No stars for COMET customer care ! (Comet.co.uk)

Name: briars

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Product:	Comet.co.uk
Date:	01/01/07 (844 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonable selection of appliances when you buy from a large store = 1 star only!

Disadvantages: Apalling after sales sevice = No stars!

I have never been called a liar by a retailer but an experience at Comet came close and all due to a few pounds worth of missing parts!

My suggestions: ALWAYS keep a record of dates, reference/job numbers,names of who you speak to,your sales receipts and all contacts. The alarm bells should ring on the FIRST service call you make to COMET. If you have to make a SECOND call contact trading standards for their good advice immediately.Also list all possible costs for compensation - spoilage,phone calls and unnecessary travel etc.

Our LG fridge was purchased on 07/05/06 from the Tunbridge Wells store, as a display model, after a reduction, as it was scratched. No mention was made of any other faults.
Through May and June it kept dripping water, ruining several food items, and leaking onto the base, which started to rust and onto the floor. We tried adjusting the thermostat to solve the problem but it continued. If set too high food froze; too low and food was swimming in water.
In July I phoned the call centre customer support line and they said keep trying with thermostat I did this but there was no difference.
Family health matters occupied our attention in September and August.

In October I phoned for an engineer’s visit as the only solution seemed to be that the fridge was faulty. He arrived in November and said that some parts were missing and that we should have had an instruction manual. Until then we had no idea we had purchased an incomplete appliance. I then phoned the store who said we could return the appliance. My husband phoned on the day he was due to take the fridge back and was then informed there was paper work needed for a replacement but that the old fridge could be collected when the replacement was delivered. A call back by the store then suggested a new model type for a replacement as Comet no longer stocked our purchased model.

My sister and I then went to the store, which is a half hour drive from my home, to fill in the required documents only to be repeatedly told that no phone calls had taken place! I then had to insist that they contact my husband. They did this, receiving confirmatory details allowing the assistant to go off and check with the member of staff who dealt with my husband’s call. Then the assistant refused to accept that the missing parts were never given to us! He kept repeating that they had no way of knowing if we had lost them! Finally I asked to see the store manager and was told that he was the manager! However he would get his senior manager to call us once the engineer’s report was found.
When this man rang a few days later he was incredibly abrupt and said that, as we had not complained about the missing parts within 28 days and that the engineer had reported the fridge was mechanically sound, the store would do nothing more!

After this I checked with LG to get the cost of the parts and a manual, they were appalled that their equipment was sold with parts missing and with no instructions so they gave us the trading standards phone number. I then started a sequence of phone calls with the Comet national call centre number to get Comet to pay for the missing parts and to supply a manual. Subsequently other calls to Comet head Office confirmed that this was a ‘dispute’. I then phoned the Tunbridge Wells store to see if they would now respond but they only said ‘the matter had been dealt with’.
Just after Christmas a female customer care representative phoned my husband to say that there had been problems like this before and that she would arrange for the parts to be sent. My husband said that would be reasonable but what would happen about the poor customer care. He was told that we could not be told of anything further only that the parts would take some weeks to be ordered and delivered and that the store would be charged for the cost.

On reflection the whole episode has completely altered my view of Comet’s relationships with its customers. A web search, apart from Comet’s own web site extolling their virtues as a caring retailer, came up with the dooyou web site, plus addresses for written complaints to the Comet Head Office.
Most of the friends and colleagues I have spoken to say that they have had few retailing problems as rudely and poorly handled as this.

The Trading Standards Office advised us that if goods are ‘not of fit quality or fit for purpose’ under the sale of goods act then it is mandatory for the retailer to put things right immediately the problem is identified also that durability is required up to 6 years – not 28 days and that the retailer has to conform to the manufacturer’s warranty: anything other than this is a breach of contract.

Summary: A fridge with parts missing led to COMET's apalling communication and rudeness