Can't trust anything any more ...

Following on from last week's post that someone made about a wrong order. A few days ago, I ordered some 28 AWG bus wire (tinned copper wire) from Farnell. 28 AWG is listed in most tables as being 0.321 mm diameter. The Farnell catalogue has it down as 0.33 mm, so close enough. When it arrived, and I finally managed to get through the 36 layers of industrial strength clingfilm wrapped around the spool, the wire that I found inside was like the old 5 amp fuse wire.

So, I got out my digital calipers, and checked out the first half metre or so, and got a pretty consistent 0.27 mm ...

I make that about 30 AWG. The roll was correctly labeled at 28 AWG and had the correct Farnell part number. So I emailed Farnell Technical, who used to be very good. I got an automated reply that said that they would look into my enquiry within 24 hours. Almost a day later, I got a reply that basically said "Oh dear. Alpha must have sent us the wrong product". No further explanation. No confirmation that they had checked further examples and found the same as me. No indication of what they were going to do about it or in what timeframe. So I emailed the guy back to ask him these further questions. And the mail got dumped back into the system, with an automated reply that they would look into my enquiry within 24 hours ... >:-(

Again, almost a day later, I got a mail from some girl in customer liason to say that as the value of the wrong item was small, I could keep it. There was then a highly ambiguous sentence, mainly because of really poor grammar, that may or may not indicate that another reel might soon be on its way.

I totally despair when a company like Farnell goes down the toilet like this. In the past, when you contacted technical, you got a reply within a few minutes, and the person who responded became your contact with their own email address, to see the query through to the end. Now, that all seems to have gone out of the window.

I suppose that in order to save even more money, as if they are not making enough extra by charging £3.95 on small orders for a 10p Jiffy bag and 50p of postage, they have reduced technical to one snot-nosed kid fresh out of school ...

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily
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Half the issue is that nobody knows how to make the customer service system work. Did the email have a unique number for the enquiry. I often find that companies like this number quoted in the sub line and it is then routed to the same bod who did the original. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

I was just talking about this the other night, it doesnt matter where you turn customer service is just a token gesture nowadays. I did however come across this clip below. Although meant to be a wind up the girl takes it on board and tries to please the customer she could easily have dismissed him at the very beginning.

Reply to
ss

Had a good one this week...

Ordered 2 1.5m USB-MicroUSB3 Samsung leads (normal leads are 1m, these are longer and do have a specific Samsung part number).

I got 1 1.5m lead and 1x 1m lead.

I rang them.

Sorry, they said, keep the lead and we'll post you a new 1.5m lead.

Few days later: Nothing, so contacted online chat.

Sorry, they said, out of stock, do you mind waiting a week or two?

OK, I said.

Next day, DPD arrives with a package with TWO 1m leads.

I emailed them.

We don't sell 1.5m leads, they said. Sorry for the confusion.

Yes you *** do, I replied, the part number is ET-DQ11Y1WEGWW, here's a link to your webppage quoting that part number, here's a link to Samsung's web page for that sme part number showing it is 1.5m long.

And here's a picture of the the one correct lead you sent me against a

1.5m rule.

Oh, they replied. Sorry, we don't know when we will have stock.

OK, I said, 50% refund please.

To their credit, they actioned that pronto and let me keep the 3 1m leads. I ordered the remaining 1.5m lead from Ebay.

It really is a Victor Meldrew world!

Reply to
Tim Watts

What £3.95 + postage? They have never charged me even for the £3.25 order that arrived by courier in a crisp box sized box.

Reply to
dennis
[ Justifiable annoyance deleted ]

Copper is *expensive*, so anyone who can get away with cutting corners in a fairly unnoticeable way is probably regarded as a top employee.

Reply to
Windmill

Especially if you instruct your customers to contact you at

customerservice@(name of firm)

when the actual address is

customerservices@(name of firm) (adding one little letter)

Which explains why my emails kept bouncing yesterday.

(I loved the bit where they said they couldn't correct the errors in my (postal) address due to "Data Protection Issues".

Reply to
Sam Plusnet

99% of the time, when someone says they can't do something because of "Data Protection Issues", what they really mean is "I can't be arsed".
Reply to
Huge

Suppose you know that CPC - part of the same group - do free postage and no minimum charge on all web orders?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Indeed. Or they are just ignorant.

I wonder what would happen if one insisted on speaking to the designated Data Protection Officer...

Reply to
Bob Eager

Flustered stuttering followed by disconnection ...

Reply to
Huge

Like EBay and PayPal (owned by EBay), unable to communicate with each other when a seller sends the wrong goods and doesn't want to pay for return. (They *claim* that I wouldn't have had this problem if I had a PayPal account instead of paying by Visa through PayPal, and their web site has a picture of a shifty individual saying you're protected, but I doubt it.)

Led by the politicians.

Reply to
Windmill

Rod Speed posted

"I'm sorry sir, you can't talk to the Data Protection Officer. That'd be against the Data Protection Act."

Reply to
Big Les Wade

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