Lousy service from sea-screw

Hang on a minute. I specifically checked the item was showing "in stock" on website, cos i wanted it fast. It was showig in stock. I ordered the two items, paid £8 for next day deliv. Only one arrived, the next day. As I said this was an inconvenience but no bg deal, it's only a boat. I called proprietor to ask for the £8 next day deliv to be refunded. Not to rant about the out-of-stock cos I can wait an extra week for the item. He quite clearly cut me off mid conversation and hung up. I posted an account on this forum

You say I'm being harsh? What do you suggest is fair treatment then ? Is it ok for him to keep the £8 next day charge even though the two (identical) items I ordered have still not both arrived, and to hang up on me?
 
hm, tho technically derekh only says you're being a "little" harsh, which is fine imho. The company gave bad info and induced you to pay £8 for service not rendered, so "being a little harsh" (eg slapping a post up on mbc aboutem) is about the appropriate level of action, imho.
 
As the supplier, I would guess that not many people ask for the next day delivery charge to be refunded in similar circumstances so, for an easy life, and good customer relations, I would have refunded the £8 without hesitation!

In fact, even if there were lots of requests like this, I would refund immediately, and suspect that there was something wrong with my online system.

Imagine how the thread would have started had there been an immediate refund, and how much better would sea-screws reputation have been.
 
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Is it ok for him to keep the £8 next day charge ... and to hang up on me?

[/ QUOTE ]Obviously it isn't.
As it is equally obvious that the 8 quid would have changed neither his life nor yours.
Which is what makes me think about a possible reason behind his harsh (unquestionably harsh, in this case) behaviour.
Maybe his system flags as "in stock" any item for which there's at least one available, regardless of how many are being ordered, and if so that's clearly where the problem started.
Once accepted and confirmed your order, he dispatched all he could within the terms agreed, and surely wouldn't have charged anything else for the second dispatch that he would have made asap. So, from his viewpoint, he did the best he could.
And then the phone rings and there's a gentlemen who asks a £8 refund, when he's (Mr.Tate) actually going to pay even more for shipment, because of the double delivery.
Now (always trying to think from Mr.Tate viewpoint), which kind of person would have bothered to call and ask a £8 refund in this case?
Either one of those always unhappy clients, who never miss an opportunity to ask for some special treatment, or to get a quid discount no matter what (a kind of customer no seller is very keen to keep, even these days), OR a perfectly polite and correct customer, whose time spent in the phone call is worth much more than those £8, but is just making a point in principle.
I suppose that Mr.Tate assumed it was the first, but as it happens he made a big evaluation mistake, 'cause he was speaking with the latter.
Mind, this is not meant as a justification of his behaviour anyway.
Besides, obviously he should have refunded the £8 even if he had the first kind of customer on the line, because the point he was making was a good one.
Unless in their terms of sale there's some fine printing stating that the fast shipment fee is due also for partial deliveries, or summink...?
 
All's well that ends well. The proprietor of sea-screw just emailed with an unreserved apology for his telephone behaviour and said the next-day deliv charge would be refunded. So I'll happily shop there again (it's quite a good website)
 
Was this yet another example of the power of the forum or a simple Damascene conversion?
 
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Just had a bad experience this morning in a Chichester Chadlers (no, not the one on the Marina)

Served by a total waste of space who was complaining about his hangover.

He could not find any record of the item my husband had ordered two weeks ago and was muttering about how he hated working there

When asked if he had the two lifejackets that I also required he answered that if his Manager was not so crap then they would have them.

We spent almost £1,000 there last week on a new liferaft, flares and lifejackets. We were served by the same guy who could not have cared less if we purchased there or not. I will not be back.

When I got back to the boat I was biting my own bum in anger. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

How do these people hang onto their jobs?

May
xx

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If this is the one a little way north of the marina I had a similar problem collecting a signal flag for a 'government organisation'. Cost was around £10.00 - we had also spent a lot of money in there over the past few months - let alone in previous years.

It would have been quicker and easier to make one myself! Despite the fact it had been paid for, a copy of the invoice faxed from the office wasn't sufficient proof that I was who I said I was (despite the uniform) not that we did not owe any money for it. In the end the only way out was for me to buy it and claim fro it in expenses!

W.

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Funny that I had very good service in there when updating flares. I don't buy packs - I buy singles so that I can spread the cost out by spreading the dates over the year etc.
I was moving my boat out of UK to baltic. Explained my system, young guy put down the catalogue and closed the flare page - was going obviously to point at a pack ... said hang on sir - we have singles out back .. came back with exactly what I needed.

But of course now it's no longer same company ... so things may have changed.
 
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