John Lewis complaint - what should I do next?

poonum

Hi, this is a long saga, so if you have the patience to read then thank you, and please help us with some advice! So we wanted to order a Bloc Blinds blackout blind, and our nearest supplier was our local John Lewis store. There was no problem initially in phoning up the sales team at the store and them sending someone out to measure our bedroom window, they came and measured within a couple of weeks. We waited to receive the quote for the blind and installation, and after another couple of weeks chased it up by leaving phone messages for the lady who had been round to measure, and who was responsible for supplying the quote. Somebody different always picked up the phone and took a message for her to phone us back, this happened several times, but she never got in touch with us. We tried her email too but heard nothing back. So we then asked for the department manager's name and tried emailing her as well, we also left phone messages but had no response from her either.

We then started phoning and emailing the main John Lewis customer service department, spending hours on hold, and kept getting generic email responses from different people all saying they'd look into things for us, but then we'd hear nothing back, at this stage we just wanted the quote! When we escalated things and emailed the head of customer services, we got a slightly better response, and after 2 months of us waiting and chasing, she managed to get the original lady from our local store who came out to measure to FINALLY email us the quote.

We decided to go ahead and place the order for the blind, it would cost £600 but it's a big window, and would have a system where the blind also has a pelmet and side casings that run down to the floor, to give as much black out as possible. The whole reason we wanted a Bloc Blind was because of the good reviews we'd read about them being the best new blackout system, though by the way, they don't install the blinds themselves they just make them, and they train suppliers like independent blind companies and John Lewis in how to measure up, design a blind system, quote and then install. So we replied to the email with the quote and said we wanted to go ahead and place the order, but then heard nothing back again from this lady at the store! We tried phoning and emailing both her and her manager again like we had previously to chase up the quote, we left messages for them with whoever answered the phone, and they never responded. We resorted to the phoning the main JL customer service number again, was told like before with the quote that they'd look into things and get back to us, but they didn't.

We then decided to phonemBloc Blinds themselves to see if we could just cut out John Lewis from the process and go directly through BB, but they can't do this, they only make the blinds. We got put through to a nice man on the phone who is the account manager for John Lewis, and he tried to help us by phoning his contact at JL and getting things moving for us. We then finally had some forward movement and he got someone to phone us from the main sales dept. / call centre in Manchester (strangely not from our local store who came to measure and did the quote). They apologised about the delays and lack of response, and explained that because things had dragged on for so long (almost 3 months by this point), that our quote had dropped off their system which meant she then had to manually re-open it and put it back on their system, in order to place our order. She did this and then placed our order, we booked a date for installation 2 weeks later, and she said someone from the payments dept would call us to take payment.

Nobody called... we tried calling the payments dept ourselves, but kept being put on hold for ages. Then 2 days before the installation was due, we got an email saying if we didn't pay within the next 24 hours they would cancel our installation. We still couldn't get through to payments, so phoned customer services, and they were then able to get someone from payments to call us and take payment!

On the day of the installation, we'd taken the old blind and curtains down, a guy turned up to fit the blind, but - within 5 minutes of starting work he told us he wouldn't be able to do the installation, as the blind was too narrow for our window, and also that there were other issues with the wrong parts for the side casings being supplied! It turned out he was a freelance blind fitter who JL employed, they don't actually have their own team to fit the blinds. He said he couldn't do anything other than fill out a report to JL saying why the installation couldn't go ahead, and take the wrong sized blind and it's wrong parts back to the JL warehouse. So we'd paid £600 for nothing! He left us saying he'd email his report to JL later that day and someone from JL would contact us...

Well they didn't, that was 2 weeks ago, and since then we have constantly phoned and emailed everyone we'd spoken to previously, numerous people in different departments, in the hope someone can tell us what's going on! They always say they will look into things and get back to us, but they never do. We tried getting help from the Bloc Blinds JL account manager again, he spoke to JL and then said things were "in hand" to make the correct blind and parts. Then confusingly we had a phone call from JL to say something different, that we could start from scratch with someone coming out to measure the window again!! We asked why this was, were they saying the original measurements were wrong and the size and design had been wrong? Or was the error in the actual making of the blind and sending out the wrong parts? She couldn't answer our questions and we said we'd like to know exactly where things had gone wrong, that if the original measurements were correct, then couldn't they just make another blind that was the right size this time, and send it with the right parts? She said she didn't know what had gone wrong, that she'd look into it and call us back with more info, then we could decide whether we needed someone to come out to us and start all over again with measuring up...

It's been over 2 weeks since the failed installation, and despite us constantly chasing them up, nobody at JL can tell us what happened and what is going to happen next. They have £600 from us and if we can't get a resolution soon my hubby wants to try to get a refund. That's if someone from JL will actually deal with us, rather than ignore us or keep fobbing us off! We could involve the credit card company that we paid for the blind with couldn't we, and get them to help with refunding us?

In this situation please tell me what would you do? We've thought of writing to the CEO, or going through Resolver, I must be mad but I would still like to have the blinds fitted! But the way we've been messed around and ignored, we've completely lost faith that this is ever going to happen. Any advice please?

pinkshoes

2 months to get a quote?? I would have gone elsewhere at this point!!

Give them 14 days (in writing) to come and remeasure and fit the blind or tell them that otherwise you want a full refund.

molerat

How did you pay ?

poonum

Ok Pinkshoes, sounds reasonable, we really do need to draw a line now and admit defeat at not getting those blinds at this point. Totally agree after 2 months and no quote we should have run a mile! Molerat we paid by credit card, so we could get our money back through the card company if JL keep ignoring us. So frustrating as Bloc Blinds look so good, but this is becoming a farce now.