Catalogs, Stores - Next Directory Home Shopping problem with order

Complaints.com received the following e-message on September 11, 2001:

From:

RE: Next Directory Home Shopping

I Have tried to send this message out from my own e mail address but for some reason I am unable to do that. If you wish to contact me the address is, Email User I recently received through the post a Next Directory home shopping catalogue. As my partners sons 16 birthday was coming up I showed him the catalogue and told him to pick what he wanted from it. I subsequently ordered a pair of trousers, a shirt and a watch from it. I requested that they be delivered on Friday 07/09/01 after 1pm. My partner took a half day off especially to be there. All went well and the package arrived on said date, unfortunately they had sent the wrong watch.

My partner immediately rang them to tell about their error and he was assured that a replacement would be sent out and would hopefully be with us the next day or at the latest on the Monday, we stayed in all of Saturday but, no watch arrived. I took a half day off work on Monday to stay in and wait for it. When i hadn't got it by 2pm I decided to ring the helpline to find out what was going on. When my call was finally answered I explained the situation, I was put on hold for a few minutes while the operator checked what was going on. He came back and told me that the watch had been sent out and that it was definitely with the courier.

He said that they had tried ringing her but she wasn't at home, that she was presumably delivering her packages, ( i guess she's never heard of a mobile phone) and that the watch would probaly be with me any time now. But i was told that they would ring me and let me know what was happening as soon as they spoke to her. Well, we waited and waited and we heard nothing from them.

At around 3.30pm my partner gave in and rang again, this time the person he spoke to told him she would check and ring him back, which she did around 15 minutes later. We were again led to believe that the watch was with the courier, and we wre given a number we could contact her on, however they told us that she was trying to find out what was going on and would ring us as soon as she knew. At about 5pm when we still hadn't heard back from her I rang the number we had been given an spoke to yet another woman explained the situation yet again and was yet again told that they could check to see what was happening.

At first she told me that no special order had been sent out to me, when i pointed out that if that was the case then everybody else we had spoken to must have been lying to us, she quickly said that she would have to check the actual paperwork as details for "special orders" would not be on the computer, and also she would have to speak to the courier that was doing the actual deliveries and could she ring me back. I agreed to this, not holding out much hope but, she did ring back after about 25 minutes.

She told me that she had spoken to the courier (who was now reachable by phone) and that the watch had never been delivered to her. Needless to say I was absolutely fuming by now but, I kept my cool and simply asked if there was a number or an Email address I could have so I could complain about the treatment I felt I had received. She told me there was somewhere on the website. Well I looked and I couldn't find anything. Isn't it funny they make it so easy to do everything else but almost impossible to complain about

the service they provide.

Anyhow getting back to my story. On Tuesday I rang the Next customer relations department where I spoke to somebody called Jane. I told her that I wanted to speak to a manager or somebody high up in the company about my complaint and she assured me that she was as high up as I could go saying that she dealt with complaints for the managing directors office. I told her what had happened and after apologising she said she would look into it and get back to me which she did a couple of hours later. I really didn't understand much of what she said and how it could affect my order but, I'll try to explain it as best as I can. She said that a special order had been placed for me and that the watch had been sent from their warehouse in Leeds to their distibution centre in Southampton.

Then she said something vague about one of their couriers that had stopped working for them on the previous Thursday and that this is what caused the problem. I asked if the watch had been delivered to the ex courier and if this is what had caused the problem. She replied that the watch had never left the distribution centre in Southampton. You can see why I was confused. I told her that we had offered to go and collect the watch ourselves if they would give us an address, but she just said that it would have been quite difficult to find it. When I asked her where we went from here, she again apologised told me that if I wished she would cancel my account and offered me a