Terrible Service, A Bit Of A Rant

[Ben]

keep us updated
I would like to see this little brat get sorted out.

DD

 

[colinco]

Hello,
as the manager of Maidenhead Aquatics @ Syon Park I was informed of this post by a colleague from another store of ours. I have read it beginning to end with great interest and I must say great disappointment that you feel you have been poorly treated by my staff.

Also I am afraid that my area manager (who's phone number you were given) is now out of the country and unavailable, but we have spoken and I would also like to speak with you regarding the service you recieved.

Hopefully you will all agree that Maidenhead Aquatics has as a whole (in my opinion) a good reputation for customer service. And it is certaintly something that we strive to achieve.

So when an issue like this arises, we have as much interest to do whatever is necessary to resolve the situation - and to be honest - be seen to be doing whatever we can to do so as a reputable company.

I must say that if you do ever experience any problem at any of our stores, please do contact the manager, I apologise that I wasn't in on that particular day, but in these cases we rely on you the customer to inform us were we fail (and hopefully were we succeed) so that we can offer you a better service and address were it has gone wrong.

I have spoken to my staff about what has happened, and as far as I can determine from your comments, I believe you were treated poorly, mostly down to the shop being left understaffed around lunchtime - an issue I am very unhappy with. This resulted in the one person in the store partly being worried for the security of the till area and as a result has not provided the care, attention or service you should quite rightly expect from Maidenhead Aquatics. For this I apologise profusely and assure you that this matter is being taken very seriously.

Sadly I must say I disagree with the comments regarding the pricing of the fish.

Having looked closely at the sign, I will admit the hand writing portrays a continental 7 very poorly, however in no way can I deduce a 4. I do believe honestly that the fish was priced up at £75.

Obviously the visit as a whole was dissatisfactory for you and I can understand the irritation caused at what should be a happy and festive time of year.

Can I take this opportunity, as a sign of goodwill, to offer you this Prochilodus that you were very obviously keen to add to your collection free of charge. Hopefully by means of this gesture you will return to our store and continue to give us your custom that we do value very highly.

I would also like to point out that in my opinion we do offer a very good service to our customers, and I am not accustomed to dealing with situations of this nature. I am determined to make sure this lapse in our high standards does not happen again.

I am afraid due to a house move I will not be able to answer e-mails easily but please do contact me at the store on 0208 568 7776 and I will gladly discuss the matter with you.

Regards,
Colin Christian

 

[Durbkat]

Thats really nice of you. I'll go get CFC so he can read this.

 

[Amerce]

dude thats annoying, in england if you have a price tag on something, you have to sell it at that price... Im a manager of a shop most of you probably know called phones 4 u, i manage 4 shops in my area and in some cases ive had a phone marked a wrong price but the customer pays what the phone is marked at, under no circumstances will that change with any product becuase its an english law! anyway that pet shop sounds like its not worth giving them your money and your custom,

I have a similar story, my girlfreind went to a more local pet shop round here in serach for a 3foot hood with light for my christmas present (yayy) When she got there, she said 'do you sell a hood with a light for a 3 foot tank' and let me tell you now, she knows nothing about fish and tanks, aparently the guy turned around and just gave her a strange and aggresive look, he then later said 'what measurements' so she then said 3 foot one of your tanks' , he replied to her there all diffrent sizes, youll have to go back and do your homework love' with this, she felt quite intimidated with the guy and found it very hard to even talk to them about possible sizes it could be. I called him up and told him who it was and asked why he was being such a burk with my gf, He said 'sorry i just get sick of people not knowing what they want'. I said 'you run a shop, you need to help people in order to get sales'. Anyway i went in the shop the next day with my gf and he soon took the aggresive look of his face and i bassicly said to him its a good job you didnt upset her or you might be wearing one of your tanks....... Bassicly i find what it comes down to, alot of pet shop owners/workers simply start to get a big ego and annoyed with shall we say less experienced fish keepers but we all are new to it at some point and we all need help, prefrebly unaggresive nice helpfull people like you lot, anyway if you read all that then maybe someof you have had similar experiences and would like to ***** further onit, have a great christmas all and thanks for all your help,

Think you may be confused, CFC is from London so the business about the advertised price being a legal obligation in the UK didn't work at Maidenhead.

If I were CFC then I'd mention this in the letter to the head office and see where that gets you, too many people just give in and don't stand up for their rights.

Power to the people I say !!

 

[ncjharris]

I was reading this with interest, as our best LFS is a Maidenhead and it has been v. good at sorting out problems. I would echo that the only problems we have ever incurred have been with saturday staff, who aren't fish keepers and don't really know what they are doing.

An interesting conclusion from MA - it would be interesting to consider what the resolution may have been, had CFC taken this up with a letter and not on a fish forum with 10,000 members!

Continuing the legal theme, the display of a price for any item is called the 'invitation to treat' - it is not the offer of a price for acceptance, but the offer for a customer to enter a contract. It is merely a statement of the price and not an invitation to sell.
For anyone who cares, the relevant legal cases are Partridge v Crittenden (1968) and The Pharmaceutical Soc. of GB v Boots Cash Chemists (1953).

 

[CFC]

Hello,
as the manager of Maidenhead Aquatics @ Syon Park I was informed of this post by a colleague from another store of ours. I have read it beginning to end with great interest and I must say great disappointment that you feel you have been poorly treated by my staff.

Also I am afraid that my area manager (who's phone number you were given) is now out of the country and unavailable, but we have spoken and I would also like to speak with you regarding the service you recieved.

Hopefully you will all agree that Maidenhead Aquatics has as a whole (in my opinion) a good reputation for customer service. And it is certaintly something that we strive to achieve.

So when an issue like this arises, we have as much interest to do whatever is necessary to resolve the situation - and to be honest - be seen to be doing whatever we can to do so as a reputable company.

I must say that if you do ever experience any problem at any of our stores, please do contact the manager, I apologise that I wasn't in on that particular day, but in these cases we rely on you the customer to inform us were we fail (and hopefully were we succeed) so that we can offer you a better service and address were it has gone wrong.

I have spoken to my staff about what has happened, and as far as I can determine from your comments, I believe you were treated poorly, mostly down to the shop being left understaffed around lunchtime - an issue I am very unhappy with. This resulted in the one person in the store partly being worried for the security of the till area and as a result has not provided the care, attention or service you should quite rightly expect from Maidenhead Aquatics. For this I apologise profusely and assure you that this matter is being taken very seriously.

Sadly I must say I disagree with the comments regarding the pricing of the fish.

Having looked closely at the sign, I will admit the hand writing portrays a continental 7 very poorly, however in no way can I deduce a 4. I do believe honestly that the fish was priced up at £75.

Obviously the visit as a whole was dissatisfactory for you and I can understand the irritation caused at what should be a happy and festive time of year.

Can I take this opportunity, as a sign of goodwill, to offer you this Prochilodus that you were very obviously keen to add to your collection free of charge. Hopefully by means of this gesture you will return to our store and continue to give us your custom that we do value very highly.

I would also like to point out that in my opinion we do offer a very good service to our customers, and I am not accustomed to dealing with situations of this nature. I am determined to make sure this lapse in our high standards does not happen again.

I am afraid due to a house move I will not be able to answer e-mails easily but please do contact me at the store on 0208 568 7776 and I will gladly discuss the matter with you.

Regards,
Colin Christian

Thankyou for the reply, i did try to contact the area manager a few times but each time only got through to the answer phone, i gathered that it was most likely down to the time of year and planned to try again after the christmas period was over. Your offer of the Prochilodus free of charge is very kind and i will gladly take you up on it, i have never had any previous problems with the store and have purchased many fish from there as well as trading in fry from my breeding tanks so was very suprised at the quality of service on Christmas eve. I will phone you at the store tomorrow (monday 2nd jan) to arrange a time to pick up the Prochilodus.
Again thankyou for dealing with the matter so well

Dean (CFC)

 

[Fishkeeper2004]

dude thats annoying, in england if you have a price tag on something, you have to sell it at that price... Im a manager of a shop most of you probably know called phones 4 u, i manage 4 shops in my area and in some cases ive had a phone marked a wrong price but the customer pays what the phone is marked at, under no circumstances will that change with any product becuase its an english law! anyway that pet shop sounds like its not worth giving them your money and your custom,

You're actually completely wrong mate. The marked up price is an offer of sale price. The only relevant price is that which the shop-keeper accepts it for. The only reason to accept the lower price is to keep customer goodwill.

It is certainly not set down in statute, cos otherwise how did Argos get out of not providing a number of tellies a while ago for 27p where someone put the price on wrong on the internet site?

CFC - Bad luck mate. Hopefully you'll find something nicer anyhow.

Actually, it is english law for them to sell at the lower marked up price. It has happened upon numerous occasions to me and my family, and we always get the lower price. If the product is marked upto that value, its the value it must be sold at - end of story.

As for the original subject, the nearest thing fish related I have got to that was when they tried to sell me 6 guppys for double the price they were marked up for, it took over 30 minutes to get the manager down 'just to check the marked price', so he could ring it through correctly via the till. Wasn't happy at all, but they did give us a credit note to spend on other fish.

 

[Bloo]

Actually, it is english law for them to sell at the lower marked up price.

Actually, it really isn't. A few "googles" will give you enough on this law to prove a point. My example just one of many to be found (look in particular at the last couple of paragraphs).

To the original subject, it's really great to see such a good outcome. I have always been a MA fan and have never had any problems, but if this was not resolved satisfactory, I would have thought twice about giving my future custom.

 

[Durbkat]

Oh will you all PLEASE stop arguing about laws you've been going on and on and on about, just drop it CFC got what he wanted and we should be happy for him not arguing about how the fish should have been sold at the price on the tank when the manager just said that it was a poorley writen 7.

 

[Fishkeeper2004]

Definately not clear.

What happens if a shop charges more than their advertised price?

It could be breaking the law and risk prosecution. The Consumer Protection Act says that it's illegal to sell things for the higher price, but if the shop has made a genuine mistake, such as putting the wrong price ticket on by accident, it is very unlikely that it would be charged with an offence. Everyone can make mistakes, after all. If you feel that a shop is deliberately trying to con you or you're unhappy about the way it advertises its prices, get in touch with Trading Standards

It sounds to me like in this case they would be breaking the law, however on a wider scale shops could easily escape prosecution by saying its been mistakenly marked up wrong. It all depends on the circumstances.

 

[Bloo]

Oh will you all PLEASE stop arguing about laws you've been going on and on and on about, just drop it CFC got what he wanted and we should be happy for him not arguing about how the fish should have been sold at the price on the tank when the manager just said that it was a poorley writen 7.

Durbkat, it's not an argument - and quite important that people here in the UK understand their rights, should they find themselves in a similar situation such as CFC. A very valuable lesson to be learnt and understood by all, and very relevant to this event.

 

[Durbkat]

Well it seemed like it to me....never mind )

 

[debiasir]

really good outcome

 

[andywg]

Definately not clear.

What happens if a shop charges more than their advertised price?

It could be breaking the law and risk prosecution. The Consumer Protection Act says that it's illegal to sell things for the higher price, but if the shop has made a genuine mistake, such as putting the wrong price ticket on by accident, it is very unlikely that it would be charged with an offence. Everyone can make mistakes, after all. If you feel that a shop is deliberately trying to con you or you're unhappy about the way it advertises its prices, get in touch with Trading Standards

It sounds to me like in this case they would be breaking the law, however on a wider scale shops could easily escape prosecution by saying its been mistakenly marked up wrong. It all depends on the circumstances.

As far as I am aware, The Consumer Protection Act 1987 only details that you can claim if a product is faulty and causes death, injury or damage to property over £275. If a store is deliberately advertising products at a lower price and then selling them at a higher price then it can be cause for prosecution, but that is nothing at all like this case. You would have to prove intent, which in legal terms is a bloody hard thing to do! I know because a fair part of my job is finding evidence to a legal level of intent to do something.

Are you not reading all the legal details and links? It is set down in case law (as valid an area as legal statute) that the marked price is an invitation to enter into a sale contract, not the price that the product must be bought at. Many places when advised of the error will honour the marked price to ensure goodwill is not lost.

It is perfectly clear, it's just a myth that people have that a marked price is the price it must be sold at. It isn't, otherwise they could not offer discounts as that would be breaking the contract entered into when the sale price was put up. There is no contract. That is why they can just refuse to sell it to you. There is no contract until the final sale price is agreed by both parties. Simple as...

All in all, at least Dean got a good result.

 

[BettaUK]

Hi CFC,

Glad to see you have had a responce from the branch manager, it's nice to see a manager using the board and replying with a responce. Syon Park branch of Maidenhead aquatics is also my LFS

Have you been over to the branch to see Colin and collect the fish in question??

After all the confusion it would be a good idea, if the store could print their reservoir price lists instead of using those laminated hand written ones, that are not very clear. I have looked at a few plecs in the bottom reservoir tanks and the species & prices are often very confusing or fish in the tanks not even listed.

Best Regards

BettaUK