Westaway Sails / John Pollard

I bourght a second hand jib from them. I paid, as invoiced, they shipped next day. Arrived as promised. Happy customer.

I do seem to have a really bad rep on here, but I have to say, I had no problems. No saying the op and others aren't right, but felt I should post about my experience.
 
As with Phill our Westaway sail delivered on time and has served us well ,we bring our sails home to have them serviced and winterised by them.
 
My experience with Yes Exchange / John Pollard.

Purchased three sails for a new rig setup (genoa, jib and main) two weeks ago after lengthy discussions with John. The genoa was to have a new UV strip fitted (blue, to match the jib), and the mainsail was to have A014 slides fitted.

Received an email 16 Sep that funds had been received and sails would be ready 25th Sep. Great. Double checked on the 24th Sep and was told "they are packaged waiting for you". Fantastic.

Today (2nd Sep), drove down to Westaway to collect sails. Arrived bright and early and was greeted by a large sail bag, all ready to go with sails packed inside. Thought we'd take them out to double check everything and found the following:

- Genoa had been swapped for a different sail with a 2m longer luff.
- No UV strips on either sail.
- No sliders fitted to mainsail.

I'm sure you can imagine my reaction. The saving grace at this time has been one of the Westaway employees, who got straight to work re-cutting the genoa, ordering the UV material for both headsails and sorting out the mainsail. Brilliant customer service and even called back this afternoon to advise there weren't reefs in the mainsail (as it was ex-luff rope), but he could swap it for a different sail that had reefs and sliders, and just needed the foot shortening.

The same Westaway employee advised the sails will be ready Tuesday morning so I'll be doing another 400 mile round trip to collect them then.

This could well have just been a misunderstanding / simple confusion (esp. with the Southampton Boat Show) and will all be sorted come Tuesday morning, but there'll be an update either way - good, bad or otherwise.

n
 
Update on the above.

Have had a number of email exchanges with John over the past couple of days confirming all remedial work to be completed, and have been assured the sails will be ready Tuesday for me to drive down, inspect and collect.

Update to follow.

n
 
Sail collection update.

Drove down this morning to collect sails at 09:30. Was 30 mins early but no problems; John showed me the sails in the loft, we did a full inspection of each and other than a minor (and quite quick) tweak to the genoa, all done, bagged up and ready to be shipped to our boat. They're in better condition than I expected for used sails, the UV strips have been stitched on solidly as have the reef points, and John was happy to throw in some extra sliders in case we need them down the road.

If you'd asked me last Thursday if I'd have bought another sail from Westaway, my answer would have been a firm no. Three days later, with a fair explanation from John about why the mistake happened and a nice set of sails ready to fit, I'm a pretty happy customer and would definitely go back for more sails.

n
 
I would NEVER EVER EVER use them again! What a total shower of **** they are! They refunded just as I was going legal (which appears to be their way!!). From my experience - DO NOT USE THEM!!

Ian
 
John Pollard/ Westaway/YES/ and a female nfd are working a con.
JP quotes me a wow price-£720 for 2 new headsails for manufacture/delivery mid May. I phone in my debit card details [to the female]. So they whizz £1020 off my card. I challenge them when I see this unauthorized amount on my bank statement 2 days later- oh it was a mistake! Offer to refund the £300 [a stalling tactic]. It was not forthcoming after 5 days. So I cancel the order and ask for full refund. Guess what- Nothing. Is it theft or fraud? Reported to VISA.
 
From what I recently heard, very sad times for a once great sail loft; I can understand things must be very hard in that part of the country, but a poor reputation for an underhand approach never helps - seems either a change of management & strategy is required or they're history.
 
We bought from them very happily before the original owner sold the business. Subsequently had them make and fit a stack pack which was poorly made and required lots of phone calls before we could get them to fit. We decided then we would not use them again.
 
MartinMollusc said:
John Pollard/ Westaway/YES/ and a female nfd are working a con.
JP quotes me a wow price-£720 for 2 new headsails for manufacture/delivery mid May. I phone in my debit card details [to the female]. So they whizz £1020 off my card. I challenge them when I see this unauthorized amount on my bank statement 2 days later- oh it was a mistake! Offer to refund the £300 [a stalling tactic]. It was not forthcoming after 5 days. So I cancel the order and ask for full refund. Guess what- Nothing. Is it theft or fraud? Reported to VISA.
Click to expand...

Exact same thing happened to me!
Paid with credit card fortunately, received money back from card company eventually, about six months after an unbelievable amount of hassle.
 
pragmatist said:
We bought from them very happily before the original owner sold the business. Subsequently had them make and fit a stack pack which was poorly made and required lots of phone calls before we could get them to fit. We decided then we would not use them again.
Click to expand...

pragmatist,

for interest any idea when the change of management took place ?
 
While I sometimes have a pop at companies that provide really poor service, my recent experience with Exchange Sails was good (in March this year). I spotted a second hand spinnaker on their website and dropped them an email. I got a call back from John, chatted through whether it was a good bet for my boat, haggled a bit and agreed on a price of £440 delivered, including side launch bag thrown in. Arrived shortly afterwards and I've used it a couple of times this year. No complaints, although it does sound like I was lucky.
 
I had no problem at all.....all in the last 2 weeks...

ordered a 2nd hand cruising chute with snuffer (probably wouldn't have done if I had seen this post first), it arrived on a sale on return basis, it was not quite what I had wanted, a little small, so they collected (at their cost) and refunded completely (inc carriage both ways)

recommended as far as I am concerned.
 
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