Regretting ordering from Raleigh.. (reworded re-post)

tom_bombadil

I have had some bad experiences with Raleigh recently and I wanted to share them. I did delete the contents of my original message because I was worried about defamation but I shouldn't need to be because what I said was true it just wasn't positive.

I ordered a bike from Raleigh over the weekend and realized that I had ordered the wrong size. So I rang customer services on Monday morning and was on the phone for 3 hours in a queue of 8 people. I didn't get an answer and was forced to give up. I tried contacting them on Facebook but no answer and I sent a message using their online form which also got no answer.

They got the bike out very quickly because it got to me the next day. Unfortunately it was very badly packaged which might have caused some damage to the forks. I'm not sure on that. I've cleaned it and looks better so maybe it was just dirt. I finished assembling the bike, checked if it fit and yes it was too big. Then sent Raleigh an email requesting return instructions for the bike. I got no answer.

I put an order in for a second bike that should fit on Tuesday night and they dispatched that on Wednesday and it got here on Thursday. I can't complain about the speed of dispatch and delivery and also the carriers did an excellent job getting it to me. This bike was a lot better packaged so maybe they listened? I'm not sure.

I tried to put the second bike together but after several attempts I could not put the front wheel in. It would not go through the holes in the forks. It appears the forks are damaged or defective. So I sent another email about this and I haven't received a response yet. That was sent yesterday (Thursday).

It's been a full week of stressing about this stuff and I have not received one email from Raleigh in response to any of my messages. I will try ringing customer services on Monday and if that doesn't work then the only other thing I can think to do is contact the finance company.

It has been a very frustrating experience. Some of which is because I need a bike for work on Tuesday but mostly it's the lack of a response from the company. It's possible their emails bounced for some reason but I also left my phone number so they could contact me if they wanted.

rach_k

A week is not a long time.  I think you are being quite unreasonable expecting them to reply so quickly.  

[Deleted User]

I disagree, i don't think it's unreasonable for a company to send out an email acknowledging a correspondence, then the customer knows they are, at least, in the pipeline of queries/enquires/ etc.

tom_bombadil

Catsacor said:

I disagree, i don't think it's unreasonable for a company to send out an email acknowledging a correspondence, then the customer knows they are, at least, in the pipeline of queries/enquires/ etc.

Yeah and the issue here is that over the course of a week I have spent 3 hours on the phone, sent a message on Facebook, and 3 messages using their form. I could have been more patient though and it's also possible that they are simply very busy.

I emailed a bike shop about replacing the broken forks on Friday night and he got back to me the next day. I also was able to ring the shop and get a quick response to my question. He's already looked at the forks and determined that the damage is an impact damage which I couldn't have done. So it's gone out like that.

I think what I've learnt here is that if I want something done quickly then I need to be buying it / going to a shop not ordering online.

ThumbRemote

rach_k said:

A week is not a long time.  I think you are being quite unreasonable expecting them to reply so quickly.  

You think it's unreasonable to reply to a customer service email within a week? Good grief. Are you a doctors receptionist?

Neadledrop

It should definitely take less than a week from them to respond

tom_bombadil

They did eventually respond and fortunately it has all been sorted. The bikes have been picked up and returned and they refunded what I paid.