Jump to content

junglist92

Registered Users

Change your profile picture
  • Posts

    3
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

1 Neutral
  1. Thanks for your reply King12345 - we very much appreciate your kind advice. So far we have issued a letter of complaint to the sales manager for the conservatory department of Everest, as requested, who forwarded our case to Everest's legal and cancellations team, from whom the response regarding breach of contract came. We have so far spoken to our local Trading Standards representative, who explained to us that if we took up a legal case with Everest, we would probably lose, due to lack of evidence regarding the salesman. However, they didn't seem to be too helpful and could only offer a phonecall with Everest to try and sway their decision in our favour, which we opted out of for the time being. My wife has also spoken to the Glass and Glazing Federation, who said we can try and resolve the problem with them, but only if we have exhausted Everest's complaints process and haven't come to a mutual decision. Unfortunately we hadn't realised that Everest had an official complaints process, as no one from Everest explained to us (what a surprise), so we will be writing another letter to their complaints department and see how far that gets us. The only work Everest has done for us so far is design the conservatory and carried out a survey. Nothing has been built and no parts have been manufactured, as we haven't had a party wall notice signed off by our neighbour, or a date organised for installation. As this is the only work carried out and we suffered terrible customer service, surely they can't get away with taking £4.6k+ from us - seems like complete extortion!
  2. Myself and my wife have been having major issues with Everest and their ‘customer service’, and whilst researching online for help, I came across CAG. Our story is a little complicated, but basically we have been led into signing a contract for a conservatory with Everest, by a salesman of theirs who used underhanded tactics and completely misleading information. Right at the start, in August 2016, my wife received some inheritance money from a close relative, which we decided to use to build a conservatory, which will act as a playroom for our 3 year old daughter and baby that is due in early 2017. Once decided, we got an initial quote from local company, Brackenwood conservatories, which was a bit too pricey. We the researched further online for decent reputable companies and along the way disregarded Everest and Anglian, as we already knew that they are much more expensive than most independents. Eventually, we found local company Three Counties, which had really positive reviews, so we decided to get a quote from them. My wife contacted Three Counties through a form on their website and a salesman of their’s, called David, returned an email, requesting that we contact him via a mobile number he provided, stating that the number for him on the website & email footer is incorrect. My wife contacted him on this number and arranged a consultation at our home. A week later, David carried out a consultation and designed a conservatory with a solid tiled roof for us, which is what we initially wanted (our garden is south-west facing and we wanted to avoid our conservatory getting over-heated in the sun). We were happy with the design and David went away and called us up the next day with a quote just under £23k, which we were fine with. Once we decided to go ahead, we got David from Three Counties back over a week later to complete the sale. Once he arrived, he brought the design back up on his computer, but for some reason the cost had risen by over £3k. He spent about an hour looking into the design and tweaking the spec until the cost came back down to the initial quote. Once we were ready to pay, David informed us that the only we can complete the purchase was by taking out a finance plan, which we would need to pay interest, resulting in the final cost going up to £26k! We asked if there was any way we could avoid this, as we already had the money to pay, but he told us that the conservatory had already been discounted and that the only way we could get it at £23k was to go with finance and pay interest. This new rise in cost was too much for us and, just as we were ready to give up, David then offered us an alternative design to the solid roof conservatory. He told us that Everest had just released a brand new glass roof technology that stopped heat from passing through into the conservatory, and that they were offering it free of charge for a limited time, as a way of pushing the new technology. David told us that Everest were the sole suppliers of this new technology and that it would be the ideal alternative to a solid tiled roof and it would also help us avoid planning permission. He told us that we had to hurry and take up the offer if we wanted to go ahead, as the offer was only available for the next day or so and that he could sub-contract Everest through Three Counties to get the product we wanted and also get the build finished in time before the arrival of our newborn. As, we were running out of time and wanted the conservatory built before early 2017, we decided to go with David’s recommendation of sub-contracting Everest through Three Counties. The quote to do this turned out to be just over the initial quote of £23k, which was slightly over our budget, but we were sold on this new magic glass roof technology. When it came to signing the contract and design, David informed us that it would all be Everest branded and that the initial deposit would be paid to Everest, but that the project would be overseen by Three Counties, our first port of call. We went ahead and signed the contract and paid Everest a deposit of £4.6k. The next stage was to get a survey from Everest and issue a party wall notice to our neighbour, as the foundation depth would be 2.5m. The survey was done and some slight alterations to the design had to be made, causing the price to rise by just under £300. Everest supplied us with a party wall notice, which we issued to our neighbour, but our neighbour would not sign, as he said Everest had not issued him the correct notice. Our neighbour told us, after looking at the government guidelines, that Everest need to supply him with plans showing depth of foundation, distance from boundary, etc. We returned to Everest asking for this to be done, but both David and the surveyor informed us that our neighbour was not entitled to any plans, which we then discussed with our neighbour, who was not happy at all. We then asked Everest a second time, this time the manager of their planning department, and again, they were adamant that our neighbour does not require any plans and that Everest have never supplied these in the past in regards to party wall notices. Time was running out, and without our neighbour signing the notice, we could not go ahead with the build without paying for party wall surveyors, which was a route we wanted to avoid. In the end, our neighbour had to write a letter to Everest asking for the plans, stating the rules given out by the government on party wall act. This caused Everest to finally take notice and they then sent out a new notice, with plans, etc, which turned out to be incorrect again - they managed to mix up our address with our neighbour’s, which was completely ludicrous and showed Everest’s incompetence! After all this, our neighbour got completely frustrated and did not want to help us any further, causing our relationship as neighbours to fall out. We complained to David, who was apparently looking after us, and he promised that Everest would cover the cost of party wall surveyors for both ourselves and our neighbour as a resolution. After this promise, nothing was put into place and we kept having to chase David and Everest, as nothing was happening. We spoke to the planning manager and the surveyor, who both told us that Everest do not, and never had in past, pay for any party wall surveyors and that David’s promise was completely false and would never be realised. As consumers, we found we were being given really bad customer service as we had to do all the leg work in order to get Everest to do their job and we were receiving false promises from their salesman, David. In frustration, we decided to go back to our first port of call, Three Counties, who we were told by David at the start, were looking after the sale. I contacted the owner, Simon, of Three Counties, who was initially very confused and concerned about our experience. He told me that Three Counties do not actually sell Everest products and don’t sub-contract to Everest, as they are a main competitor, and that his salesman has completely done the wrong thing by switching our sale to Everest. He told us that David was working for Three Counties during the time we had initial contact with him, but had parted ways shortly after and was now working for Everest! He also told us that the ‘new’ glass technology that David had sold us was not new, had in fact been around for years and was not exclusive to Everest. In fact Three Counties get all their conservatory materials from the exact same supplier Everest use - it’s all the same, but Everest charge at least £5k more. After hearing this news, myself and my wife were absolutely shocked and devastated that we had been misled into signing a contract with Everest and that David had led us to believe he was actually working for Three Counties - not Everest. Not at any time did David inform us that he had switched employment from Three Counties to Everest, nor was he wearing anything to make us aware that he was an Everest employee. We feel that David has committed fraud as a salesman and completely misled us into going with Everest. Since this finding, we having written a complaint letter to Everest regarding this issue and asked for a complete refund of our deposit as we had been mis-sold. We also got a new design consultation from Three Counties, who informed us that the design David from Everest had created for us was over-complicated and more elaborate than what was realistically required, which had probably been done to make the salesman more money. Three Counties’ design turned out to be a lot better, had added extras such as heating and better lighting, used the exact same roof (the ‘new’ technology David had claimed Everest had just released) and came in between £4k and £5k cheaper than Everest! After we chased Everest several times, they finally replied to our letter, explaining that if we wanted to cancel, we would be in breach of contract and that they would keep our £4.6k deposit and charge us additional damages for loss of profit. They said that they can offer us a party wall surveyor if we wanted to still go ahead, but this would only cover us and our neighbour if our neighbour was happy to go with the same surveyor. They also said that David had made statements, saying that our first contact with him was 3 years ago when he was working at Anglian - not through Three Counties. He also claimed he had an Everest ID badge on when he consulted us. Both of these claims David provided are complete lies, clearly demonstrating that he is trying to cover himself. Although the offer of a surveyor was made to compensate our earlier complaint, regarding the poor service and issues we had with Everest’s attempts at a party wall notice, there has been no attempt by Everest to take the issue of mis-selling and underhand sales tactics by their employee as a serious matter and they are trying to pressure us into carrying on with the project, even though we have been seriously miss-treated as consumers. Since the reply, we have asked Everest numerous times to provide further information regarding David’s claim of speaking to us 3 years ago whilst he was working at Anglian. So far David has stood by his statement and will not provide any further details. So far, we have contacted our local Trading Standards and we are now looking at speaking to the Glass and Glazing Federation to see if they can get involved. We are also talking to Citizens Advice, who have been very helpful. The whole ordeal has been extremely stressful and my wife is very upset, as Everest now have £4.6k of her inheritance money which is a very personal thing to her and is worried she will lose. We are also worried that the prolonged stress that Everest has caused my wife, may have an impact on her pregnancy. If anyone can help, we would very much appreciate it.
×
×
  • Create New...