Longest post ever?

[bon3yard]

...is it?

Hello again everybody,

Admittedly, when Colin called me on the date of our third scheduled appointment, I was very angry that yet more of my time was being wasted and that we would not have our cat flap installed prior to Christmas. However, I did not call him any rude names! I was indignant as a consumer who had been mucked around so much. I did tell him that he was unprofessional and had very poor customer service skills and that I found the service I had received appalling. I am perfectly willing to admit that and stand by my comments. There was another tradesman at my house at the time (who, happily, did turn up when he said he would and had all the correct equipment and materials with him when he came!) and he witnessed the telephone call and completely understood my dismay at receiving such poor service. I am not in the habit of using bad language and certainly did not use any such language when speaking to Colin. I think that it is perfectly appropriate, however, to complain when you have been mucked around by someone that you have paid to carry out work for you. I perfectly understand that mistakes can happen but as anyone sensible who is reading this will be able to see, there had been a catalogue of no shows and excuses from Colin prior to the final mistake on 19th December. Had he turned up on the first scheduled fitting appointment (12th December) and then realised his mistake, I would have been more understanding. However on 12th December, I waited in for Colin, who was due to pay us a visit late in the afternoon and by 6.30pm there was no sign of him. I called his employee at the time and asked when I could expect to see him. She explained that she no longer worked for him as she constantly received calls of this nature but gave me his telephone number. I then called Colin and he said that he wasn't going to be able to come and fit the unit that day after all, the reason being that the wrong sized unit had been put on the van. Dare I ask if this was exactly the same unit that was the wrong size again on 19th December? I explained that I would have appreciated a telephone call to make me aware that he was not going to be coming that day. His reason for not calling was that he had no credit on his mobile phone - hardly professional, I'm sure you'll agree. I didn't bother asking if he had not seen any phone boxes on his travels as I did not want to hear any more excuses. He did not apologise and simply said that he would come on Saturday instead. He then called me on the Friday and said that he would have to make it Sunday 16th December instead. We weren't overly pleased by this but we wanted the cat flap to be fitted one way or another so we agreed. We had to push him to agree to a time for the appointment and it was eventually agreed that he would come to our house at 10am on Sunday 16th December. Come 11.30am, there had been no sign of him.We called him on his freephone number and his mobile number several times that day and he did not answer. We left endless messages asking him to call us and tell us what was going on. He eventually answered his phone at around 8pm. He showed no recognition when I said why I was calling and went on to say that he had been in hospital all day. Far be it for me to say that this was not true but you do begin to wonder when someone has been so unreliable already. He did not seem to understand how inconvenienced we had been or perhaps it would be more fitting to say that he just did not seem to care. I asked him to call me the following day to arrange yet another appointment, as he said that he did not have his diary on him. Needless to say, he did not call me. I called him and we made an appointment for Wednesday 19th December. My previous posting explains what happened on that day.As I have said, I am more than happy to admit that I was angry and fed up at this point. I think any rightminded consumer would feel the same. Colin was unapologetic. He did not offer me a discount and even told me how he was out of pocket as he was going to have to pay for a new unit due to the mistake he had made. I perfectly understood that it would not be possible for any company to get me a double glazed unit before Christmas. I was not happy about this but I was even unhappier at the prospect of having any further dealings with a company that had messed me around so much already, I took the decision to employ someone else altogether. Colin said that they wouldn't be able to do it before Christmas and he was right about that. However, as he couldn't get it done before christmas either, despite having measured up for the unit on 5th December (ample time to get the unit ordered and even reordered once the mistake was first noticed on 12th December) this was really irrelevant.

He agreed to send me a cheque to the value of ?80 to refund the CASH deposit we had paid him. I have stressed the word CASH as I am flummoxed by his claim that he has our bank details on the cheque that we gave him as a deposit! I have several gripes with this claim. Firstly, as I have said, we (foolishly, I know, but lesson learnt) paid him a cash deposit (no payment was made by cheque.)Secondly, if he knows our bank details as they were on a cheque that we supposedly gave him, then why would he not have paid the money into our account, what with him being so anti posting the cheque by registered post?? If we had paid by cheque, we would certainly have taken action to cancel it as soon as we realised how unprofessional Colin was. I think it is perfectly reasonable to request that the cheue be posted either by registered post/recorded delivery or as a signed for item and the reason I asked for this to be done was so that there could be absolutely no doubt about whether or not the cheque is received. I requested a cheque rather than cash as it is not wise to send cash in the post. Why Colin finds it so shocking that we do not wish to sare our bank details with him is absolutey beyond me. He has thus far proved to be unreliable and, as such, we do not wish to divulge such confidential information to him.

The fact that Colin does not get home from work until late means very little to me. My husband and I too have full time jobs and work long hours but this did not seem to concern Colin when he failed to show up as we waited in for him on our days off work on 3 separate occasions. It takes very little effort to pop into the post office and even less effort to just put a cheque in an envelope and put it in a post box, if he really wasn't happy with the idea of sending it by signed for mail.

I am sure that Colin does have plenty of happy customers. Indeed, it was the positive testomonials on his website that encouraged us to use him in the first place but that does not alter the fact that we have received nothing but bad service and excuses from him. Had he simply returned our deposit, I would not have felt it necessary to make public comments about our bad experience with him and the matter would have been put to bed.

We look forward to receiving the cheque so that this matter can be forgotten. I must stress, however, that we will not let the matter lie until we receive our refund.

[bigbadwolf]

Another perfect example in one way or another that cats have servants, not owners.

[woofmarkthedog]

If ever there's a clear dog vs cat , this is it!

See, if you had a dog you could just set it on the cn ut.....dosh back in seconds.

[bon3yard]

I'd pay good money for someone to come around and brick up the neighbours Yorkshire Terrier, an all encompassing Terracota Kennel...maybe with a couple of blowholes to satisfy those with a moral compass. Testy little bugger.

[????]

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[flapjackdavey]

far out

[citizenED]

That's long but it's decidedly not the longest post ever. I'm going to pray to the gods to summon the collective spirits of Mockney, Sean, Keef et al and soon a definitive answer will be posted.

[HonaloochieB]

Cat Flap Fever - Ted Nugent