play.com - sometimes you get what you pay for

[SomeAngryConsumer]

Hi to all, [warning - bit long!]

Despite having many gripes with purchases throughout my time this is the 1st time I have ever needed to voice them as it is truly both amazing and somewhat amusing.

 

Very recently we [my partner & I] placed an order with play.com for 4 items, 3 DVDs and a genie head massager, promptly the 3 DVDs arrived and at the same time we were carded for a package that wouldn't fit through the letterbox as we were both at work, happy days....

 

On the following Saturday we collected the outstanding item from the local sorting office, when we returned the box was opened and to our surprise there was a Stargate action figure [a wraith drone if you care] slightly amused as there was a clearly a receipt inside complete with someone else’s name and address the almighty 'help line' was consulted.

 

Now, I feel it is fair to note that my partner & I both work within a call center and understand that an individual case is 1 in 1000's so we were not expecting the earth.

 

The individual spoken to [and all call handlers + a supervisor since] had what I would describe as a poor grasp of the English language, it took no less than 5 minutes to explain that we needed to return an item that was for someone else, when this was complete a return authorisation email was sent [so far so good] but this clearly stated it was for a "universal ps2 to ps3 controller adapter" something I can't even find on their website!

 

With a couple of mix-ups under their belt we thought it best to check this auth code would be sufficient for us to return the wraith drone "or else your account will be charged for this item". After speaking to another call handler with a poor understanding of English and going over the issue roughly 5 times with them we were assured all would be fine so off the package went to the supplied address, a day or so later we were carded for another to large package. Hooray! [we thought]

 

Today despite the above carding which we assume as we have ordered nothing else is the genie head massager an email arrives telling us our replacement has been processed and the replacement is being packed..... the replacement is 1 of the 3 DVD’s we already have.

 

Queue yet another call to the almighty 'help line' and another call handler who has perhaps the smallest grasp of English experienced yet, we request that they do not dispatch this item that is being sent to us, that we already have the DVD they are going to send and believe that the outstanding item is waiting at the sorting office, on no less than 3 occasions my partner said "Everything is fine, we have all the order, we just don't need you to send this DVD" despite these attempts m partner was asked many meaningless questions and advised that we would be sent ANOTHER genie head massager. Once again we attempted to explain that NO FURTHER ACTION was required from play.com apart from not sending us more things.

 

This didn't seem to be comprehended so, rather deflated and quite frustrated my partner asked if she could speak to a supervisor who may be able to resolve this [desperate times!] this was initially ignored and the same meaningless questions were asked and answered again and finally after a few more requests a supervisor was called for.

 

After just over 5 minutes on hold a person picked up who was apparently a supervisor, the 1st thing we were told is that the replacement was on its way, we tried to interject for obvious reasons but were continuously talked over, then the same issues were went over again, again and a few times more and seemingly no ground was being made. I don't know how hard it can be to comprehend that we do not want anything else and everything is fine, but in the end the call was ended by instructing us that if no options from the automated menu on the 'help line' were pushed that we would get through to an English call center.

 

We tried this and erm, it was 8:03pm and the call center closed at 8pm, it could be a coincidence.....

 

I think we will be waiting for any further freebies play.com would like to send us before officially complaining about the abhorrent customer service as then at least they have to pay to get them back, tee hee

 

Lastly I guess it's only fair to say that out of many MANY orders this is the 1st bad experience either of us have had with play.com

Thanks for reading, bookmark for Insomnia.