Currys Complaint

AVALANCHE

I have an ongoing issue with Currys and I'm after a little help and advice.

I ordered a new gas hob online on July 13th and specified delivery for August 3rd. I was having the house converted from oil heating and tank gas to mains gas. The gas work was carried out on schedule and I expected my new hob to arrive and be fitted the day after. No hob for one night wasn't an issue.

Around 10am I called Currys as I hadn't received notification of a delivery window. They told me that there was no delivery date specified on the order, they had to set a new date (the earliest available) which was four weeks later.

So, no hob for four weeks. Not the end of the world, I went out and spent £45 on an electric 2 plate portable hob.

A week before the revised delivery they called and advised that the gas fitter had had an accident and would be off work for at least two weeks. There was nobody else that could come and fit the hob apparently as they only employ one fitter for my area.

They eventually delivered and fitted the hob 7 weeks after the original delivery date (as selected on the website). I had paid for the old hob to be taken away and the fitters left it at the end of the drive and assured me that the removal pick-up would be later the same day.

The hob sat in my drive for 5 days waiting for pick-up and when it was eventually removed they left several pieces of packaging and the plug from the old hob.

I've been in contact with Currys and they are offering £43.50 as a goodwill gesture and refuse to budge. I feel that considering the litany of errors from start to finish they should up their offer considerably.

Would advice would you have to escalate the complaint as I'm having no luck with Customer Support either on the phone or via Twitter.

AndyPix

AVALANCHE wrote: »

they are offering £43.50 as a goodwill gesture.

Bite their hands off - i'm surprised they're offering that !

AVALANCHE

AndyPix,

Really? Are they notoriously tight in these situations then?

DoaM

Was 3rd August delivery specified anywhere on any paperwork you received when placing the order? How was the required delivery date conveyed and recorded? (By specifying a date you made "time of the essence" part of the contract - them missing that date put them in breach of contract, but your challenge is in proving it).

£43.50 is low ... as a minimum it should be the £45 you had to expend on the temporary hob. If you have other quantifiable expenses caused by their breach then you can claim those too.

Hermione_Granger

DoaM wrote: »

£43.50 is low ... as a minimum it should be the £45 you had to expend on the temporary hob.

Don't forget that although they will get £43.50 from Currys, they will still have the hob that they purchased.
If they sell this for anything over £1.50 then they are in profit (assuming that they have no other expenses from the failure to deliver the order).

AVALANCHE

DoaM wrote: »

Was 3rd August delivery specified anywhere on any paperwork you received when placing the order? How was the required delivery date conveyed and recorded? (By specifying a date you made "time of the essence" part of the contract - them missing that date put them in breach of contract, but your challenge is in proving it).

£43.50 is low ... as a minimum it should be the £45 you had to expend on the temporary hob. If you have other quantifiable expenses caused by their breach then you can claim those too.

There's no date on the original invoice, the date was picked during the online ordering process. According to the Customer Service staff that I spoke to the date picker on the site is just a request and they need to manually confirm against their system. Apparently, the two systems aren't linked at all. In my case, nobody confirmed the date on the second system.

Unfortunately, there are no other quantifiable expenses apart from my time wasted chasing them.

Fosterdog

DoaM wrote: »

£43.50 is low ... as a minimum it should be the £45 you had to expend on the temporary hob. If you have other quantifiable expenses caused by their breach then you can claim those too.

I disagree that it should be £45 at a minimum. No delivery date had originally been confirmed so at this point there was no breach, OP could have quite easily cancelled their order and bought elsewhere or chosen a different job that would be available sooner.

Also I've just looked for dual burner electric portable hobs and they start from just £16 so OP choosing a model almost three times the price that they could have spent doesn't mean that they should be reimbursed for that.

£43.50 is quite a substantial amount under the circumstances and I'm surprised it wasn't just a £10 or £20 voucher. I'd snap their hands off at such a high offer.

DoaM

Fosterdog wrote: »

I disagree ...

My comment was on the basis that "time of the essence" had been conveyed and was part of the contract. It was only AFTER I posted that OP clarified the situation.

Nevertheless, given Currys' failure, and the fact the goods were delivered 3 weeks after the nominal delivery period advised in Consumer Rights guidance (i.e. 30 days), I stand by my previous post.

SuperHan

DoaM wrote: »

My comment was on the basis that "time of the essence" had been conveyed and was part of the contract. It was only AFTER I posted that OP clarified the situation.

Nevertheless, given Currys' failure, and the fact the goods were delivered 3 weeks after the nominal delivery period advised in Consumer Rights guidance (i.e. 30 days), I stand by my previous post.

But they were told that the delivery would be longer than this (as a result of the injured gas engineer). The OP could have cancelled at this point if delivery date was so important. There would have been other retailers who could have done next day delivery if the timing was so crucial.

That said, if you are going to spend more at Currys try asking for more in vouchers - they tend to be more willing to give more away there. Otherwise, take the offer and sell the worktop hob you purchased.

BradR

My granddaughter (a student) bought a £450 Lenovo laptop from Curry's Grimsby store at Christmas. A month ago the charger mains plug earth terminal snapped off - not through rough handling - when she was removing it from the mains socket. Took it back to Curry'sand was directed to the KnowHown desk where an incredibly rude and arrogant male assistant first intimated that mistreatment had resulted in the earth pin snapping off. I disabused him of this allegation, and was then told to bring both charger and laptop in for them to send off to Lenovo who would assess how the damage occurred. When I questioned why they wanted both the charger and laptop he became increasingly angry.. Before he became apoplectic I told him the laptop was still under guarantee and quoted various sale of goods Acts. I left the store, went to my office and wrote to Curry's (DSG Retail) CEO Alex Baldock. Not a word in reply I am just being ignored. .I recently spoke to a former Curry's shop manager who revealed that Curry's SOP over complaints is first to tell the customer any appliance fault is his/her doing though mistreatment and nothing to do with Curry's, and secondly make it very difficult to get any satisfaction/replacement/repair unless the customer parts with a serious amount of money.. Also never try and engage Customer Service in your problem as staff are told to make it almost impossible for a complainant to have their problem resolved by saying they will look into the complaint (and doing nothing) say they will ring back (and don't) and cutting you off mid-call. LESSON: Don't buy anything from Curry's. You can probably buy electric appliances cheaper elsewhere = with no hassle if there is a problem.

Hermione_Granger

BradR wrote: »

I told him the laptop was still under guarantee and quoted various sale of goods Acts.

The guarantee and the statutory rights for the contract of sale are two entirely different things and there is no point in quoting anything unless you are aware of what the legislation is and what it states.

It's the Consumer rights act that applies and this states that after more than 6 months from purchase, the retailer can ask the consumer to prove that the fault was due to a manufacturing defect. Simply showing that it is broken doesn't prove this.

Unless you were with your grand daughter every single time she handled the laptop, how could you possibly know that the plug wasn't knocked, trodden on or otherwise mistreated?

Also, any rights under the consumer rights act are between your granddaughter and Currys so they don't have to deal with you, in fact they may be breaking privacy laws (GDPR) if they do so.