Scan failed to deliver

[floppybootstomp]

Yesterday, Tuesday 26th April, at 11:23am I placed an order with Scan for a little over £135.00. This order included a set of Corsair SP2200 2.1 loudspeakers, this purchase based on the review on those loudspeakers I’d read at Hexus.

I’ve used Scan for some years now and apart from one glitch a few years back they’ve been good. What I particularly liked about Scan was their next day delivery service and the fact that I was texted and e-mailed giving delivery times to within one hour.

I had planned my week around being able to be at home on Wednesday 27th to take delivery as nobody would be here to take deliveries on any other remaining weekday.

I was sent e-mails letting me know Scan’s ‘Stages 1 & 2’ were reached, they received my order and took my money from a debit card of mine. Then late afternoon Scan sent me this e-mail:

Thank you for your order from Scan.

Please regard this email as a notification of delay in your order due to unexpected volumes in our warehouse. Please rest assured your custom is greatly valued and we will process your order with the utmost urgency. Your order has still been booked for a next working day delivery from the point of despatch and we will send further emails to confirm this.

Should you require any further information or assistance please log a query using our online Customer Support service. Alternatively, you can contact our delivery support team on 0871 472 4747.

We apologise for the delay and thank you for your patience.

I hadn’t heard from Scan by midnight so wasn’t sure whether delivery would take place on the 27th or not. Their estimated delivery day was quoted as the 27th btw.

I phoned Scan around 10am today (the 27th) and they informed me my order would not be sent today. Great. That means I now have a wasted day and they have taken £135 from my bank account for goods I won’t receive today.

I couldn’t take delivery Thursday or Friday so I cancelled the order. I was informed the refund of my money would take ‘3 to 5 working days’. This means I now have to wait until Monday to Wednesday next week before I get my cash back. This also means I can’t make a purchase from an alternative supplier until my money is returned.

I’d like to mention the following points:

1) To their credit Scan can be reached fairly quickly on the phone and the guy I spoke to was polite and efficient, despite my losing my cool a little and letting a cuss word slip.
2) The phone number is an 08 number though, which costs me money.
3) Scan should not take a customer’s money until the goods have been despatched.
4) Scan are obviously doing a very good trade so would it not be wise to hire a couple more warehouse staff? Even temp warehouse staff if different times of year vary in volume of sales.

To my mind the failure of Scan to hire extra staff and to take a customer’s money before the goods are despatched is greed on their part. Can you imagine asking for goods in a high street shop, being told they’re not in stock for a couple of days but then having to hand over the full price of the goods up front? I think not.

Scan have e-mailed me apologising and hoping I’ll return to them in the future. They also offered me free postage on my next order. That’s really clever, Scan, I already get free postage as a member of this forum, I have done so for several years now.

I didn’t spend a fortune with Scan, typically a couple of hundred quid every few months or so but I was a regular customer and I trusted them.

Not any more, Scan have poxed me off and let me down over this failed delivery and in future my trade will be with either Kustom PC’s, Aria or E-Buyer, all of whom have served me well in the past. Kustom PC’s particularly, give excellent service, albeit their prices are often a little higher.

Goodbye Scan.

[Chris P]

floppybootstomp

Please confirm you Invoice number so we can look into this and reply in detail.

Best Regards

[floppybootstomp]

floppybootstomp

Please confirm you Invoice number so we can look into this and reply in detail.

Best Regards

OOE1641182

I'm sure I've read on your site that 'No money will be taken until goods are despatched' nut must confess just had a look around and can't see that anywhere.

I did note in your terms and conditions though that you claim the right to deliver goods within 30 days if the estimated delivery date isn't adhered to.

[Chris P]

floppybootstomp

In this case your order was delayed due to a volume of order's and I can see a notification of the delay sent in the evening of the 26th April.

I can confirm that our site has never confirmed " No money will be taken until goods are despatched ", in fact the opposite and the feasibility of doing the opposite is another topic but we clearly confirm payment is taken on placement of the order.

I appreciate the reasons why you have cancelled your order; however I must admit it is very disappointing that you were not willing to give us the opportunity of despatching your order today. After all it had been delayed by only 1 day and at the end of the day the fact remains that you have not paid for a guaranteed service - it is an estimate. Of course we aim to meet the Estimated Despatch date we give you and have the best of intentions of fulfilling it when we take your order. We set our cut-off points as realistically as we can; based on volumes and resources, which usually means that when we set out to calculate the ETA on your order we can be confident that we can meet it. However, sales can be very unpredictable and it is sometimes difficult to calculate how quickly the picking dept can get through the volumes we have, especially when we are shipping 1000's a day. Due to the nature of the business we understand that it is very difficult for us to make guarantees for every order we accept. This is why we do not guarantee in the first place. The only service we have which we guarantee is a premium Saturday pre1 2pm delivery, which DPD charge us extra for and we in turn charge our customers extra for. If any Saturday deliveries fail due to a delay or error by either Scan or DPD, we always refund the extra paid for the premium, and sometimes more. This is because it is a guaranteed delivery service, and we understand that if we fail on a guarantee then we should compensate people for it.

There are also many reason why we can't only take payment upon despatch of an order. There are four stages to each order (as demonstrated by the parcel tracking service). Any invoices raised onto our system must complete each stage in order, before they can progress onto the next.

ie. Payment has to be authorised before the order can be allocated stock and completed. The order must be completed before it can be labelled and booked for despatch.

The method of taking payment before shipping is one we have employed for the past 15 years and is absolutely necessary for us to ensure a streamlined and efficient delivery service and to confirm you were aware of the fact that we authorised payment to your card when we emailed you on the 26 April 2011 11:36:25.

It is regrettable that you have decided to cancel your order, but we do appreciate your frustrations and we have honoured your request to cancel the order. Your money has been refunded already and will be on your card in the next few days, depending on who you bank with.

Many thanks for your patience and custom despite the disappointments caused.

Regards

[floppybootstomp]

I appreciate the reasons why you have cancelled your order; however I must admit it is very disappointing that you were not willing to give us the opportunity of despatching your order today.

The guy I spoke to on the phone assured me my order would not be delivered today so how could I give you a chance to deliver it today? Your colleague had already informed me a delivery wouldn't be forthcoming today.

After all it had been delayed by only 1 day and at the end of the day the fact remains that you have not paid for a guaranteed service - it is an estimate.

You just don't get it do you? To you it may only be 24 hours but to me it's the inconvenience of having to stop work for a day and stay at home all day to take the delivery. Did you not read what I posted anove? About no one being available here on Thursday or Friday?

I also said I planned my week to take delivery on the Wednesday and being perhaps foolishly expected you to deliver the day after I placed my order as you always have done every time I've used your company over the years in the past.

Other online suppliers can guarantee a set delivery time so it looks as though I'll have to use them in future.

Like I said - if you can't cope with your huge turnover of orders then rather than disappoint regular customers and risk losing them, employ some more staff, it makes economic sense to me.

And you may have made a refund already but it still means I may have to wait a whole week for the money to reach my bank account. And the account I used was with Natwest, incidentally, I don't know if that makes a difference.

I was looking forward to those goods arriving today and I'm now left feeling disappointed and let down.

I've already bought a hard disk (part of my order with you) from PC World, it was only three pounds more and I have it in my hands right now. Plus if it goes faulty there's no rma bother, just take it back to the store.

I thank you for taking the time to reply, it's apreciated.

Regards

Tony S

[Chris P]

The guy I spoke to on the phone assured me my order would not be delivered today so how could I give you a chance to deliver it today? Your colleague had already informed me a delivery wouldn't be forthcoming today

.

I apologies, that was a typo and was supposed to say tomorrow.

You just don't get it do you? To you it may only be 24 hours but to me it's the inconvenience of having to stop work for a day and stay at home all day to take the delivery. Did you not read what I posted anove? About no one being available here on Thursday or Friday?

We do understand this is why we only quote estimated delivery dates.

Other online suppliers can guarantee a set delivery time so it looks as though I'll have to use them in future.

As do we - Timed deliveries are guaranteed, for example if you place an order pre 12am, we guarantee you will receive the order before 12am, however the day of delivery is estimated.

Order's can be delayed but unfortunately it's not feasible just to hire more staff when order's are delayed. This may fix issue but it's a bit like urinating in your pants to keep warm!.... It's about balance.. just hiring more staff is not usually an effective solution. We currently ship over %98 of order's next day so when balancing it our we need to consider cost V benefit and we do act where possible and ... essentially required..

I think the reason for the delay was the backlog of order's from the Easter period, we calculate the cut off point based on the number of outstanding but sometimes the number of order's coming in can be unexpected and will cause delay's, which goes back to the point of why we only provide estimated delivery dates.

I can only apologies for the delay.

Regards

[floppybootstomp]

At 20:58 I received this e-mail:

Thank you for your order from Scan.

Please regard this email as a notification of delay in your order due to unexpected volumes in our warehouse. Please rest assured your custom is greatly valued and we will process your order with the utmost urgency. Your order has still been booked for a next working day delivery from the point of despatch and we will send further emails to confirm this.

Should you require any further information or assistance please log a query using our online Customer Support service. Alternatively, you can contact our delivery support team on 0871 472 4747.

We apologise for the delay and thank you for your patience.

Oh, they really on the money eh?

[floppybootstomp]

Ya know Chris, in all my life I've never considered urinating whilst clothed to warm myself up.

Strange mindset you have there young Lochinvar.

Same mindset which operates your e-mail service and warehouse despatch I shouldn't wonder....