Arguing with online retailer - am I in the right?

wealdroam

Had you supplied the correct mobile number, you may well have received a text, or texts, giving you a more precise delivery time. If for example, they had sent a text in the morning saying "delivery estimated to be at 16:30", then you could've gone to the supermarket earlier.

Of course you'll never know whether they sent that text or not.

AJXX

I agree with Leo2020, OP should be entitle to a full refund.

I agree OP hasn't helped themselves in this situation via knee-jerk reaction of cancellation emails, but the retailer appears to making things awkward.

Legally the OP is entitle to a refund minus reasonable costs. £50 odd quid doesn't seem like a reasonable cost to me.

In this situation IMO OP should compose another email/letter to the company and explain why he/she cancelled and perhaps apologise for any previous correspondence that may have come off as irate and got their backs up - OP might not want to do this, but it sounds like negotiations have turned sour thus retailer is being awkward - this *may* just turn things around.

Of course if retailer is insisting on £50 odd quid being taken off the refund, perhaps OP (remaining friendly and co-operative) can ask the retailer for a breakdown of this cost... It would be interesting to see just how the retailer arrived at that figure

On a side note; in this day and age it's becoming ridiculous that more companies don't adopt similar systems to DPD/UK Mail which actually allow you to see where the driver is/what delivery number he is currently on and what delivery number you are and gives you a (usually very accurate) 2 hour window and as I recall actually has a feature to text you when he is on the way from the last delivery number to yours. It saves so much hassle waiting around. You usually get BOTH an email and SMS link to the system on the day of delivery so situations like the OP's could have been avoided entirely.

unholyangel

AJXX wrote: »

I agree with Leo2020, OP should be entitle to a full refund.

I agree OP hasn't helped themselves in this situation via knee-jerk reaction of cancellation emails, but the retailer appears to making things awkward.

Legally the OP is entitle to a refund minus reasonable costs. £50 odd quid doesn't seem like a reasonable cost to me.

And again a reference to refund minus reasonable costs.

I know I'm a pedant but legally "reasonable cost" is very different to "direct cost".

Not a dig at you, just its not the first time its been said in the thread.

marliepanda

AJXX wrote:

On a side note; in this day and age it's becoming ridiculous that more companies don't adopt similar systems to DPD/UK Mail which actually allow you to see where the driver is/what delivery number he is currently on and what delivery number you are and gives you a (usually very accurate) 2 hour window and as I recall actually has a feature to text you when he is on the way from the last delivery number to yours. It saves so much hassle waiting around. You usually get BOTH an email and SMS link to the system on the day of delivery so situations like the OP's could have been avoided entirely.

how could it have been avoided when OP didn't give them the right number...? Those text updates would have gone to a wrong number.

AJXX

marliepanda wrote: »

how could it have been avoided when OP didn't give them the right number...? Those text updates would have gone to a wrong number.

OP would have been both emailed and sent a link via text on the day of delivery. These aren't "updates", it's a static link to a website on which you can then track the driver, change delivery times, etc.... Yes they wouldn't have gotten the text, but at least they would have had the email, logged in and seen that the delivery wasn't going to come until x time, even if it's late they could have still seen that they where delivery x of y so would have known it was still on the way, just late.

Part of the OP's anger seems to stem from waiting in all day and eventually getting fed up going out and missing the delivery, the above system avoids that entirely - OP could have checked the website on the morning, seen that the delivery wasn't due till late PM and gone shopping accordingly before the delivery arrived, rather than sit around all day with growing frustration.

deaston

And I guess this was part of my annoyance - I can't remember the last time I was given a nine-hour delivery window. So the moment that delivery window expired, I felt I needed to do whatever I could to ensure I didn't have to wait in for another nine hours on some other day - the obvious seemed to cancel.

Their website has the phrase "We'll always call you a day or so before to arrange a suitable time" so I was admittedly a bit fed-up, once I made the order, to see "Delivery time slot: All day delivery (8:30am - 5:30pm)." I'd argue that's not arranging a suitable time, that's an entire day.

Running_On_Empty

If he had been well organised the OP might well have done his supermarket shopping online and arranged to have had it delivered that same day thereby avoiding all this trouble for himself.
Also, many supermarkets are open til 11pm so avoiding the need to leave his house unattended when the driver called. In addition, surely the logs he ordered didn't require him to actually be at home for the delivery to take place. Instead, he has completely overreacted. Whatever the legalities, it looks very much like an own goal to me.

Running_On_Empty

deaston wrote: »

And I guess this was part of my annoyance - I can't remember the last time I was given a nine-hour delivery window. So the moment that delivery window expired, I felt I needed to do whatever I could to ensure I didn't have to wait in for another nine hours on some other day - the obvious seemed to cancel.

Their website has the phrase "We'll always call you a day or so before to arrange a suitable time" so I was admittedly a bit fed-up, once I made the order, to see "Delivery time slot: All day delivery (8:30am - 5:30pm)." I'd argue that's not arranging a suitable time, that's an entire day.

But they couldn't call you, could they? You made an error.

AJXX

deaston wrote: »

And I guess this was part of my annoyance - I can't remember the last time I was given a nine-hour delivery window. So the moment that delivery window expired, I felt I needed to do whatever I could to ensure I didn't have to wait in for another nine hours on some other day - the obvious seemed to cancel.

I understand your frustration entirety, I order a fair few things on-line (usually paying extra for next day or named day delivery) and have been left in this same situation multiple times due to retailers choosing (IMO) couriers with inadequate archaic systems (ParcelForce, APC, Hermes, Yodel etc...) thus 9 or 12 hour windows for delivery, which is basically your entire day gone.

I much prefer something like the system I explained with DPD - email and text message at around 9 am with a 2 hour delivery window (which has never been wrong so far). I don't even mind some couriers who give a 4 hour delivery window, it's easier for me because I can arrange my day around that and easier for the courier because it means people know when items are due and make arrangements for someone to be home at that time = less "sorry we missed you" card rubbish.

Running_On_Empty wrote: »

If he had been well organised the OP might well have done his supermarket shopping online and arranged to have had it delivered that same day thereby avoiding all this trouble for himself.
Also, many supermarkets are open til 11pm so avoiding the need to leave his house unattended when the driver called. In addition, surely the logs he ordered didn't require him to actually be at home for the delivery to take place. Instead, he has completely overreacted. Whatever the legalities, it looks very much like an own goal to me.

I'm going to go out on a whim here, because I'm usually borderline abusive to stupid complaints - but I sort of see the OP's point.

I wouldn't reasonably expect anyone to do an online shop just for this situation -especially if you've never done it before as it can take ages.

As for supermarkets opening late, the OP waited until the end of the provided (lengthy) time slot before going out - it's not like they just went shopping in the middle of the timeslot.

There has been a lot of shots fired at the OP on this thread, yes he/she overreacted but they had somewhat of a good reason;

- Courier company missed the provided delivery time slot because by the sounds of it they where running late to start with then could not find OP's house = OP waited in all day for nothing (waste of time).

- OP was within their rights to ask for a refund (missed delivery or not), yet seller seems to be awkward about it

Running_On_Empty wrote: »

But they couldn't call you, could they? You made an error.

It says "a day or so before", so either they didn't bother to call him (thus finding out the contact number was wrong) or knew it was wrong and didn't do anything about it.

This could have lead to the courier getting the right number had they done something about this (such as emailing the OP to say sorry we can't reach you on the number provided to arrange a delivery time - can you please confirm this is the correct number....)

deaston

Running_On_Empty wrote: »

If he had been well organised the OP might well have done his supermarket shopping online and arranged to have had it delivered that same day thereby avoiding all this trouble for himself.
Also, many supermarkets are open til 11pm so avoiding the need to leave his house unattended when the driver called. In addition, surely the logs he ordered didn't require him to actually be at home for the delivery to take place. Instead, he has completely overreacted. Whatever the legalities, it looks very much like an own goal to me.

"Please make sure someone is available to accept delivery"

I had to be there.

When my partner called me from work that afternoon saying she'd be home for dinner after being away with work for four days, I wanted to cook a nice meal. I'm not aware of any supermarket that delivers with just a couple of hours notice and 11pm is far too late to start cooking an evening meal.