This past Christmas, my missus and I purchased one of our nine-year-old son’s Santa gifts from a certain UK sports retail company that also has many stores here in Ireland. It was a football rebounder — kind of like a trampoline that you kick the ball at and it bounces back to you. Anyway, we purchased it from their Irish website and thought nothing more of it.
A few days went by, and we got a notification from the courier company that there were customs charges due on something. As you can imagine, we’d bought many things for the kids, so we had to double-check what we’d ordered. We didn’t have anything left that was being imported, so we naturally assumed it was a scam. I told my wife to call the company and find out who shipped it, and it was a different courier company based in the UK. After a bit of digging and investigating, it turned out that it was our rebounder. They had shipped it from the UK via a local carrier to [Courier Company] to deliver to us.
My wife and I are both on disability. An additional charge of almost €50 when you’re both already on a fixed income is harsh, especially at Christmas, so I told her to pay it and I’d deal with the retailer.
The first day I called, I had to call three times, being stuck on hold for at least twenty minutes each time. I was patient and polite because I’ve worked in a call centre before, so I knew those people were only doing their job, but I asked to speak to a manager and was promised a call back each time that never happened.
The second day was quite similar.
On the third day, I was starting to get annoyed, so I called back, waiting even longer on hold, and finally wasn’t taking this s*** any longer. I told the representative that all I wanted was the €50 back because our consumer rights in Ireland dictate that a person must be informed of any additional charges on a purchase by the final checkout screen at the very latest, and in this case, there was nothing to show that. I could easily replicate that issue by putting the same item in my basket and going all the way to the checkout screen again, and there was nothing saying we’d have to pay import charges.
The representative was indifferent to the situation but tried to “help”, and what he said sent me over the edge. He offered me a measly €20 gift voucher to use on their website, but more importantly, he read a statement to me.
Representative: “We advise our customers that there may be DDU charges (Delivery Duty Unpaid, i.e. customs charges) on any item that gets shipped outside of the UK.”
Me: “Where does it state this information?”
He paused for a moment.
Representative: “I don’t actually know.”
Me: “Well, I know one thing: it doesn’t say it anywhere on this transaction because I’ve checked. And because this is a violation of my consumer rights, I’m going to give your company one last chance to make this right. Have your manager call me within the next sixty minutes, or I’m going to post this entire debacle on LinkedIn and link every senior officer in your company!”
Then, I hung up the phone and waited. Yet again, no call.
The next day, I went on LinkedIn and followed through on my promise. I created a post detailing what they had done by sticking us with hidden charges, mentioning that they were ignoring our requests for a manager, and everything they said and did. Then, I tagged EVERY senior officer at that company from the regional managers, through the European directors, all the way to the CEO, and I shamed them for how they operated their company. This, ladies and gentlemen, was now an act of war.
Shortly after I posted that, I noticed that they took down the item from their website in an attempt to hide this, but they must have thought I was a simpleton who doesn’t understand how the Internet works. They didn’t realise that when you searched for “rebounder” on their site, it showed the item in question, so I took a screenshot of that and then another of the item page that was now “missing”. Then, I did a Google cache search for the same page and found a version from two days prior happily showing the item.
I added a comment to my original post highlighting how they were trying to hide it, with the evidence, and trolling them for their heinous behaviour, ESPECIALLY at Christmas. Then, I tagged and shamed all the senior officers again.
At that point, it was really starting to get some attention, not only publicly, but three people in “incognito mode” had viewed my profile. I wonder who they could have been.
So, naturally, I took a screenshot of the three mysterious visitors listed on my profile and did the same thing: commented on my own post highlighting it and trolling them for their incompetence.
The next morning, I got a call from a senior executive at their head office in the UK practically licking my boots with apologies, asking what she could do to make this right.
Me: “I originally only wanted my €50 back as it wasn’t fair, nor even legal, that I had to pay it, but since I had to go to such lengths to get your attention, now I want my €50 back and a full refund on my entire purchase, and I want to keep the product. That is the only thing that will make this go away.”
Senior Executive: “Give me a couple of hours to fix it.”
Me: “Okay.”
About an hour later, I got another call from her again apologising. She asked for my PayPal address and sent the €50, then she refunded the whole purchase, and she let us keep the product. Obviously, I thanked her for her help because at that stage I was just happy it was over, but I’ll be f***ed if I’ll let anyone walk all over my family, even if they are a £58,000,000 annual company.
The moral of the story here is: don’t take bulls*** from anyone. I may be just one man, but my son’s view of Santa is FAR more valuable to me than the opinion of some retail chain that doesn’t care about its customers or how it operates ethically.
