Stupid online company

[joshwa]

I bought something from a company ages ago, the product was faulty so I sent it back beginning of July - I emailed them 14th july to chase - they said they'd sent it back to manufacturer to replace - the manufacturer have replaced as faulty end of july - therefore it then went to the refund dept for a refund - it's now the 12th Aug - and I've emailed for an update (I've done this every week as I've never had any email contact from them)...

Get this, their reponse is that they got the details to refund me on the 30th july - they say they have 28days to refund me from then!!

That'll make it a total of 2 months for them to refund me on a faulty product!!!

What are your thoughts - this is way too long to wait!!

Josh

[Leo]

As far as I am aware, I think you should have demanded a replacement product or complete refund the first time you went back to them with the problem, as it is the retailers responsibility to provide you with a working product, and also sort it out with the manafacturer in case anything goes wrong, which means you dont have to wait endlessly.

This kind of behaviour is increasingly common these days however, because online retailers work on wafer thin margins, so customer support tends to suffer the most as a direct result.

[Flash]

name and shame mate

[joshwa]

the annoying thing is, eveytime you email them they never say their name they sign off as "sales" - and their website talks about "every email going to the managing director" - without them actually providing his/her email address.

i'd rather wait till i actually get a refund to see how it goes from here on before mentioning any names

[Flash]

I dont under stand why naming and shaming would cause any issues.

[joshwa]

I'd prefer to email the managing director directly to bring it to his/her attention but their website has no email address :/

[Flash]

let us know who it is and one of us may have had past experiences and can help you

[Bazzlad]

Grabs mates and forms a ring around Joshwa
Screaming:
"Name name name name name name name name!"

*Good old school days!

[Flash]

I have a fair idea who it may be

[joshwa]

according to the trading standards website, a company has 30 days to give a refund:

"Check what the company’s policy is on returning goods that you don’t like or have changed your mind about. Again, if they have come from abroad, you may be faced with a hefty postage bill to return them. Refunds must be made within 30 days. "

but is this from the point when they receive the product back, or from the point when they decide "yes the product is faulty, we'll give a refund" ?

it's micro land technology if you can find an email address on their site other than sales or it support i'd be really impressed

[Jonny M]

Whois info for, microlandtechnology.com:
Registrant:
 Microland UK PLC
 Microland House
 61 Lowfield Road
 Stockport, Cheshire SK3 8JS
 GB

 Domain name: MICROLANDTECHNOLOGY.COM

 Administrative Contact:
    Harris, Tim  tim@microlanduk.com
    Microland House
    61 Lowfield Road
    Stockport, Cheshire SK3 8JS
    GB
    +440161477442
 Technical Contact:
    Harris, Tim  tim@microlanduk.com
    Microland House
    61 Lowfield Road
    Stockport, Cheshire SK3 8JS
    GB
    +440161477442


 Registration Service Provider:
    UK Reg, domains@fasthosts.co.uk
    +44 1452 541252
    +44 1452 538485 (fax)
    http://www.ukreg.com/



 Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
 Record last updated on 12-Jun-2004.
 Record expires on 03-Jul-2006.
 Record created on 03-Jul-2003.

 Domain servers in listed order:
    NS3.UKDNSSERVERS.CO.UK   
    NS4.UKDNSSERVERS.CO.UK

[joshwa]

Cheers caged,

unfortunately:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

  microlanduk+tim#microlanduk.com@zen.co.uk
    mailbox is full

[Creature]

have you had your money back yet ?

[Moonshade]

I really hope that everything's gonna get fine, and I hope you had your money back as Creature said!

[joshwa]

not yet...

they have a nice "anti-spam" policy:

"If you send more than two emails in any 24 hour period to sales@microlandtechnology.com our anti spam software will block your email address and you emails will be deleted."

meaning you can only communicate to their sales department once every 24 hours !!

also their terms & conditions seem to contradict trading standards (such as refunds only available within 7days* - when trading standards say they must give refunds on faulty products) - I've contacted trading standards about it anyway

* "14.2 hereof Goods must be made available for collection by Microland in their original condition and in their original packaging within 7 days of delivery in order for the customer to be eligible for any refund. Where Goods are only made available for collection after the expiry of this period Microland reserves the right to refuse to provide a refund or to deduct a handling charge from the refund."

[joshwa]

still no refund from them
it looks like they are deliberately delaying refunding me!!