Space Kitchens-advice needed

Jockthearab

Ladies & Gents,

I received a call from my elderly Dad's neighbour informing me that she thought he had a 'salesman' in his house. I raced over there to find a rep from Space Kitchens trying to get him to buy a new fitted kitchen! The problem is that they tried this just over a year ago too...below is the communication I had with them...

"Subj: RE: Re contract 206357
Date: 26/09/2003 12:38:11 GMT Daylight Time
From: Dentith.M@space-kitchens.co.uk





Sir,

Your email has been received and acted upon. We are a reasonable and reputable company and always act in a professional manner on matters such as this. it is not necessary to make threats upon us in order to get action. We recognise that there is an issue here and apologise for the fact that your father was not in a position to commit to a new kitchen on your behalf.

We have therefore cancelled the contract without question and confirm that the matter is now closed.

Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned.

Perhaps you would also inform Trading Standards of our prompt action and satisfactory conclusion to the matter.

Regards,

Morris Dentith

---

Original Message

---

From:
Sent: 25 September 2003 18:29
To: Info@space-kitchens.co.uk
Cc: Subject: Re contract 206357


To whom it may concern,

I have just returned from visiting my father Leonard Ramsay, xxxx Road, Dundee. My father is a widower who lives alone in the house which I pay the mortgage for & am therefore fully liable;he is also living off of a single persons state pension...

Imagine my surprise when he showed me the 'contract' that he signed in my home last night, to receive a 'fitted kitchen' for a cost of £3480. I use the words 'fitted' very lightly, as this does not even include any tiling and HE is expected to remove his current kitchen! As he is 74 years old & not enjoying the best of health, I am disgusted that he was approached by yourselves, expected to remove his own kitchen and encouraged to take on debt (96 monthly payments of £64.82 a grand total of £6222.72!!!!!!) effectively for the remainder of his life. I would be very interested to know how exactly his telephone number was obtained as he is 'ex-directory'. I would also warn you that the contract has been signed by himself on the rear & will be returned by Recorded Delivery, thus cancelling any order.

I have also e-mailed Trading Standards, Dundee, with my disgust at how you have conducted your business as a company. Please also be assured that 'word of mouth' is a powerful marketing tool and I will be using this at every opportunity with friends & family explaining how you go about your business.

I'm sure that you also have/had parents and would feel as aggrieved as myself had this happened to your own.

I trust that this contract WILL be cancelled or I shall seek legal advice.

Yours faithfully, "...

I am absolutely fuming!!! I got Trading Standards involved last year & got his number registered with the telephone preference. What would you guys advice I should/can do now? They have basically gone back on their word. (By the way I politely kicked the guy out the door!)


Jock

Poppy9

I would email Watchdog. I would also contact local rag is they have a consumer column.

Jockthearab

Thanks Poppy, I have now contacted Watchdog. I did contact them last year,but didn't hear from them. Hopefully now that this has re-occurred, they may take an interest.

Mulder_2

This happened to me and my wife earlier this evening which thought you might be interested in as a story and a warning to other local people about these people who are clearly kitchen criminals and I'd hate for any elderly people (or anyone for that matter) to get ripped off.

In a nutshell:

After completing an on-line survey for Tesco, we were contacted & asked if we would like 3 companies to give us a free quote for a new kitchen, to which we agreed. We were then contacted by Space Kitchens, who made an appointment for us with one of their 'kitchen designers' - a gent named Paul Warnes - 4 HOURS & numerous cups of tea later he was still in our home & after not giving in to his pressurised selling he contacted his manager - 'so he knows I'm with a client in their home' His manager Tony Roots wanted to thank us for our time & the phone (our phone, not the 'designers') was passed to us to speak to him. He then proceeded to attempt to sell the kitchen to us again, when we said we weren't interested he then got very verbally aggressive & bullying in his manner accusing us of being time wasters & then hung up on us.

When we asked the 'designer' for the contact details of head office he couldn't remember the address or phone number!! Having researched this company on-line after the 'designer' left at 22.30 it would appear that this is their normal selling pitch & that they have also gone into administration, but are now part of the Weatherseal holdings ltd group, who also own Everest.

Our concern with this company is their sales pitch - 4 hours of harassment & pressure selling is something that we (being young professionals) can withstand. We are both very vocal & told Tony Roots in no uncertain terms how we felt, but not everyone who has or may come into contact with these underhand, lowlife salesmen may be the same. People need to be publically made aware of this company & this company need to be named & shamed for the scum that they are.

The quotes we were given were nearly £11,000!! but if we signed up today it would be £8,300, we were also pressured into seeking to take out a bridging loan to cover the cost of the kitchen - obviously we told them where they could put their new kitchen!!

They also claimed to be a member of the KBSA (kitchen bathroom bedroom specialists association) but they name or their afiliated companies cannot be found on the KBSA approved retailers list. http://www.kbsa.org.uk/about_kbsa

Here are some links to blogs that we found after our visit

http://www.blagger.com/db4/company_id/1237/companyname/Space-Kitchens.html


The two samples look mighty sim to our experience


We had a similar experience to most of the rest of the people on this page - The 'designer' came round and took three hours to try and sell us a kitchen and kept lowering the price. Called his boss on the 'phone three times. He was actually quite a nice bloke but we had said repeatedly that we didn't want a credit deal and that, no matter what the price, we would not be making a decision there and then. He kept on trying but eventually lost interest and we packed him up and sent him on his way.
I actually found it slightly entertaining as he tried every trick in the book and we got quite a nice [COLOR=blue! important][FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=blue! important][FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]kitchen [COLOR=blue! important][FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]design[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR] out of it for free. But we won't be buying it from Space Kitchens! We are both young and strong willed, it worries me that they were calling on a street where a lot of elderly people live alone who, after 3 or 4 hours may just get too tired or confused to make a rational decision.
Incidentaly Space Kitchens seem to be using the name 'Fashion Home' in their advertising material, possibly because of the bad press that they are receiving.[/FONT]

And this one...I see a pattern emerging and this one even features the infamous Tony

I wish I had read this bloq before i invited the "designer" from Space Kitchens. We are at an early stageof kitchen buying and hence we are trying to compare and contrast prices and ranges from various companies. So I entered my details on SK's websie and they contacted me immediately. Having had bad experience wiht Moben kitchen in the past, during my very first conversation with their personnel, i mentioned VERY clearly that i am not ready to make a decision and if you are sending someone please do not send a salesmen. Their response, "oh no, we will send our designer who will help you design the kitchen and give you a fully no obligation quote valid for 24 months.." I was a bit skeptical to hear that but thought it was worth a try.
The day before the appointment their Customer Service Manager called to confirm the appointment and yet again i mentioned "i do not want someone to come in and do a hard sales as i am not ready to take a decision now if you think you are wasting your time please do not send someone.." She repeated the same message, "we will send a designer to design a kitchen..who will give you a no obligation quote.."
One the day, the "designer" turns up and the very first conversation i have with him is,"Look Mr Designer, i am not looking to take a decision today so if you think you are here to sell me one, lets end this appointment now.." His response, "i am here to design the kitchen for you and if you dont like i leave.."
He spends 3 hours, yes 3 hours designing the kitchen and taking his time after that produces a figure weird figure of £19,407 and then discounts it down to £12,555, if I make a decision today. At that point I thanked him for the quote and repeated that I am not ready to make a decision. Before i could say anything, he called up his sales colleague and soon i was on the phone with that guy "Tony" who was hard selling me and literally forcing me to sign up there and then. I was so annoyed that i passed the phone back to the designer and told him that we can NEVER have a deal.
Its not very difficult very to see through their tactics - quote a very high price, give instantaneous heavy discount and force the customer to make a hurried decision under heavy sales pressure.
To be honest the designs and styles they have were good and if it wasnt for this "sign-up now" sales experience i would have seriously considered them. But, after this experience, i dont think i will ever recommend inviting the designer to anyone's place.

Hope some of this info is useful

Mulder_2

PS I have also contacted watchdog and my local paper as I have lots of local contacts on the latter. I also urge people to contact both.

hollydays

Mulder,why didn't you just tell him to get out? Maybe after 2 and a half hours?
2 minutes on the computer would have told you about Space..

trisontana

Space Kitchens have gone bust and have been taken over by Weatherseal Windows:- http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/lifestyle/law-advice/consumer-problems/2008/07/27/troubled-firm-space-kitchens-bought-over-by-weatherseal-78057-20672557/

Mind you, that company also has a bad reputation for hard sell tactics and poor customer service. So no improvement there then.

omen666

Mulder wrote: »

This happened to me and my wife earlier this evening which thought you might be interested in as a story and a warning to other local people about these people who are clearly kitchen criminals and I'd hate for any elderly people (or anyone for that matter) to get ripped off.

In a nutshell:

After completing an on-line survey for Tesco, we were contacted & asked if we would like 3 companies to give us a free quote for a new kitchen, to which we agreed. We were then contacted by Space Kitchens, who made an appointment for us with one of their 'kitchen designers' - a gent named Paul Warnes - 4 HOURS & numerous cups of tea later he was still in our home & after not giving in to his pressurised selling he contacted his manager - 'so he knows I'm with a client in their home' His manager Tony Roots wanted to thank us for our time & the phone (our phone, not the 'designers') was passed to us to speak to him. He then proceeded to attempt to sell the kitchen to us again, when we said we weren't interested he then got very verbally aggressive & bullying in his manner accusing us of being time wasters & then hung up on us.

When we asked the 'designer' for the contact details of head office he couldn't remember the address or phone number!! Having researched this company on-line after the 'designer' left at 22.30 it would appear that this is their normal selling pitch & that they have also gone into administration, but are now part of the Weatherseal holdings ltd group, who also own Everest.

Our concern with this company is their sales pitch - 4 hours of harassment & pressure selling is something that we (being young professionals) can withstand. We are both very vocal & told Tony Roots in no uncertain terms how we felt, but not everyone who has or may come into contact with these underhand, lowlife salesmen may be the same. People need to be publically made aware of this company & this company need to be named & shamed for the scum that they are.

The quotes we were given were nearly £11,000!! but if we signed up today it would be £8,300, we were also pressured into seeking to take out a bridging loan to cover the cost of the kitchen - obviously we told them where they could put their new kitchen!!

They also claimed to be a member of the KBSA (kitchen bathroom bedroom specialists association) but they name or their afiliated companies cannot be found on the KBSA approved retailers list. http://www.kbsa.org.uk/about_kbsa

Here are some links to blogs that we found after our visit

http://www.blagger.com/db4/company_id/1237/companyname/Space-Kitchens.html


The two samples look mighty sim to our experience


We had a similar experience to most of the rest of the people on this page - The 'designer' came round and took three hours to try and sell us a kitchen and kept lowering the price. Called his boss on the 'phone three times. He was actually quite a nice bloke but we had said repeatedly that we didn't want a credit deal and that, no matter what the price, we would not be making a decision there and then. He kept on trying but eventually lost interest and we packed him up and sent him on his way.
I actually found it slightly entertaining as he tried every trick in the book and we got quite a nice [COLOR=blue! important][FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=blue! important][FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]kitchen [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][COLOR=blue! important][FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]design[/FONT][/color][/FONT][/color][/color] out of it for free. But we won't be buying it from Space Kitchens! We are both young and strong willed, it worries me that they were calling on a street where a lot of elderly people live alone who, after 3 or 4 hours may just get too tired or confused to make a rational decision.
Incidentaly Space Kitchens seem to be using the name 'Fashion Home' in their advertising material, possibly because of the bad press that they are receiving.[/FONT]

And this one...I see a pattern emerging and this one even features the infamous Tony

I wish I had read this bloq before i invited the "designer" from Space Kitchens. We are at an early stageof kitchen buying and hence we are trying to compare and contrast prices and ranges from various companies. So I entered my details on SK's websie and they contacted me immediately. Having had bad experience wiht Moben kitchen in the past, during my very first conversation with their personnel, i mentioned VERY clearly that i am not ready to make a decision and if you are sending someone please do not send a salesmen. Their response, "oh no, we will send our designer who will help you design the kitchen and give you a fully no obligation quote valid for 24 months.." I was a bit skeptical to hear that but thought it was worth a try.
The day before the appointment their Customer Service Manager called to confirm the appointment and yet again i mentioned "i do not want someone to come in and do a hard sales as i am not ready to take a decision now if you think you are wasting your time please do not send someone.." She repeated the same message, "we will send a designer to design a kitchen..who will give you a no obligation quote.."
One the day, the "designer" turns up and the very first conversation i have with him is,"Look Mr Designer, i am not looking to take a decision today so if you think you are here to sell me one, lets end this appointment now.." His response, "i am here to design the kitchen for you and if you dont like i leave.."
He spends 3 hours, yes 3 hours designing the kitchen and taking his time after that produces a figure weird figure of £19,407 and then discounts it down to £12,555, if I make a decision today. At that point I thanked him for the quote and repeated that I am not ready to make a decision. Before i could say anything, he called up his sales colleague and soon i was on the phone with that guy "Tony" who was hard selling me and literally forcing me to sign up there and then. I was so annoyed that i passed the phone back to the designer and told him that we can NEVER have a deal.
Its not very difficult very to see through their tactics - quote a very high price, give instantaneous heavy discount and force the customer to make a hurried decision under heavy sales pressure.
To be honest the designs and styles they have were good and if it wasnt for this "sign-up now" sales experience i would have seriously considered them. But, after this experience, i dont think i will ever recommend inviting the designer to anyone's place.

Hope some of this info is useful

I would also contact Terry leahy at Tesco as well and complain about it

keith55

I had a similar experience this weekend. After a cold call 2 weeks ago, we arranged an appointment with a 'designer', as we are in the market for a new kitchen. I was a bit dubious as I'd previously had a bad experience of cold calling when buying double-glazing some years ago (more later!).

Anyway, very nice 'designer' arrived promptly at 11.30 am Saturday, and we briefly explained what we were looking for. I had then expected him to design a kitchen after some basic info about Space Kitchens. However, he began a long labourious explanation of all things i.e. about competitors, build quality, prices, etc.

I explained that I had an event to attend that afternoon so that he'd need to finish by about 1.20pm. Eventually, at 2.30pm I left, leaving him with my wife to complete his design and give a price. He was still there when I returned at 5.30pm !!!!!!!

The price was £18527, which he could reduce to £11,443 if we signed up as a 'feature home'. I should have kicked him out at this point (sooner really) but we wanted a new kitchen and the product seemed quite good, so I persevered.

Eventually, he left at 8.30pm after we agreed to sign up for the extortionate credit option. The aim being to pay this off once we were happy with the installation. IS NINE HOURS A RECORD ?????

I didn't know anything about this company before, but having checked on the web today, find that it's been in administration and bought out by Weatherseal. No mention of that in the hours of rhetoric, only about how long they had been in business and their turnover.

And the double glazing company that I had trouble with all those years ago - Weatherseal - what a surprise! I vowed never to touch them again at the time, due to their pressure sales techniques. Needless to say I'll be cancelling the order first thing tomorrow.

Altarf

keith55 wrote: »

I had a similar experience this weekend. After a cold call ... very nice 'designer' arrived promptly at 11.30 am ...Eventually, he left at 8.30pm after we agreed to sign up for the extortionate credit option.

And you wonder why he didn't want to leave? He could tell he had a fish on the line.

If more people told them to get lost after an hour, then they wouldn't persevere with these high pressure sales techniques. But whilst people continue to succumb, then they will continue.

Mark7799

We 'experienced' this two weeks ago - 4 hrs leaving at 11.30.p.m. Told him I wasn't signing under any circumstances. Our price was £16,000+ which would reduce to £7,200 if we signed that night - still wouldn't sign then searched the web.:o

Word of warning to the others who have been visited recently, you can expect the phone call from their 'factory' offering you the same kitchen at a further discount in about a week.

When I told the lady on the phone what I'd found out about Space Kitchens on-line she didn't pursue the enquiry;)