For those of my regular blog readers who do not follow me on Facebook or X (formerly Twitter), Sue and I have recently been living a somewhat Kafkaesque life.
(Kafkaesque is defined as having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings.)
It all started when our existing washing machine began to leak. Despite my best endeavours to find the cause, I could not, and rather than have it repaired, we decided to buy a new one. We went online, and after looking at various options we decided to buy a replacement from Currys, one of the UK’s biggest retailers of white goods. Not only did we pay for a new washing machine, but we also paid for the old one to be removed and taken away and the new one installed.
We ordered our new washing machine on Thursday 4th January and booked a delivery slot of 11.00am to 3.00pm on Saturday 6th January. At the time we were informed that the delivery team would telephone us about thirty minutes before they would arrive, and at 1.14pm on 6th January I received a somewhat garbled and almost indistinct call to that effect.
It was at this point that we entered the parallel universes occupied by Currys and ourselves.
By 2.30pm the was no sign of the delivery van and team, so we visited Currys’ ‘Track It’ website … and discovered that it recorded the delivery as complete! We tried contacting the telephone that had called us at 1.14pm, but all it did was divert us to voicemail. Just before 3.00pm we telephoned Currys’ Helpline, who asked us to be patient and to wait until the end of the working day before we reported the missing washing machine to them.
Next morning - Sunday 7th January - we telephoned the Helpline again, and after trying to check with the (closed) depot, the missing washing machine was noted as being missing. We wrote about what had happened on X and were almost immediately asked to direct message Currys about the problem. We did this … and carried on messaging them day after day, again and again!
We suggested that there were four possible reasons why our washing machine had not been delivered to us.
- It had never been loaded onto the delivery van.
- It had been delivered to the wrong address.
- It had been stolen from the van.
- It had never been taken off the van and had been returned to the depot.
Currys did not respond to any of these suggestions other than to repeatedly tell us to remain patient whilst their investigation team would take between 7 to 14 days (!) to look into the matter. In the meantime, Currys had taken payment for the missing washing machine even though this seems to contravene the Consumer Right Act (2015) as they took payment after the washing machine had been reported as not having been delivered.
By Saturday 20th January the investigation was complete … and we were told that our washing machine had been delivered and fitted and the matter was closed. However, in the interim we had done some investigations of our own, and in our universe, we had managed to find it … but not where Currys insisted it was!
Back in the nineteenth century, the road that we live on went downhill from the summit of Shooters Hill and after crossing Herbert Road, turned left and ran parallel with Woolwich Common. As the area was developed, the two halves of the road were split in two. The upper half - where we live - became Eglinton HILL and the lower half became Eglinton ROAD. Subsequently, when the Post Office allocated postcodes to every location in the UK, by sheer coincidence our section of Eglinton Hill was allocated a postcode that was one letter different from a section of Eglinton Road, those letters being D and S … which are next to each other on a QWERTY keyboard.
On Friday we visited the house with the same number and almost identical postcode to ours … and discovered that on 6th January Currys had delivered and installed a washing machine! This had been done whilst most of the family had been out and the only person present was the 14-year-old son of the homeowner.
We returned on Saturday 20th January and spoke to the homeowner. He had been trying to contact Currys to ask for his washing machine back, but with little success. Furthermore, he was very upset that a perfectly good washing machine had been taken from his house and replaced by the one we had ordered … and that was not as good as the one that had been taken away.
Currys have been informed of these facts and given the contact details of the aggrieved householder, but to date they are still refusing to acknowledge that they delivered our washing machine to the wrong address and took away somebody else’s washing machine instead of our old one. In their universe, a washing machine has been delivered and an old one taken away … and that’s all that their investigation team seems to be concerned about. The fact that their delivery team did not realise that the name on the delivery note was different from that of the household they had delivered to nor that they had left any paperwork pertaining to the delivery seems to have been completely ignored. Likewise, it would appear that the investigation team had not checked the relevant delivery vehicle tracking log to see the locations it had stopped at between 1.00pm and 2.00pm on Saturday 6th January. Their ‘Track It’ system says that the washing machine has been delivered to the address on the delivery note… so case closed!
We have asked for our money back, the aggrieved householder in Eglinton Road wants his washing machine back, and Curry’s maintains that everything is hunky-dory and there is nothing to investigate. We have now appealed against the investigation team's decision that the matter was closed, citing the results of our investigations in support of our appeal.
As the Chinese proverb states, ‘May you live in interesting times’.
Since I drafted this blog post, Currys' investigation team have passed the matter on to the delivery centre for further investigation.
One wonders why they didn't do this in the first place!
.jpg)
