Email string between Mr John Hawkins and Comet
Re: Dedicated Page
Complaint
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From: John Hawkins
To: Comet
23 October 2002
Dear E-mail response team
In reply to your E-mail of 22/10/2002.
You say that "because the VCR had worked satisfactorily for
12 months that
it cannot be deemed to be of unsatisfactory quality". I must
take issue
with you on this statement. The VCR was a good quality JVC model
that
expired after 14 months of very light duty ( I estimate not more
than 225
Hrs of playing tapes- our own tapes not rental ! - and no recording
was
carried out at all).
The last JVC video that I had lasted more like 14 years which is
why I bought another. I have had only14 months with very little
usage out of this video so it cannot be described as being of adequate
quality. You have sold me substandard goods and would now like to
charge me an extra £50 before you decide whether or not to
compensate me!
You are also treating me like an idiot by offering to allow me to
try to claim this £50 back once I have paid it. I have an
independent engineers report telling you exactly what is wrong with
the VCR; you have also spoken to the engineer twice on the telephone.
You can have the video back to examine as much as you like but I
will not pay you to look at it!
I require some compensation for the unsatisfactory lifetime of this
appliance.
Amelia Woollen ( of Mr Cissells office) suggested that I report
you to Trading Standards because she said that Comet were doing
"nothing illegal". I have taken her up on her kind offer
and contacted Staffordshire Trading Standards. They were in fact
quite interested in my complaint and will be
contacting you on my behalf.
They also suggested that I might consider the Small Claims Court
as a means of obtaining some compensation. I am therefore giving
you notice that if you do not comply with my request for
compensation I will take you to Court I have already asked for £110
to cover the cost of a cheap replacement VCR, you can either pay
me this now or suffer the inconvenience, additional
expense, and negative publicity when the case comes to Court.
I will still honour my original offer of returning the JVC VCR in
its origonal packaging in superb unmarked condition- apart from
the fact that it doesn't work!
The service centre have received your independent report and have
deemed
this price to be unreasonable and will not pay this sum and as a
company we
are within our rights to inspect the item and charge you as is it
has
worked
for the manufacturers period. I can advise you this is well within
all off
trading standards acts. If the trading standards believe you have
a case
they will contact us in regards to this and we will be able to advise
further.
Please accept our apologies that you are not happy with this but
this is
Comet policy and is not illegal and is well within our rights.
From: John Hawkins
To: Comet
Sent: 24 October 2002
RE: Complaint against Comet on clik2complaints
Dear E-Mail Response Team
Who exactly are you? Am I dealing with one or several individuals?
Because I intend to take legal action against you I need your personal
details. And who precisely has deemed the sum I requested to be
unreasonable?
Come along now , don't be shy like your Mr Cissell.
Yours Sincerely
John Hawkins
REPLY FROM: COMET
DATE: 24/10/2002
Dear Mr Hawkins,
Thank you for your recent e-mail,
Emails are responded to by the email response team and not by any
individual. Therefore emails may be answered by all members of the
team as
we are all here to deal with complaints and advise customers accordingly.
I
can advise that the information supplied in our previous email is
correct.
The decision regarding your claim has been made by the service centre
who
you may contact on 08705 425 425. i apologise that I have been unable
to
assist you further with this enquiry.
From: John Hawkins
To: Comet
Sent: 25 October 2002
RE: Complaint against Comet on clik2complaints
Dear E-mail response team
I have contacted Lorraine at the service centre as per your instructions.
She has no details whatsoever about my claim and is at a loss as
to why you have directed me to her. So could you please direct me
to the person who has deemed my claim for compensation to be unreasonable.
In case you are interested I am basing my claim on a straw poll
carried out amongst friends and colleagues as to how long a video
should last, The general consensus was "at least 5 years".
So if I have had only 14 months use out of an expected 60 months,
that amounts to a loss of 77% of lifetime. 77% of the purchase price
is £115, so I am claiming £110 which is slightly less
than this amount. What is unreasonable about that?
Unfortunately this will have been deemed unsuitable as your figures
are
entirely estimated and based on no specific proof of the length
of time and
life span that the item will work for. All we can do is refer you
to our
previous correspondence and apologise for the upset it may cause.
From: John Hawkins
To: Comet
Sent: 25 October 2002
RE: Complaint against Comet on clik2complaints
Dear Team Member
I repeat, deemed unsuitable by whom? You told me (whoever you are)
that it was the service center, and gave me a number to phone. I
phoned the number and they denied all knowledge of it. Please refer
me to the person who deemed the compensation unsuitable.
Yours Sincerely
John Hawkins
REPLY FROM: COMET
DATE: 25/10/2002
Dear Mr Hawkins,
Thank you for your recent e-mail,
I apologise for the error in our previous correspondence this decision
has been made by the management team here at Head Office.
Regards,
From: John Hawkins
To: Comet
Sent: 25 October 2002
RE: Complaint against Comet on clik2complaints
Dear E-mail response team
Then please let me have contact details for the management team!
I presume this is different from the E-mail response team, or is
it? I won't bother asking for the name of an individual that I can
communicate with- I might as well ask for the Moon - or my money
back!!. By the way, does 'team' simply mean a single person that
is unwilling to name themselves? No, come to think of it that's
a silly idea, with the volume of complaints that you must receive
each day there's no way a single individual would be able to cope.
Your Sincerely
John Hawkins - a name not a team!!
PS How about you all giving yourselves numbers, you would still
preserve your precious anonymity this way and it would be a little
bit more personal than the way you carry on at the moment . Or you
could give yourselves codenames like Apple or Cloud or Tinkerbell.
Just an idea!
