Warning; Yacht Exchange Sails and John Pollard

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Pekka Heikurainen

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Hi,
I have tried to buy a sail from Yacht Exchange Sails with the help of John Pollard. We found a good sail, and made a deal. This far the service was active, but after the sail was paid the service has been really bad. The deal included delivery to Finland. It is now over 3 months after the payment was done, no delivery. Even worse is that I get no information from the company about the delivery arrangements. Have mailed 8 times to John Pollard. The only answer is; busy now, will check and report back to you. For the 4 last mails he has not answered at all. The office number answers and listens to me, but never does anything.
Pekka Heikurainen
Finland
 
I suggest that you look at using the European small claims court but first send a recorded delivery letter to the company and also an e mail giving them 5 days to respond and 2 weeks to expedite delivery. If you know someone in the UK get them to send the letter by UK recorded delivery.
 
Have you physically seen the sail?

If not, maybe they can't find it, even though it was listed. And perhaps you should demand your money back, rather than get sent some random sail that vaguely matches the listed sail.
 
Pekka

You might have read my post in the thread that doug748 linked to in post #2 above.

I'm afraid this company have a history of poor service and lying to customers. Hopefully you paid with a credit card. I would contact your credit card company and ask them to recover the money for you. I would also encourage you to contact UK trading standards and make an official complaint about the company. Unfortunately you might need to threaten Westaway sails with Legal action in order to get your money back. Good luck.
PS - demand the money back. Don't ask for the sail - it probably doesn't exist and they will send you something else instead. They will then tell you there was a mix up and ask you to return the sail before they give you your money back. You will then find it very difficult to speak to anyone in a position to give you the refund.
 
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Just_sayin' said:
I don’t know what the law is in Finland but in the UK if you pay by credit card you can get the CC company involved.
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Sadly this was precisely what I had to do when the sails John described over the phone, and I bought, were replaced by some blatantly unsuitable sails - significantly older, nothing like the description, and didn't fit the boat. It was amazing how quickly they arranged collection once the credit card company had refunded me!
 
Pekka Heikurainen said:
Hi,
I have tried to buy a sail from Yacht Exchange Sails with the help of John Pollard. We found a good sail, and made a deal. This far the service was active, but after the sail was paid the service has been really bad. The deal included delivery to Finland. It is now over 3 months after the payment was done, no delivery. Even worse is that I get no information from the company about the delivery arrangements. Have mailed 8 times to John Pollard. The only answer is; busy now, will check and report back to you. For the 4 last mails he has not answered at all. The office number answers and listens to me, but never does anything.
Pekka Heikurainen
Finland
Click to expand...

Yes, this is normal for them, I had similar problems.

My friend in Finland (Naantali .. ) did get a sail, but it took some time ... and it was a bit older than he expected.
 
rszemeti said:
Yes, this is normal for them, I had similar problems.
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And me. I tried naively to account for the delays and the fact that the sail I'd paid for had (I was told) been sent by untracked mail after I'd been promised it would be tracked...

...I'm now certain it hadn't been mailed at all - and that the item I'd paid for had already been sold to someone else. The man simply lied.

Astonishingly short-sighted customer service, to accept payment for something that will be impossible to supply, but there are numerous accounts of this company having done so.

Steer clear.
 
This might be a chance for the forum to do something very useful.

I would be happy to collate the names and contact number of people who have had trouble with this company and Mr Pollard. However it would be tricky for me to do anything because I have had no problem with them myself.

Perhaps someone who is directly involved could collate the names and contact numbers of folk who have fell foul of this man and his enterprises?

Armed with this long list, the people to approach are here:

https://www.devonsomersettradingstandards.gov.uk
 
As others have suggested, you might try contacting trading standards, which is a local government organisation. Westaway Sails are based in the county of Devon, here is a link to the local trading standards organisation https://www.devonsomersettradingstandards.gov.uk/consumer/

However, from reading their website I do not know how useful they will be. I think that years ago they would have investigated such a problem on your behalf. Worth trying though, perhaps they have previously had other complaints about Westaway.

It sounds like the European small claims process would be worth trying. If you mail a copy of the completed form to Westaway, it might be enough to get them to refund the money. They must know they would lose the case.
 
I purchased an Assemetric Crusing Shute form John late last year. It was a little slow to ship (Approx 2 weeks from memory). Icouldn't contact John. I got a shock when I when I did a search on this Forum and say similar comments as lised above. I did a little reasearch and found that John is a Senior Member of Westaway Sails and promenent on their website. Take a look at their website. I phoned Westaway sails a couple of times and spoke to one of the other directors. After that the sail shipped in a couple of days and I have to say that got exactly what I had ordered . My suggection is to phone Westaway and speak to another Director. You may get a better response as there is a business link.

Regards and good luck with it , Kinsale 373
 
Word in Devon is keep your money or your sails. Hold on to one until you have the other.

In fairness, the trades that I'm aware of have been happy ones, usually chopping in old sails for new.

Maybe more down to chaos than malice.
 
Seems so. Aren't the UK small company laws a wonderful thing!
I guess they have a lot of things to escape from, but I think directors' personal liability continues notwithstanding.
 
If you had a contract with Yacht Exchange Sails, I would think it is with John Pollard personally, as he makes no mention of Westaway on his YES site, so is unlikely to benefit from the protections of the Companies Act.

To be fair to them, I have run small to medium sized companies, and when cash flow gets tight, it is not much fun. I suspect there is some desire to "do the right thing" but it seems to get away from them ... I suspect they are actually very decent sailmakers, but I would operate on a "handing over the cash as they hand over the sails, in person" methodology myself.

I actually bought a sail from them and (almost) got what I ordered, it was a decent sail, but not what I ordered and doesn't *quite* fit and was the usual selection of half-assed stories and excuses, delays etc to get it. What I actually got was a decent Hood jib, in fair shape. I don't think it would be fair to condem them completely, but I would not deal with them again.
 
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