AN OPEN
LETTER TO MOBEN KITCHENS:
Customer Services Director,
Moben Kitchens
Brindley Road
Old Trafford
Manchester
M16 9HQ.
Ref:- Order Number XXXXX
Dear sir,
I am an extremely unhappy customer of Moben Kitchens. Judging by the
number of customer complaints I have seen on consumer web sites since
placing my order with Moben, I am not the only one. I look forward to
receiving your reply to this letter although I can't help wondering if
my comments will immediately be filed in a wastebin if the service received
when calling the 0161 872 2422 telephone number is anything to go by then
it's unlikely that you'll even read this letter to the end!
I signed up for a kitchen from yourselves; order reference XXXXX(£5150).
A 25% deposit was taken immediately and it was made clear that the rest
of the payment will be taken on delivery of the kitchen after a surveyor
has checked the drawings of the salesperson.
You were very keen to get a surveyor to my property. Indeed, he arrived
2 days after the sales person -excellent service so far. He had to make
some adjustments to the original plans and because one of the wall cupboards
ordered was smaller, ( a 1000 wall unit was replaced with a 680 wall unit)
I asked if a cheaper price could be obtained. A reduction of £55
on the overall price was offered which I accepted.
Very quickly after the surveyor left, Moben were in touch to book a delivery
date - this was set for November 26th. The delivery arrived on time and
a request for the outstanding amount was requested. It wasn't until after
I checked the amount that I realised that the £55 had not been taken
from the overall price. Even though I have made numerous phone calls to
yourselves requesting this money to be refunded, I am still awaiting a
response.
After a phone call to yourselves ( I received no call saying when my
installation was scheduled for) it was determined that the installation
was set for December 5th so my partner and myself prepared the kitchen
by removing tiles and goods from the kitchen. I took the day off work
and my partner's parents bought more food so that we could eat at their
house during installation.
At 8.30 PM on December 4th, I was called by the contractor who had been
assigned to fit the kitchen. He said that because he had only received
details of the job on that day, he would not be able to fit it until Saturday
8th December. He then asked me if I could describe the plan to him in
detail as he had not received any such plan from Moben!!! This left me
feeling unsure about the quality of the fitters you employ!
Obviously unhappy, I tried to call Moben but as with any company where
customer service is low on the priority, the phone lines close at 5 on
the dot. I called again on the morning of the 5th to be passed from pillar
to post, with no real resolution being achieved. Indeed, it was suggested
that I write a letter once installation was complete. A clever delaying
tactic if nothing else.
A new installation was promised for Saturday 8th December. When the phone
went at 09:00 on Saturday 8th, my partner and myself looked at each other
guessing that this would be Moben. It was D, the fitter, who was unable
to fit the kitchen due to resource problems at his end. He offered a new
date of Wednesday 12th. It was now two weeks since Moben had received
my full payment; we had been using valuable space in our house for equipment
but perhaps worse was the fact that we had rendered our kitchen pretty
useless for a whole week by removing the old tiles from the walls and
removing all kitchen utensils to another room.
D, the fitter, turned up on Wednesday 12th December but after a check
of the delivered stock realised that he could not begin to fit the kitchen
as one part was missing. Just as he was about to leave, (he spent twenty
minutes on our telephone awaiting a response from Moben) a call came through
confirming that Moben would be able to deliver the missing part the next
day. D decided to begin fitting.
The kitchen fit was completed in two days. Although
the kitchen is better than our old one, I'm not completely happy with
the quality and believe that I have been mis-sold to.
(a) C, the salesperson, told us that the insides of each unit would match
the doors. With our units, we have white carcases.
(b) C also told us that the carousel would be made from stainless steel.
It's actually made from plastic.
(c) In one wall cupboard, there are no plastic caps covering the holes
on the insides of the door. This is not ideal but it does help us to see
that the cupboards we ordered are not (as C said they would be) high quality,
solid material but are simply covered with our design on the front of
what appears to be chipboard.
(d) Both C and the kitchen deliverers suggested that if we were to give
the kitchen fitters a bottle that they would in all likelihood complete
our tiling for us. On asking D if this would be possible, he said that
he was not skilled to do tiling. If the kitchen had not have been delayed
by a week, we might have been able to source a tiler in time for Christmas.
As it is, we'll have to cook our turkey surrounded by crumbling plaster.
(e) The base cupboards are not fully enclosed. You are able to see our
bare walls at the top of the carousel cupboard. Should this be the case?
(f) Foam can be seen protruding from the gap between the hob and the worktop
suggesting that the fit was slightly rushed.
(g) The sink does not lie smoothly- again suggesting a rushed fit.
(h) We have no way to turn off our newly installed oven - no plug socket
has been fitted and the wires have been left bare.
As if points (a) to (h) are not enough, on Tuesday 18th December, my
partner walked into the kitchen after setting the dishwasher on to find
a flood of water on the floor. On investigation, this flood had been caused
by the piping from the dishwasher becoming disconnected from another pipe.
We have made a temporary fix on this by utilising masking tape but this
is not a long term solution and is certainly not what I would expect from
an outlay of £5150.
I will be passing details of this complaint (and hopefully your response
to it) to various consumer organisations. (Qualitas, The Guardian Newspaper's
consumer page, Watchdog). I trust that we can reach an amicable agreement
to my complaints. To summarise I am unhappy that:-
(a) The installation was delayed twice.
(b) I have not received my £55 reduction for the alternative wall
unit.
(c) The kitchen fit does not appear to be of the high quality promised
by the Moben salesperson.
To compensate for these issues and as a measure of goodwill, I would
be looking for a refund of 15-20% of the total price.
Yours sincerely Sean Tizzard"
Needless to say, I am still awaiting a response to this letter....
(17 Jan 2002)
Other Moben Kitchen complaints:
"Since sending my complaint to you, Moben have sent an inspector
to our property who surveyed the installation, agreed that it wasn't
good enough and suggested some remedial action that needed to be
taken. Additional equipment was delivered the week before Easter
and an excellent remedial fitter came to our property last Thursday
to make good the work. It had been three months plus since our kitchen
was fitted but I am now happy that the work has been properly carried
out.
On Good Friday, Moben called us to ask if we were now happy with
the work. A small goodwill cheque is being sent to us, not as much
as I had initially hoped or, but it's a token gesture and to be
honest I know want to leave this bitter taste behind.
Well done on the excellent site, Sean"
