Original complaint letter pasted below. The service required
was suit hire for my wedding. No reponse to letter sent on 1 October.
We are wanting a refund of the hire of the trews and some compensation
for the extreme inconvenience caused to me, my husband and several
members of both families.
"Dear Sir
I am writing in regard to the extremely poor service which my
husband and I received from the Kilt Hire Co during our wedding
on 31 August 2002. There were so many parts of the service provided
which were most unsatisfactory that there is a need to list them
below:
Four of the suits on the order were marked on invoices etc that
they were to be picked up on the morning of 29 August, this being
the Thursday before the wedding. I telephoned the shop on the
morning and was reassured that all items were ready to be picked
up. When my father arrived to pick them up having driven from
Lancashire, he was most annoyed to be told that the items actually
hadn’t arrived at the shop and that someone had ‘forgotten’
to make the delivery and as a result they would not be available
for pick up until 6pm on the same day. Upon finally arriving the
items were marked ‘29/08 - 10am pick up’. Not only
did someone lie to me by informing me that they were being delivered,
but my father was forced to wait in Edinburgh for several hours
when he should have been in St Andrews where the wedding was being
held, assisting with other arrangements.
The shoes for four of the orders were in extremely bad state
and most unsuitable for a wedding party. My father in law who
was picking up the rest of the suits was told that ‘they
would do’ by the staff serving him. The response was that
they most definitely would not do and as a result shoes were couriered
to St Andrews on the night before the wedding making the male
members of the wedding party concerned about their arrival at
a time when there is enough to worry about. My father in law was
informed by the staff in the shop that they had noticed that the
shoes were a little dirty the previous day but that they had done
nothing about it.
My father in law was further informed that the shoes had been
out for a wedding the weekend before but had not been cleaned
since. When paying over £800 for suit hire for a wedding,
you do not expect to be receiving dirty garments which have not
been washed or cleaned.
The suit which was ordered for the page boy (who is aged 4) was
more suitable for a boy aged 10. As a result he could not wear
the Kilt Hire suit jacket and we had to hire another jacket from
a St Andrews hire shop which cost a further £20. We also
had to buy braces to stop the trousers from falling down at a
further cost of £10.
As my wedding gift to my husband I purchased him the tartan trews
which he wore on the day. To keep it a surprise the shop were
advised to continue with the hire of his outfit as he had arranged,
but to provide a refund for the price of hiring the trews which
of course on the day he didn’t have. The refund for the
trews was never provided and as a result we have ended up buying
and hiring the same pair of trews for the event. I want a refund
of this amount immediately.
The trews which I bought for my husband were ordered and the
deposit paid on 1 May 2002. The item was only ready for collection
on 29 August. With so much else to organise for the wedding, I
was hoping that ordering the trews so early would mean that the
matter was dealt with and I would not need to worry about the
matter nearer the time. However I was having to make weekly telephone
calls to the shop to see what stage the order was at, and was
constantly told that the matter was being dealt with. For the
trews to be ready for pick up on 29 August, just under four months
after the order and only two days before the event, I find it
hard to believe that the order was ever being dealt with at all
until mid August.
The Kilt Hire Company must deal with weddings on a weekly basis
at least. It was unacceptable that the service provided by your
Haymarket branch should be so amazingly poor and that the arrangements
made with the shop were ignored. My husband and I were incredibly
lucky for everything else to go to plan for the wedding. Had we
been relying on individuals as incompetent as the people in your
Haymarket shop it might have been a very different story.
I would like an explanation of why the service was so horrendous
and would also like a refund for the hire of the trews immediately
by return. I can reassure you that we will never be using the
Kilt Hire Co again and will be advising colleagues of ours to
do the same. We are also considering voicing our disgust with
the service provided in various wedding media so that other happy
couples are saved from the frustration that you have caused on
the most important day of our lives.
Yours sincerely
Tina Hankin
(previously Hodgson)
Wife of Alistair Hankin.
