John Lewis computer glitch excuse

connect4master

Hi
So my dishwasher needed replacing and I ordered one from JL on the 3rd Jan. They confirmed the order and took the money on the 4th Jan. They sent me emails and text confirming delivery will be on the requested date 12th Jan.
The day before I got a text stating my delivery window is 8am-10am, so I had arranged to be off work that day and the night before disconnected the old dishwasher and moved it outside as I paid for them to take it away.
At 08.10 they phone me up to state there has been a computer glitch and they will not not be delivering the dishwasher today. No reason behind this no details on the glitch just you are not getting the dishwasher today. They would not even commit to a new delivery date, the option was to cancel the order and get a refund then place another order on the website. They were not prepared to do this on their end.
So they have my money, apparently the refund takes 5 days. I don't have a dishwasher as the old one is outside and I had to cut of the waste pipe during removal.
I was under the impression once they took my money we have entered into a contract, one they pretended to commit to then at the final hour failed.
Do I have any rights or do I have to just accept John Lewis are as useless as the rest of them?

thanks
Connect4master

lisyloo

Your rights are for a full refund which they are offering.
If you've suffered the loss of 2 hours wages (or whatever was necessary) then you could claim for that but you'd need to show a payslip demonstrating your actual financial loss.
they might argue over the entire day but that depends on your job.
Did you incur a financial loss?
was it impossible for you to cancel your leave at 08:10? and did you need to have a whole day off?

I'm not being judgmental as some jobs may require that but you can expect those questions to be asked if you want to claim for the unpaid time.

eskbanker

I think I'd take the approach that there was indeed a contract formed on order acceptance, and that their breach should be remedied by rearranging delivery, rather than cancelling for a refund, unless there's any reason why this wouldn't be viable within realistic timescales, e.g. no stock available.  If they haven't been prepared to accept this thus far, then escalating to management within their customer care team ought to be worth a try....

connect4master

I took the whole day as they did not confirm the delivery slot until yesterday evening. I will not be financially out of pocket.
I am just amazed they can fall back on a lame and meaningless excuse as computer glitch the day of delivery, I placed this order nearly two week's ago. Then not even offer to arrange a new delivery slot or reprocess the order, a refund was the only option. The item is still available on their website showing in stock.
I will take my money elsewhere when the refund comes through.
For what it is worth I will put in a compliant with JL but I don't hold out much hope of a response.

lisyloo

I sympathise. Customer service is very poor generally in this country. Maybe a local firm might be better?

MattMattMattUK

connect4master said:

I took the whole day as they did not confirm the delivery slot until yesterday evening. I will not be financially out of pocket.

If you will not loose out financially then you will not get compensation, you might though get a "gesture of goodwill" to shut up and go away, which is what companies often offer in these situations.

connect4master said:

I am just amazed they can fall back on a lame and meaningless excuse as computer glitch the day of delivery, I placed this order nearly two week's ago. 

Would you rather that they gave you details of the glitch, a misallocation, a memory overflow, a miscoded line of SQL or C+++ that only occurs when a very specific set of circumstances apply, a data entry issue etc? The reason is largely irrelevant, the situation is what matters. 

connect4master said:

Then not even offer to arrange a new delivery slot or reprocess the order, a refund was the only option. 

They may not be able to, either because the system does not allow it, or for the same issue as the original glitch.

connect4master said:

The item is still available on their website showing in stock.

If John Lewis was the best choice then it may still be, no point in cutting your nose off to spite your face, that being said AO can be very good on price, often cheaper than JL on white goods. 

connect4master said:

I will take my money elsewhere when the refund comes through.

connect4master said:

So they have my money, apparently the refund takes 5 days.

It is the bank that takes the time to process the refund, JL make the refund, it takes five working days to get back to you via the bank's system, John Lewis cannot do anything to accelerate that. 

connect4master said:

For what it is worth I will put in a compliant with JL but I don't hold out much hope of a response.

You will almost certainly get a response, likely an apology and a "gesture of good will" in the £20-50 range, but what they are not going to do is arrange an immediate delivery of a washing machine. 

km1500

I had a similar experience with them but with a washing machine

They cancelled delivery with very little notice - had to reschedule and the next available slots were a week away

diinozzo

You will almost certainly get a response, likely an apology and a "gesture of good will" in the £20-50 range, but what they are not going to do is arrange an immediate delivery of a washing machine. 

OP will be happy as it is a dishwasher they want delivered.

RefluentBeans

Agree with MattMattMattUK with regards to a technical explanation of the fault in the system - would you be happy with an explanation of ‘our databases miscommunicated to each other’ or would you want to know the exact issue? 

I disagree with that acceptance of contract occurs at time of placing the order - the contract is bound by the terms and conditions on JL website; and the terms on JL website is that acceptance is at the point of dispatch. The order was never dispatched and thus technically the contract underwent acceptance. I do think that there is definitely some leeway here - as the order was clearly ‘sent to dispatch’ and thus I do think there’s grounds to argue that the contract was formed - but that’s a very technical argument and without legal advice I wouldn’t be able to say if it’s a moot point or a valid point. 

I do think it’s strange that they can’t rearrange delivery. To me it does suggest that the data integrity was corrupted - and so they couldn’t trust the data in the system; but I am purely speculating.

If the contract is formed (which FWIW; I think it should be in this case, but it’s certainly not a clear cut case) then the breach of the contract should put the other party in the position that they had been in if the contract had not been breached or formed. They are doing this by giving a refund. Other damages are then considered - for example your other machine. If JL offer a service where they dispose of the old machine for you and they require the machine to be ready to go then you can claim you were acting on instructions and so they should refit the old machine for you (or more realistically give you compensation to some degree). But if they only deliver the product (and don’t fit) then I don’t think you’ll be out of luck for compensation that way. I also don’t think it’s worth pursuing the compensation for missing work; you potentially could claim it for the second day of missed work but given they told you early in the first day; they may argue you could’ve mitigated the losses and gone toe work in the afternoon. Compensation for stress/inconvenience is also hard to prove and claims for them are often a fruitless effort. 

Ultimately, mistakes do happen when you’re a company. All companies have one flaw and that is they employ humans who often make mistakes, and IT issues are normally related to human error as it’s humans that write the code that machines execute. Machines rarely make a mistake. I don’t think IT issues are an excuse to keep in the back pocket for when something else does go wrong - but when you process the scale of orders that JL handle, unfortunately some will have mishaps. Personally I would keep with the complaint process - but remember you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Asking for a gesture of goodwill with a good attitude will result in better outcomes.