Currys Customer (Non) Service

[reallymadwoman]

Once upon a time I had an issue with Currys and the purchase of a washing machine 

Hadn't realised it was 6 years ago!

Anyway, back to the point. Much against my better judgement and only because they were the only ones who could deliver (allegedly) before Xmas, I bought a dishwasher from them. Amazingly it arrived on time the first time, and was installed. I wasn't present and it never occurred to my deputy to get them to turn it on so of course when I did there was a fault. 3 hours on the phone with the manufacturer's technical team failed to resolve it so we reluctantly accepted it would have to be returned. 

 

If you've ever had to return a large item to Currys you'll know they still do the 'contact the manufacturer for authority' thing even though they must know how wrong that is. I argued with them, they backed down and agreed to collect. Driver turned up on time, took one look and refused to take it because it hadn't been disconnected. Nowhere in the paperwork does it say the machine must be disconnected prior to collection and it never occurred to me that it would need to be since it's being returned as faulty and Curry's installed it.

 

Back to Live Chat. They can do nothing until the driver returns to depot and updates the system, which will be after 6 this evening, so they gave me 3 different phone numbers for customer services/know how. Every one of them gets a recorded message then cuts off.

 

Currently chatting with Team KnowHow on Twitter, and I hope they can resolve it because the replacement (from a different retailer, whom I really should have used in the first place) is arriving on Monday and there isn't space to store faulty dishwashers pending collection, not to mention the fact that I'm over £500 down until it's back at their warehouse and I get my refund.

 

Basically writing this to encourage early action on the part of Currys as they'll see that I will follow through right to Court if necessary if they mess me about any more.

[reallymadwoman]

So, developments. 

1. Currys agree to remove the faulty machine today. First they tell me it will be in the morning, ten minutes later another text says afternoon. 30 minutes of trying later I get confirmation that it is afternoon, between 1 and 5.30.

2. At 5.15 Currys message to say the driver has run out of hours so they'll have to rebook for next week.

 

You really couldn't make this up. Anyone would think they wanted me to issue another claim for all this wasted time/loss of earnings.

[reallymadwoman]

I have once again had to spend most of a morning trying to resolve this with Currys. All the customer service phone numbers still just have a recorded message which cuts off half way through and when I contacted Live Chat I was initially number 25 in the queue. I spent the 43 minutes I was waiting for an agent to become available typing the first draft of my complaint.

 

LiveChat at Currys really is useless - unless your query merits a standard response they can do nothing, there's no supervisor or manager who might be able to do something and you have to wonder how many customers at a time they are dealing with as it takes so long for them to type anything. Outcome of over an hour waiting and 'chatting' - they've rebooked the collection for next Tuesday. 

 

Assuming they actually turned up and collected the machine, that would be 4 half days wasted waiting around for them plus all the hours I've spent online trying to resolve this. Also, we'd already delayed delivery of the replacement once and weren't willing to do it again on such short notice so I contacted KnowHow through Twitter again and told them if the machine wasn't collected by 6pm yesterday they could chose between refunding the cost of hiring a van to take it to their store or it being dumped in the bin store from where their driver could collect at his leisure as it's not locked.

 

KnowHow have not responded so husband and son disconnected the faulty dishwasher and carefully transported it to the bin store, where it is under cover. Son took many many photos to show it was there and undamaged when left. Currys know what will happen if they object now and try to refuse my refund ......