Wickes disgraceful "policy"

powerful_Rogue

Sellins said:

Jonboy_1984 said:

Sellins said:

When i say 30 seconds, it goes from your available balance and they know they are getting it. Nothing I could do to stop it. The ins and outs of bacs payments might mean waiting a couple of days but at least they should be pushing the button immediately and it should be back in the bacs system immediately they know they cant deliver the goods. It may happen quicker than they say it will, it should be policy that it does. 

Card Refunds don’t go via the BACS system. Under the merchant agreements they have to go back via the card network to help ensure both you and the retailers position is understood by your and their banks in the event of issues, chargebacks, S75 etc etc,

I think you rather miss the point. However the payments happen, they should happen immediately they know they cant deliver the goods. Telling people it might take up to 3 weeks is just wrong. 

I disagree. I would rather they be honest and tell me the maximum time frame, then lie to keep me happy and have to keep chasing.

DanDare999

Sellins said:

TELLIT01 said:

Setting aside the poor customer service, it's never a good idea to arrange for trades to attend until you have a confirmed delivery date for the items ordered.  By doing so, not only are you inconvenienced, the person doing the door fitting has lost a day's work, unless you paid them for their wasted day.

True, but space is an issue. The problem with not getting the money back for 3 weeks is that i had to find more money to buy more doors. You dont really expect to have to plan for in stock items to be out of stock. 

So you didn't use a credit card.

Look at it this way, your £800 would have made £200 in interest in 3 weeks. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

This topic probably belongs in PVW but if they can send an email to say the doors are OOS they can process the refund. 

Telling customers they may have to wait 3 weeks plus the processing time is only going to cause upset. Their policy should be to refund immediately and that's it (or better yet keep their stock levels up to date and avoid the whole issue in the first instance). 

400ixl

Sellins said:

I think you rather miss the point. However the payments happen, they should happen immediately they know they cant deliver the goods. Telling people it might take up to 3 weeks is just wrong. 

Might being the key word here and they need to set expectations as to how long it could take. Only ever had to get a refund for a Wickes online purchase once and it was back on my card within 48 hours.

You appear to have not even given them any opportunity without going nuclear.

The issue of saying they have stock when they don't and accepting the order in the first place would be more of something to rant about. The refund side, you have no idea if it would have only taken what most would consider a reasonable time.

p00hsticks

Sellins said:

When i say 30 seconds, it goes from your available balance and they know they are getting it. Nothing I could do to stop it. The ins and outs of bacs payments might mean waiting a couple of days but at least they should be pushing the button immediately and it should be back in the bacs system immediately they know they cant deliver the goods. It may happen quicker than they say it will, it should be policy that it does. 

I suspect that the time lag is due to the fact that they won't be able to 'push the button' for a refund until the original payment has fully processed - and as per my earlier post, that may take several days.

Gavin83

Sellins said:

I ordered 6 doors from Wickes, they were in stock on the website and were to be delivered within 7 days. I booked a fitter. The next day i got an email from Wickes to say the doors were out of stock, but not to worry because i would get an email within 14 working day (about 2.5 weeks) about my refund of £800 and it would take 3 to 5 further days to get back to my account. 3 weeks! They managed to take the money out of my account in less than 30 seconds. 
I spoke to 3 levels of customer service who said it was their policy and i had signed up to it when i ordered. 
I can't believe the arrogance of companies like this. I rang head office, asked to speak with the ceo who was not in the office, asked to speak to his secretary, who was working from home and not taking calls... I emailed the whole board, twice, before i got a phone call agreeing to get my money back to my account the next day with an additional £200.
My point is don't accept this crap from any company. If they had gone into administration during that 3 weeks my money would have sunk without trace. 

So overall poor at the start but ultimately excellent customer service from Wickes.

On another note do people seriously ring up the head office and expect to speak to the CEO? There is zero chance of a customer speaking to the CEO of any reasonable sized company. They employ entire teams to deal with such issues. I expect they were in the office but telling you they weren't was easier than letting you know how unrealistic you were being.

On a final note never book fitters/trades for anything until the goods have arrived. Wickes will almost certainly have this listed in their T&Cs somewhere. I also expect this is why a lot of trades will only work with items they've purchased themselves.