Dolphin bathrooms - worth the cost?

[al]

Cheers!

a

[al]

NW London .... but then they may travel. Are they a very "local" bunch or quite big?

a

[Rob Nicholson]

What annoyed me was that they *might* be visiting somebody like an old age pensioner who might not realise that this is a complete rip off. And take their money...

Probably wouldn't happen but I'm not sure if Dolphin wouldn't take it anyway, if the purchaser didn't baulk.

Cheers, Rob.

[Rob Nicholson]

That's just what I've said and on principle, I wouldn't do any business with a company who operates like that, independent of whether the bathroom & installation quality was any good.

Cheers, Rob.

[Rob Nicholson]

We did the same but the other way around - walked into a rather expensive bathroom shop (well actually, not *that* bad) but in full evening gear (we were going out straight afterwards) and got a lot of positive attention.

Clothes maketh the man? :-)

Rob.

[Lamb]

Travel may be an issue, but it depends if they are busy or not. Likelihood is that they will always have time. Very few book more than 4 weeks ahead, its just not practical.

Local independent guys. Sure that you can find the same in NW London.

[M. Damerell]

Dolphin and Moben have figured prominently in the Guardian consumer pages. Read before you buy.

[Tony Bryer]

Nothing of course ... he's not a salesman, he's a *consultant* so it's a fee

When I used to draw plans for a conservatory company 15 years ago the salesman got 10% (I got about 1.25% for doing the plans: you can see who mattered to the firm) but this was assuming that they sold the conservatory at the [official unpublished] list price. If they could talk the customer into paying more than this or also taking finance they got a share of the excess. So if the floor price was £8K they got £800; if they could sell it for £10K they might get £1300. Either way, not bad for an evening's work. The better of the two salesman at the firm I did work for earned £86K in one year - probably £150K in today's money.

[Tony Bryer]

No prices on line but their priced catalogue is worth having as a source of reference.

As their first branch [Teddington] was just round the corner I've dealt with them for 30 years. The founder was a CH installer who opened a shop as a sideline which grew into a whole chain. At the end of last year he sold out to Travis Perkins for £22.5m - and deserved every penny. Fortunately nothing appears to have changed.

[Andy Hall]

Probably. Equally, I suspect he was on commission only or a very small base salary, so if he didn't sell he didn't eat and would ultimately or shortly get fired.

I'm not condoning the methods employed, but there is a risk/return here.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Huge]

Avoid at all costs. Utter ripoff merchants.

[N]

My wife was on about these approx. 6 months ago when we were looking around for a new bathroom - they were featured a couple of times on the BBCs Watchdog programme. No need to say that they had received complaint after complaint about bad workmanship, poor quality, jobs not finished after 12 months, etc etc.

Basically, I would recommend buying from your local plumbing merchant and try and get someone local on a recommendation (as we did) it will cost you less.

Give Dolphin a miss!!!!!!!!!

[Ed Sirett]

Agreed Dophin = Moben = (something else for Bedrooms) Their continued existence is testimony to the triumph of good marketing over poor workmanship. (The latter likely having being forced on the workmen by unrealistic demands of the management).

[rob]

have to finish it or else they go back in their own time. Thats why everything is rushed. They are expected to cover every trade electrics, plastering, tiling, plumbing, building, floor laying. Remember "Jack of all Trades = Master of none " rob

[Saeed]

In message , al writes

Oh how I wish I had consulted in a manner similar to yours before I parted with £7,000 for a bathroom suite and toilet.

I was taken in by the 50% off sale. In hindsight, I completely and utterly refuse to believe that the full price of what I bought was £14,000, so I naturally feel unsettled about the whole thing (now) anyway.

Being my first house, and so having never gone through a renovation before I was prepared to believe that if I paid for quality then I would get quality. I thought that if I got a bathroom on the cheap and got someone local to fit it, I would only have myself to blame if it was sub-standard.

Part of the service is that a surveyor checks the design and surveys the site to ensure that the work can be done without problems. Well, the guy spent 4 hours in my house and amongst the things he missed was that the walls needed to be re-plastered as the old plaster was crumbling. He also missed the poor state of the floor boards. These things only came to light when the fitters arrived and checked things over, finding these faults within 15 minutes!

The scheduling of the fitting was frustrating too. The earliest they could do it was some 6 weeks after they delivered (you pay in full prior to delivery). Then, one Sunday evening I got a call 2 weeks prior to the arranged date to say that the fitters would be arriving the following morning! Needless to say, customer services after the delivery was poor; I have learnt to be suspicious of companies that have separate lines/departments for pre sales and post sales.

The fitters themselves were likeable lads, who did a few extras (for a price), but ultimately I am left unconvinced that theirs was a work of superior craftsmanship, as the salesman had promised it would be.

In all it them 4 to 5 weeks (1 week on the job, plus odd days thereafter) to finish it.

At the end I decided that we should have had more tiling done, so I thought I'd order them and fit them myself. For 5 boxes of tiles (17 in each), they wanted to charge £500, to include fitting; they wouldn't just supply them as parts for me to fit. When I tried to look for them from other tile suppliers I discovered that Dolphin had exclusive agreement with the manufacturers (Poceram). I ended up having a word with the fitters, who said that they often had spare tiles from jobs, and as soon as they got the required number together they'd fit them and charge just labour (so long as the people who had paid for the tiles were happy for the fitters to keep the spares).

People who have come to see the finished result have said that the parts themselves are of a discernible quality and that it looks nice, but for me whenever I think of it is rare not to shake my head in disgust at my haste in spending good money.

If I knew then what I know now, I would buy good quality bath suites from somewhere and spend time finding a reputable local bathroom fitter. The way I see it, I could have got 2 or 3 sets done this way for the price of one Dolphin bathroom.

It was a couple of weeks after mine had been completed that the BBC Watchdog show did their Dolphin piece.

Kind regards,

Saeed

sr_ng 786