plumbworld - website ordering & customer service problems

[John Stumbles]

A warning ...

Beginning of last week I ordered several items from plumbworld

I got a confirmation email with an order number on it (and loads of boilerplate about delivery arrangements and returns etc) and sat back to wait for my goods - or rather, for the next email saying either that they'd been dispatched or held up because some items weren't in stock.

Several days later still nothing so checked the email and saw that it said I should receive everything in 3-4 working days. Also "If there are any issues with your order we will notify you." 4 working days took me (arguably) to this Monday so when still nowt I emailed them (they don't advertise a phone number - anyone have one?) to ask what's happening. Got an automated reply promising a proper reply within 24 hours max. Over a day later still nothing.

Composing a stroppy email and about to threaten to take it up with the credit card company I thought I'd check when they'd debited my card and there was no transaction! I looked again at the order confirmation email and noticed that where it lists Order Contents it has a blank line, and it says order total £ 0.00 !! So it looks as if their system has lost ny order contents, but still processed an order for no goods.

The fact that they haven't responded to my query suggests that either they're terminally dozy or they've had a major snafu on their system and are inundated with queries from other irate customers (or possibly both :-)

Anyone else had problems?

[Dean Lambert]

If your goodds turn up and you don't pay from them don't worry

[Hywel]

The OP will still be liable to pay for them.

[Dean Lambert]

True. Personally I can't understand why someone ordered something from a site, with no telephone number or address. If you roughly know where they are based (i.e London) then try using Directory Enquires on

to get the number.

Chances are that this is a cowboy firm and they are nicking the boiler out of a empty council house as we speak.

[Bob Minchin]

Do you guys look furhter than the ends of your noses?

Yell.com shows them

Grosvenor Business Park Enterprise Way Vale Park Evesham Worcestershire WR11 1GA

Tel: [phone]

Incidentally I placed an order with them in the same time frame as the OP and have got the goods with no probs. So I may lucky or the OP unlucky?

Bob

[TTT]

I would have ordered from them but I found my local plumbers merchants were cheaper.

[John Stumbles]

Thanks, didn't think of yell. I'll try to raise them on the dog.

I'd ordered from them a couple of weeks earlier and apart from them originally proposing to hold up the whole order for a couple of weeks because a couple of cheap items weren't in stock I had no problems.

However they're a bit slow (certainly don't even claim next-day delivery like screwfix, toolstation &c) and it's galling if I have to re-place the order & wait another week for delivery. I'm also concerned that their system could be as broken as to lose my 'basket' and continue blithely with a no-items zero-cost order (did anyone test the system on obvious limit conditions? And what's their security likely to be like?) and that they were dumb enough not to pick up such an error. And I'm pissed off that they can't be arsed to reply to my enquiry in the (pretty relaxed) timeframe they promised to do so in.

[Hywel]

From their site:

Ltd Watts Building Grosvenor Business Park Enterprise Way Evesham Worcs WR11 1GA

You're wrong. I've used them and have been most impressed.

[John Stumbles]

Tried their phone number. It invites you to key in the extension number for whoever you're after, and 0 takes you to a 'there is no operator: piss off' message. 100 gets you a communal voicemailbox - I tried leaving a message but I'm not holding my breath waiting for a reply.

Eventually I reordered the main thing I wanted (Honeywell CM67 progstat) but in future I (a) won't be recommending them to any of my clients (b) will only be using them myself as a last resort.

Anyone know where to get Honeywell CM67s at anything like their price (£50-ish for the basic, non-optimum-start, model)?

[Geoff Beale]

Are you really sure you confirmed the original order??

It's easy to assume the order has been accepted, but if you miss clicking on the link, you'll end up just as you found yourself. I know. I've done it myself - although I was not quite so quick to publicly criticise the firm for my own error.

I do agree with you about their customer service arrangements. There is room for a lot of improvement their, but my experience is that once you manage to make contact they are very helpful.

[John Stumbles]

They sent me an email acknowledging the order so I must have confirmed the order. The fact that they blithely acknowledged an order which seems to have been received by them as for no goods at zero price suggests that their order processing system is pants.

I am sorry that you have received an incorrect tray. I have requested that the correct tray be sent to you immediately and that the incorrect tray collected from you on delivery of your correct tray.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused as a result of this error.

Regards

Lorraine

With regards to your new order, it was despatched with the rest of your order. Please confirm if you need me to cancel the second order.

Lorraine

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" I have never ever ordered a tray of any variety from them. However one of my clients ordered a shower tray from them which arrived today - broken, so we refused to accept the delivery. Since both my client and I live in Reading and have a first name beginning with 'J' I wonder if Plumbworld/Lorraine simply assumed that we must be the same person?

[Dean Lambert]

Or maybe the only peson that goes out, buys the stuff then sends it to you is called Lorraine

[Alec]

Try these guys :

[John Stumbles]

Have you had any dealings with them? Are they OK? (mind, they'd have to be pretty bad to be worse than Plumbworld :-)

[Andy Hall]

One thing that I've realised in dealing with most of these online plumbing and electrical materials places is that the E-commerce part is a veneer. In other words, the online part generally spits out a bit of paper which is put into their existing systems, so the results are only as good as that.

Earlier this week, I ordered some electrical items from TLC. Their system works by using your postcode and directing the order as an email to the nearest branch who are supposed to process the transaction and deliver the goods. TLC, like WF and I suspect most of the electrical wholesalers, stock the most common items at every branch and then have a larger branch or warehouse stocking the rest. The local branch then orders the balance of items needed from the main or other branches. WF have a trucking system working late night/early hours to move items between branches so that they are in place when the branch opens at 0800 or earlier.

With my order, TLC only had about a third of the items at the local branch, were able to get a few more for the next day, but the rest not for a further day, basically because although I had entered my order early on in the day nobody had looked at it and they had missed the deadline. I cancelled the order and placed it with WF, who delivered it all next day. I talked to the guy at TLC who runs the E-commerce and he admitted that it was not really connected to their stock control system. Obviously the sensible thing would be to ship out from a central warehouse but they really haven't done that.

So these really are not operations of the calibre of RS on customer service and logistics. I've had two occasions recently where they've excelled themselves. One was with a product that I'd ordered to use at a customer and had paid for the before 1000 delivery. This happened OK, but the item was faulty. I called them and they had another with me by courier from the Heathrow depot before 1200. The second was with some connectors I'd ordered. There was a discrepancy between the description on the web site and the catalogue

- web site was wrong. Literally one minute after placing the order, a customer service person phoned to clarify what I wanted.

Unfortunately web sites are not necessarily a good indicator of what goes on behind the scenes.

.andy

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[John Powell]

"> inundated with queries from other irate customers (or possibly both :-)

I've ordered stuff from them - very prompt and efficient.

hopefully your experience just a blip

John

[Alec]

Used them a while ago for an RF tank-stat, before they had an online-shop They were very helpful.

[John Stumbles]

Today I (a) received the CM67 which I reordered yesterday (pretty good, and unexpected as they hadn't sent me the email they said they'd send once it was on its way). I also got a phone call from Lorraine who'd lost the plot in her 2 emails to me yesterday: she said (a) their system had been down the day before hence the lack of the promised reply to email within 24 hours (b) she had no trace of the order I placed where the items I'd selected to order had been lost but the system had still sent me an acknowlegement email. She said she'd get someone to look into the latter problem.

All looked like a result until I tried to fit the progstat tonight when I found it's duff! (Just as well I was fitting it for myself not for a client I suppose.) Now I'm wondering how much hassle I'm in for getting it replaced.

[Nige]

The distance selling regulations should allow you to return goods. However, I've just see this in an email I got from them:

"If you change your mind about the product when you receive it you can return it at any time within 30 days in exchange for a product of the same value, or we will give you a full credit against an item of higher value."

This isn't legal AFAIK.

[Andy Hall]

I think that you will find that depends on whether he is buying as a trade person or as a consumer. A business selling product can make it clear that they are selling on a trade basis, which AFAIK means the the distance selling stuff doesn't apply.

.andy

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