John Lewis - Refusing to honour order after written assurances

MyRealNameToo

Grumpy_chap said:

MyRealNameToo said:

One call was a transfer from in store, customer had gone in to collect some photos we'd printed and in store had told him the prints and negatives had been destroyed as they contained obscene material of young kids... 

I am somewhat perplexed that photos of that nature were destroyed rather than passed to the Police.

Given the high numbers of prints processed, these can't all be manually reviewed so I assume there must be a software assessment.

I thought so too, the member of staff who'd done it wasnt in store when the customer came in to collect so neither in store staff nor I could really explore anything other than reading the note he had put in the collection tray. 

It's been a long time since you had film developed evidently! Long before such software existed they were all checked manually, its only a glance to make sure there was no printing error but was done. I remember many a pack of photos coming with one or two with a sticker on it saying it was an error in the negative not the printing. 

At this point digital cameras were really taking off so if the staff could eyeball every photo at the peak of film then they certainly should be able to do it when the demand was tailing off. 

Coff33Break

screech_78 said:

Coff33Break said:

screech_78 said:

I’m not aware of a system wide payment issue. It may have happened, but not something that came our way or complaints raised that I’m aware of. 

When you place an order on the website, you’ll receive an order acknowledgement. Both this email and the terms on the website advise this isn’t confirmation of your order and your order is only confirmed when you receive the order confirmation (which is sent after internal security checks). Order can still be cancelled prior to despatch though. 

I’m sorry for what happened OP, but i can’t understand why you would sell your TV based solely on an end screen at the checkout. Surely if you hadn’t received a confirmation email, you would have at least checked to make sure it had went through? 

Yeah selling the TV was definitely a mistake on my behalf. I think I saw the confirmation page and had no reason to question othewise and was excited I had gotten a good deal so acted fast. The TV came with free fitting so I needed a wall mount and didnt have space for both TVs. Excitement got the better of me.

I'm not sure on the exact issue but it was initially just termed a system error then someone higher up confirmed it was a payment thing on their end. It's interesting that someone else on the HotUkDeals site had a similar issue, confirmation but no order in their order history, theirs was honoured though.

Thanks for taking a look though.

If you have it in writing that they would honour the price for you, I think you have a good chance of getting a result if you escalate. Even if you dont, my advice would be to email the Chairman (google for email address) with a polite email and the team there would have a look. I’d certainly be sympathetic, not everyone works the same unfortunately but won’t do any harm to try. It’ll probably also come down to how much money we’re talking about. 

Thanks, I may try that. Has been a confusing one, lots of things said, lots of statements retracted but JL have admitted fault at every stage which is interesting. Felt like a cut and dry case.

Will see how it goes but not sure I have much more in me to keep pushing to be honest.

Coff33Break

visidigi said:

This isn't the price-error Samsung  77" OLED is it?

It might be that. Although I think it's more than a simple pricing error because it looks like they honoured almost everyone that ordered, even some that failed, which they wouldnt normally do.

powerful_Rogue

It was clearly a pricing error. It was on HotUKDeals

John Lewis listed it for almost £2000 cheaper then it shoud have been.

pinkshoes

Coff33Break said:

screech_78 said:

If you have it in writing that they would honour the price for you, I think you have a good chance of getting a result if you escalate. Even if you dont, my advice would be to email the Chairman (google for email address) with a polite email and the team there would have a look. I’d certainly be sympathetic, not everyone works the same unfortunately but won’t do any harm to try. It’ll probably also come down to how much money we’re talking about. 

Thanks, I may try that. Has been a confusing one, lots of things said, lots of statements retracted but JL have admitted fault at every stage which is interesting. Felt like a cut and dry case.

Will see how it goes but not sure I have much more in me to keep pushing to be honest.

I think you're perhaps wasting your time doing that, as what was promised "in writing" was no doubt a customer service agent who assumed you actually had a contract and an order number, hence their promise based on you actually having a contract. They clearly made a mistake based on a wrong assumption.

You also need to take a little bit of responsibility here. No email confirmation? The first thing you should have done is check your bank to see if the money had gone through. If it hadn't then clearly there is an issue. You massively jumped the gun by buying brackets and selling the old TV.

Ultimately this sounds like a pricing error that some got away with and others didn't. 

MyRealNameToo

pinkshoes said:
Ultimately this sounds like a pricing error that some got away with and others didn't. 

And that doesnt mean everyone should get away with it. 

Was unlucky in the past, was sent a £100 discount voucher once but the T&Cs said you could only use it on orders over £1,500 however turned out they'd programmed it wrong and the website would accept it against any value of order. 

Told a colleague, we both ordered the same thing at £125 so just paid £25. Curry's sent both of us an email saying it was an error and they were cancelling the order and refunding the £25. Disappointing but fair cop but then 2 days later his was delivered and mine never was  

Coff33Break

pinkshoes said:

Coff33Break said:

screech_78 said:

If you have it in writing that they would honour the price for you, I think you have a good chance of getting a result if you escalate. Even if you dont, my advice would be to email the Chairman (google for email address) with a polite email and the team there would have a look. I’d certainly be sympathetic, not everyone works the same unfortunately but won’t do any harm to try. It’ll probably also come down to how much money we’re talking about. 

Thanks, I may try that. Has been a confusing one, lots of things said, lots of statements retracted but JL have admitted fault at every stage which is interesting. Felt like a cut and dry case.

Will see how it goes but not sure I have much more in me to keep pushing to be honest.

I think you're perhaps wasting your time doing that, as what was promised "in writing" was no doubt a customer service agent who assumed you actually had a contract and an order number, hence their promise based on you actually having a contract. They clearly made a mistake based on a wrong assumption.

You also need to take a little bit of responsibility here. No email confirmation? The first thing you should have done is check your bank to see if the money had gone through. If it hadn't then clearly there is an issue. You massively jumped the gun by buying brackets and selling the old TV.

Ultimately this sounds like a pricing error that some got away with and others didn't. 

I think where it gets tricky is that they had aknowledged there was no order number, admitted it was a fault their end that caused it, and then they said they would honour my intent, not my order. Also part of the issue is the fact I have been led on for 5 weeks when it sounds like it should have been clear cut their end. 

I definitely made mistakes in assuming the confirmation page meant all was good though.
Funnily, I havent found anyone who ordered it and didnt received it though, which is weird for a price error.

I think its more the stringing along by poor customer service that's frustrated me.

screech_78

I’ve had a look at the hotukdeals page and definitely looks like a pricing error and at £2,000 they could have cancelled all orders even if despatched I reckon as would be a very obvious error.

It wasn’t something I was aware of, as looks like pretty much all orders have been honoured. Guessing there weren’t enough orders to bother and the TV has been removed from sale for a bit. We’d only become aware of a pricing error if we weren’t honouring it and were expecting a lot of customer contact off the back of it. 

Unfortunately, there’s no department within JL, even the Director’s team, that will knock 2 grand off a TV, especially when there was no valid order in the first place. 

Altior

Sounds like it was treated as a normal CS query initially, somewhere along the chain it then came to light internally that the issue occurred on a product where there was a pricing rick as well. So they will be judging the implied loss against the correct price, rather than the rick.

visidigi

Coff33Break said:

visidigi said:

This isn't the price-error Samsung  77" OLED is it?

It might be that. Although I think it's more than a simple pricing error because it looks like they honoured almost everyone that ordered, even some that failed, which they wouldnt normally do.

There's no might - the only reason you answer that way is because you really know that weakens your position to be that case. You don't know who was honoured or what % - its well known that 1000's of people take HUKD deals and never even post on the site. The fact the HUKD posters expected it to be cancelled, and were both surprised and appreciative of it happening doesn't change your entitlement here am afraid. I just don't see you having a case.

And, I think, you fall foul of not having any form of confirmation - given the fact JL don't form contract to dispatch they don't have to be bound here.