Hi Archimago!
Sorry that I've missed the boat on your survey - my life has literally
been on fire for the last fortnight for reasons totally out of my
control. Nevertheless, I hope that you got a good response & I look
forward to seeing the results...
In the meantime, I now have an "as new" Pathos Endorphin in my
possession (after a 500 mile road trip & an overnight stay in Sheffield
- sadly not the vibrant place it was when they produced the finest
steel.
And just this morning I finally caught up with the INPOL-2 guy, so
things could come together there as well.
I lot of time was unexpectedly taken up by what should have been a
straightforward Amazon Marketplace purchase of a new Dyson vacuum to
replace my 10 year-old but perfectly functional old model (which has
even withstood collecting all the bits of glass from a car window that I
inadvertently shattered in a futile attempt to close it after one of the
cables for the electric control mechanism rusted through & snapped. My
options were: 1. turn the car upside down & shake it; 2. take the door
off, turn it upside down & shake it; & 3. slyly use the Dyson when my
significant other was otherwise occupied. Tricky decision, but I went
for #3: it worked a treat, I emptied the dust bin to remove the
evidence, & she never found out - just as well, she'd have skinned me
alive. ;) ) but which had become awkward for me to use because of my
arthritis in my spine.
So I ordered the "animal" version with a couple of turbo heads to
extract pet hair from my wool carpet (my big dog days are done because
of my back - they have low level 4-wheel drive & I no longer have the
ability to brace up sufficiently to rein them in. Pity, I love dogs, & I
believe that the big ones make much better pets once you have trained
them properly. HOWEVER, I still have the 18 year old cat who takes great
satisfaction in moulting *-everywhere-*, just because she can, lol). And
I get the "Multi Floor" version of the same basic vacuum cleaner, but
which doesn't have the required turbine heads. So I e-mail the guy,
pointing out that he's sent me a cheaper model of the Dyson, not the one
he advertised & that it doesn't suit so I need a return label (at his
expense - his mistake, Amazon have a page for the "Multi Floor" model,
he's advertised his product in the wrong slot). That should have been it
- but no, he steadfastly insists that he's sent the right thing & if it
isn't what I want, it's my mistake & I have to pay to return it. This
would have been difficult because, contrary to the Consumer Contract
Regulations, he hasn't sent an invoice or delivery note & there is no
return address on the parcel, so because Amazon anonymises stuff I have
no idea who he is. This was Friday 1 September. I haven't even broken
the seal on the box, it was obvious from the packaging that it was not
the correct item. So I order the right one from another online retail
market (which was actually £11 cheaper, lol) & endeavour patiently to
explain to him where he's in error. Brick wall! After SIX e-mails, even
my patience was exhausted & I told him that I'd be in touch with Amazon
Customer Services...
Who I duly 'phoned at 07:30hrs on Saturday 2 September 2017, to advise
that despite my best efforts I couldn't get this guy to admit his error,
that I wasn't prepared to waste any more time e-mailing him & they would
have to take over.
Then I collected the real thing from a local store collection point
around 14:30hrs on Saturday. I proceeded to take a beautiful (!) set of
photos of the 2 boxes side-by-side, including close-ups of the paperwork
to prove that I had ordered & collected the item I actually wanted
*-after-* the arrival of the incorrect Amazon order (just got this
feeling that I might otherwise be accused of switching the boxes over...
). And sent them. Slowly... I had to use the Outlook cloud server, & it
was obviously a little over-burdened - it took about 24 hours for my
laptop to successfully fire them up my fibre-optic broadband connection
(which itself regularly clocks in at 5MB/s, so the throttling wasn't at
my end).
I suggested to Amazon that they tried downloaded my snaps around
04:00hrs BST, before Europe woke up! Anyway, one way or another they got
them, & despite advising that the investigation for claims under their A
to Z guarantee scheme covering their Marketplace platform, they were
obviously impressed by the sheer quality of my snaps & promptly issued a
full refund on Wednesday 6 September - which actually cleared in my bank
a/c on Thursday 7 September (that must be some kind of record for the UK
banking system, lol, again Amazon state that a delay of 5-7 working days
should be expected...
So finally, I have the high ground: I have the Dyson I wanted at a
seriously cheap price (& boy does it work - one sweep is all you need -
it pulled half a dust bag full of gunk out of my wool carpet in my
lounge which had presumably been accumulating for 10 years, even though
it was vacuumed a week before with my old model: the carpet now looks
like new!), I have my money back for the bum deal, *-bull-* I still have
a big unopened box, now partially obstructing my hallway. More e-mails +
calls to Amazon Customer Services...
They seem to be as baffled as me. The vendor has by now rejected my
return request on the grounds that I haven't returned the product! Quite
apart from the fact that the return postage is down to him, I have no
way of sending it back because I don't have his name & address. I point
out to Amazon that legal title to the (unwanted) goods has now passed to
them when they issued the refund & the best course of action would be
for them to give me a return label & send the vacuum cleaner to them, so
that they at least had something to flog in return for their refund.
But no! On Sunday 10 September I am advised 1. Amazon don't want it
(Jeff Bezos obviously has bigger things on his mind, lol) & 2. if I
don't get a return label from the vendor within 48 hours, I am free to
dispose of the item in any way that I see fit! All this about a
disagreement over return postage cost!?!
Well, now it's Thursday 14 September, *-still-* no return label,
deadline thoroughly expired. What to do? It's a funny story really, so
it seems churlish to seek to profit from it, even though I could easily
knock the thing out on eBay or Gumtree (our local area auction site). So
I called an excellent local hospice & offered it to them *-on condition
that they actually use it-*, rather than raffle it or sell it. Once I
explained what it was & how thoroughly & quickly it cleans, they went
for my offer - I'm dropping it around in the morning.
Almost unbelievable, but not *-quite-*...
Dave
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