B&Q up to 75% off sale on Outdoor Fun (swings, slides, etc) [CLOSED]

JasonLVC

Forgot about this thread.

Suffice to say, I have in my garden a Ben Nevis playcentre, delivered around December 2005 for which I paid the original £150.00

That was one hard bargain and never again and you'll be pleased to know that I have not set foot in B&Q since this whole thing started and I never will again.

feival

JasonLVC wrote:

Forgot about this thread.

Suffice to say, I have in my garden a Ben Nevis playcentre, delivered around December 2005 for which I paid the original £150.00

That was one hard bargain and never again and you'll be pleased to know that I have not set foot in B&Q since this whole thing started and I never will again.

So how did you get it from them - through court action or negotiation?

JasonLVC

Funnily enough, through negotiation and some canny letter writing (although I did send off the summons - but then withdrew it)

I wrote directly to MD of Kingfisher and B&Q (cc'd each other), the letter was nice and factual and stated they had an obligation and that either through settling now or in court later, they'd have to oblige me and that their lies to me as a customer was not the image they should be proud of (that was the nice bit). Settling now would be less damaging to that image.

Then I went on to state that I'd spoken to the MD's secretary who without asking any questions explained to me that there was a stock issue and there was nothing they could do, to which I pointed out that I had no idea what she was talking about and that my complaint was about something else altogether. Obviously she'd been given a script to deflect any people, like me, trying to talk to the MD directly. When she apologised for the assumption, I then told it WAS about the playcentres, but now she had exposed herself to me as implicit in the issue. So I basically implicated the MD's own PA in this and not just the helpline team.

They sent me an upgraded item within about a week of getting that letter. I had plenty of phone calls then updating on status "we've ordered, it, it's in our warehouse, we're disptaching today, etc". Apparently they were only going to do this for around 25 people (probably those who'd complained the most).

Lesson is DO NOT, EVER settle for anything other than what you are entitled to and the power of the pen is mightier than a telephone call (as if they don't respond in writing it's an admission and if they do respond, they'll only implicate themselves -lose-lose for B&Q). There were some on this thread saying we were going over the top, people losing their jobs, that it wasn't a criminal matter, etc. I guess this vindicates this thread somewhat.

I'm really sorry for the many, like Frogling who didn't win in the end and to be honest, it was VERY stressful for me and time consuming - but I like to win these things to prove points. If only to myself.

herbal

Anymore updates on this, only thought about it as got my football table out for the first time over the weekend and it was great for £40