said and previous reviews taken into account I cancelled and asked for a refund. I was told 3-5 business days.

I requested an email confirming this instruction, which resulted in 3 calls back to Corban Direct because they had spelling mistakes in the address.

Yeap it took 3 calls to correct my email address and each time I got them to confirm that the refund had been requested (different advisors) all confirmed it had in fact been done.

So after 6 business days I checked my account and to my surprise no refund. I called and was told they forgot to request via their accounts department but not too worry can do now and will be another 3-5business days but that was only after I had been told it would be paid in today by an advisor who had quite obviously not been trained and was panicking over the questions I had raised.

After another several minutes getting fobbed off I requested to speak with a manager only to be told that classic line "he's in a meeting" but there's hope he will be available at 2pm so agreed to receive a manager call back!!

Now let's see if that actually happens.....

Dave__A_2

I read this thread and so used a different site; Direct Bedroom, directbedroom.co.uk . My order came through as being with Corban Direct; it appears they are the same company :-(

My order for two wardrobes arrived on time, but one part was faulty (unpainted) and getting a replacement has been far from straightforward. Their customer service staff are helpful but appear at best inexperienced and badly trained.

mitch-e

I am writing this in order to confirm what other customers have written and also to warn other customers against purchasing with them. I also informed Corban Direct that I would be giving them bad reviews online and contacting watchdog and trading standards.

I purchased a Lafuma Futura Clip Recliner Chair from Corban Direct online website on 03/08/2014 , on the website for a price of £154.98 it said next day delivery so at the latest I expected it to arrive on 05/08/2014. I phoned the company on that day to confirm that the order had been dispatched, I was informed that the person could not contact their supplier and would phone me back ASAP. When I did not receive a phone call I phoned again. The sales person informed me that unfortunately they could not get the order to me until Thursday 07/08/2014. I said that this was unacceptable so what could be done about this and asked to speak to the manager due to this and for bad service, she said that they would deduct £20 from my bill and requested a manager call back as he was 'unavailable'. I then phoned on 06/08/2014 to confirm that my order would arrive on 07/08/2014, I was informed that it would certainly be here. When I did not receive email confirmation of dispatch for the 07/08/2014 I phoned again on said date. I was passed around and twice that day I was told that the sales person would ring me but never did hence more phone calls from myself. I was informed that they were having difficulty contacting the supplier, I asked the suppliers name and asked whether this was Lafuma and was informed that it was NOT Lafuma. I asked who the supplier was so I could contact them myself however was told they could not give out this information. They also informed me on the 9th phone call I made to them in 3 days that they would not be able to contact the supplier until Monday 11/08/2014. I told them that this was unacceptable and for the third time asked to speak to the manager, I was told within a space of a few minutes that firstly he was on the phone, then in a meeting and then thirdly interviewing. The advisor informed me that they would request a call back for me. To this date I have heard nothing from the manager it is now 24/08/2014. I then decided to do some investigating of my own and contacted Lafuma directly to ask if they were the suppliers to Corban Direct, they informed me that in fact they ARE their suppliers and got my details and order number up. Lafuma informed me that I am not the only one with the exact same complaint this summer. I was also informed that Lafuma do not dispatch an order to customer until they have received payment for the item which they had not received from Corban Direct and could not understand why they had told me they could not contact them until 4 days later when I had got straight through on the phone. I then decided to cancel my order with Corban Direct and rang them promptly on 07/08/2014 to cancel this and to get a full refund, they said they would refund the full amount, no apology or anything, I informed them that I would be contacting yourselves to complain about this. It is now 24/08/2014 and Corban Direct have still not refunded a single penny of the £154.98 that they owe me.

hollycottage100

I wish I had read these reviews before placing my order with bedroom direct which is actually Corban direct. I ordered a double bed on 22 August and it was to be delivered 27 August 2014. This wasn't the next day delivery but I went with it. After three days of potentail delivery times and yet with a lack of communication and poor customer service both at the hands of corban and their couriers XDP I was told they couldn't find my property and so I cancelled the order. It was all lies, very distressing, very inconvenient and they are simply the worst company I have ever dealt with . NEVER USE THEM !! I am also now very concerned I won't get my refund if these reviews are anything to go by. Watch this space. Their website is very misleading......

lloydy1976

Easiest thing to do is paste a copy of the letter I sent to Daniel C (CEO), Nicky D (Customer Services Manager) & Laura G (PA to Directors). I gave them 7 days to respond and none of them could be bothered.

Dear Sir / Madam

I am writing to you to express my absolute disgust at an order which I placed through you for a child’s bed.

Before I wrote this I searched for a contact name to address this letter to and came across a lot of feedback from other very irate customers on multiple websites. So my guess is this letter will probably be either thrown in the bin, filed at the bottom of a pile of paper never to be seen again or folded up and used to stop the desk wobbling. I sincerely hope you prove me wrong….

Order number is 2***9 just in case you are interested and still reading this letter.

I ordered this bed by speaking to your customer service team. And this was the only good experience I had in this whole sorry order. The lady was charming and very helpful. She talked me though the options and explained the different mattresses etc. She also explained that Saturday delivery was an extra £3 (which I thought was very good and questioned but she confirmed this was correct).

Based on her recommendation I placed my order. She confirmed all the pricing to me verbally and took my card details and confirmed payment.

About 10 minutes later I received an email confirmation of my order from you. I was somewhat surprised to see that despite discussing which mattress I wanted in great detail and then making the decision with your CS representative, she had put a completely different mattress in my order which was around £50 more expensive. The order confirmation also said Saturday delivery was in the region £18-19!

I called you again to explain the situation and another CS representative immediately told me I must be wrong and that the other CS lady would never had said that. She was immediately on the defensive and became quite aggressive about the whole thing. Having seen the layers and layers of other negative feedback I can understand why she might have behaved in this way – but it is still unacceptable.

I suggested she go and check her recording of the previous conversation (which I am sure you take for training purposes…..) and she proceeded to put me on hold for 7 minutes. As you can imagine I was starting to regret doing business with you more and more!

Eventually she came back, without so much as any form of apology, and grudgingly amended the order.

By the next day I still hadn’t had any new order confirmation so I had to call you again to get you to send it. It did turn up this time.

The bed turns up with the wonderful XDP courier you use (I will come back to them in more detail later). My heavily pregnant wife cannot lift heavy things and initially the driver won’t even put the packages through the door into the hallway which is disgraceful! Two extra steps is all we were asking him to take. He did ultimately agree to do this so a big thank you to XDP.

I start putting the bed together and then pull out the end pieces to find one of them is cracked and damaged. I call you CS team again and request a replacement and this is no problem. But I am told you can’t deliver on a Saturday despite all the issues I have had and the fact that you have sent me damaged goods. I threaten to cancel the entire order and suddenly a Saturday delivery becomes possible – amazing!

I continue putting the bed together (there are 5 different boxed elements) and open up the flat packed drawers. One corner has a compression dent and has clearly been dropped at some point. And the top of the frame by the top drawer also has some split wood and is damaged. I decide that I can’t be bothered to waste yet more of my time with your CS team and I hope that once it is put up and partially hidden under the bunk bed the damage will be hidden. I can confirm this is not the case and the damage is visible. Am I going to bother requesting some kind of refund? Again judging by the other customer feedback there is little point in pursuing this route as I am sure I will be either fobbed off with some excuse or told to return the whole unit – which I can’t be bothered to dismantle and re-pack.

Back to the pick-up for the damaged end parts. Organised for Wednesday 20th August. No confirmation from you on this but I am starting to get the feel for how you operate so not expecting anything too helpful. My wife stays in and mid-morning I call you to find out what is going on, only to find that no pick-up has been organised!! It is now re-organised for tomorrow – and guess what?? Still received no email confirmation confirming the pick-up – but what the hell? That is how you do business.

Now onto XPD. Despite the above mention of their extremely unhelpful delivery person (given the circumstances), they claim to send out emails first thing in the morning confirming your delivery time slot to within 3 hours. Which would be very useful if it worked! On the only two occasions where I have had these emails they haven’t arrived until the evening of the said day – which is extremely unhelpful. On the one occasion I have called them I gave up after 25 minutes of hold music because no-one had taken my call.

So between the two of you, you seem to have an amazing customer experience…... How you ever managed to get a second round of funding from a James Caan backed initiative (according to Jennifer C****h on LinkedIn) completely amazes me based on the horrific customer experiences I see all over the web about your company – and we are talking LOTS of negative feedback!!

As previously mentioned, I have great reservations about any form of feedback from you or indeed any form of compensation for the huge amounts of my time which you have wasted. But I will be reasonable and give you 7 days for some feedback and an apology. Failing that I will take great joy in sharing my truly awful experience with Corban Direct on the web and with James Caan’s company as I am sure he would appreciate knowing what drivel he is investing in.

I await your reply

Yours Faithfully

Dylan Lloyd

Updated 26th August
The next scheduled pickup for Friday 22nd August. Still had received no email regarding pickup confirmation so called your customer services on the Friday morning. They could not give me a time but assured me it was being picked up on the said day. They gave me a tracking number which I then entered into the XPD website. Unsurprisingly there was no record of my pick up. I called back your customer services team and was again assured it was definitely being picked up. They put me on hold for 5 minutes and then came back to me saying they couldn’t get through to XPD either but not to worry as it was “definitely being picked up today” and your CS team would keep trying and call me back when they got further info. Cue tumbleweeds blowing past and unsurprisingly no further communication and even more unsurprisingly no pick up!!!!

Updated Tuesday 26th
XPD turn up unannounced to pick up 3 parts of the bed (luckily my wife happened to be in). I had explained on at least 2 occasions to your customer services team on my many previous calls that it was only the end part and NOT the mattress as well. The fact that XPD was only picking up one part confused the hell out of them but we got there in the end.

Updated 27th August
Received an email from XPD at 9.20 am that they are due to pick up some items today….. I have now officially given up on Corban and XPD……

Ceevs

We ordered 3 mattresses mid August to get delivered at the beginning of September. We needed these on a specific date as we are renting out the property (furnished) and needed new mattresses for the new tenants. 2 days before the delivery was due we get a message saying one of the mattresses is no longer in stock and have already processed the refund. This was no help to us as we still needed a mattress in 2 days time. Then 1 day before the delivery was due we get an email saying the remaining 2 mattresses didn't make it out for delivery so will not be delivered the next day. We were told that the mattresses will be delivered the following day, so a day late. We make arrangements to accept the delivery on the next day, watching the tracking page every minute to see if its actually on it way...nothing! So calling their customer services we find out that they haven't made it onto the van again and there isn't anything they can do about it. I ask to speak to a manager and was told there isn't anyone in the building I can speak to. All they said was they can deliver tomorrow, which is no good to us as no one will be at the property to receive the 2 day late delivery (and to be frank, I wasn't convinced it would turn up the next day anyway).

They have said they'll process the refund straight away...based on other reviews I'm not too hopeful that will happen quickly either!

The customer support team can not (or will not) do anything for you either except say sorry...its almost as if they expect the complaints.

I would highly recommend you do not use this company, it will only end in disappointment!

Harves

I wish I'd read this before placing an order with this company. Place an order in July, 3 delivery dates missed and had to cancel as no end in sight. Once again, they'd taken my money at the start.

No email updates etc etc - familiar story?

I've finally got an email saying they're processing my refund in the next 3-5 working days

Twils6

What an absolute joke! I will never have anything to do with this company again!
I originally ordered a bed on a Wednesday before 12 o'clock as the website guarantees next day delivery service. I was then told on Thursday it would not be delivered until Friday. In addition, my husband had booked the day off work to receive the bed on the Thursday. This was a huge inconvenience when the bed did not turn up!
We then asked the neighbour to sign for the bed. I wasn't told a delivery time, as promised and when the bed arrived, it wasn't the one I ordered and was far too big for the room.
The bed was preposterously too large even for our house, hence why I specifically ordered the 148cm in length and, as a result, was too big to stay inside. Having spoken to three people for a number of minutes I was then told they couldn't help me and there was nothing they could do until Wednesday the week after. I was promised this would be the day when the incorrect bed would be picked up and the new one would arrive. Furthermore, I was told I would receive a tracking number on Tuesday afternoon.
I had to get someone to stay in on Wednesday for this to take place. I called the company Wednesday afternoon and was told 'there had been a mistake (again) and some confusion and the bed would not be taken away until Thursday and the new one arrive Friday!
I demanded the manager ring me and he didn't. I had reception and my phone in my hand and no one called and I was told later that someone was trying to ring. I really do not know who they were trying to call but it evidently was not me!
I am absolutely astounded and bewildered by the incompetence of the service and the people who work there. For something so simple and so expensive, it has turned out to cost us exceedingly more than what we thought we would have to pay!
I sent this in a letter to the manager and still no one has got back to me with an apology!
The worse experience I have ever had and will never use them again!

dvillaret

Same experience here. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!
We ordered a bed from these guys on 25 Aug and delivery should have been within a few days. After a week I emailed them to chase the order but got no response. After another day I called them and was told that it was because their supplier had none in stock. They said they would chase the supplier and call me back that afternoon. I didn't receive a call back. I called them again the following day (09 Sep) and said to just cancel the order, they said a refund would be in my acc/ within 3-5 working days. The following week on the 16 Sep still no money so chased again. They said the refund hadnt been processed but they would do it that day, another 3-5 working days to wait. Today (24 Sep) checked and guess what...still no money! Shocking company. Very very poor customer service and very dodgy practices! STAY AWAY FROM THESE GUYS!