I received an automatic email reply to my complaint telling me that someone would get in touch, usually within 24 hours.
I also noted that CPW had now “officially” reduced the price to £249-99 (shouldn’t that read “increased”).
After 2 days of waiting I sent messages to CPW via Twitter @cpwcares (there’s a misnomer if ever there was one).
After another day I sent an email to the CEO of CPW and another tweet to @cpwcares. Eventually the tweet was responded to telling me they hadn’t received my complaint and to re-enter on the website again. I replied that I had received an acknowledgement of my complain and did they want the reference number?
After waiting another couple of hours I sent the whole complaint back to them again through the website. This time there was a limit to the size of the message so I had to send it in 2 halves, very frustrating and inconvenient. Also worth noting that the CPW website email does not send you a copy of the complaint so unless you copy and paste your own email into notepad or Word etc, you would no longer have the original to resend!
4 days and I now see that CPW have now put the price back up to the full price again (£319-99) and that the stock that had suddenly become short supply is now available again.
Eventually I got a phone call from the CEO’s office to discuss my complaint.
I will post the details here that I posted onto the HotUKDeals website to show what happened next:
“So after being made to wait 4 days after sending an email to them to complain about the price cock up and the abysmal treatment given to my by the staff and manager at the Slough Queensmere centre CPW they finally ring me to apologise. Sorry about the price confusion, sorry about the way the staff behaved, sorry that the manager was unprofessional, sorry that I missed out on the deal as they never authorised other branches to sell it at the 199-99 price. Sorry they didn’t complete my sale through the till despite the salesman agreeing to sell if to me for £199-99. What are they prepared to do to make it up to me. Give me a £15 voucher for my aggravation and troubles. So can I at least get the Xoom for the £249 that they did sell it officially for (less my £15 voucher)? No because it is now £319-99 so I can have it for 304-99. If I had ordered it at the time I complained I would have had it at £249 but because CPW head office took 4 days to respond (despite a, “we will get back to you within 24 hours” reply) and despite the fact that I have chased them everyday since, they now expect me to pay the current price. What a shambles of a company they truly are. I and my daughter are both due to upgrade our phones soon, my daughter in about a week, but no prizes for guessing which company won’t be getting my business. This time or ever again. That’s me, my family and my friends that I will ensure they have lost as customers. Have they not heard of the pyramid of complaints, upset one who tells ten, those ten each tell ten others and so on. This is going to cost them far more than it would have done had they only had the honour and decency to make good on their advertised price or even the inflated £249 price.”
There are several issues that I have hear.
1. The advertised price instore was clearly pointed out to the company before the Slough shop had even opened, as several posters on the HotUKDeals website had already been in to their local store by that time, but the store had still not removed the “incorrect” POS.
2. Despite this and the ducking and diving carried out by the salesman at CPW, he did eventually agree to sell the tablet to me at the marked price and it was only the “fact” that they couldn’t get it through the till that prevented the sale from being completed. I believe this is taking the “invite to treat” beyond that stage as a verbal sale was agreed upon.
3. Many other customers faced with the same pricing error had the price honoured at that time, some even being able to pay the price and collect the stock later as it was out of stock at that branch at that time.
4. According to the gentleman I spoke to in the CEO’s Office, they didn’t authorise any of the stores to actually sell it at the “incorrect” price but quite clearly a great many had.
5. Given that the delay in getting back to me to discuss my complaint led to the price being raised back to the £319-99 price, surely common sense and good customer relations would say that, at the very least, I should have been offered the tablet at £249-99 and be allowed to use the £15 discount off of that price.
This probably ranks as the worst service I have ever received in a shop and worse still it was made even more unpleasant by the couldn’t care less attitued of CPW’s head office.
I now plan to write to the Chairman, Mr Charles Dunston, to see if anything will be done to try to put this mess right.
To be continued…..
