Flaming Barbecues

I wouldn't pay this shower with chocolate money, never mind the real stuff. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you take your custom elsewhere. If you don't make any other decisions today make this one: BUY SOMEWHERE ELSE.

They advertise next day delivery when they don't even have the goods in stock. Like many others, judging by the reviews on Kelkoo, we were taken in by their claims. My first call to their ‘customer service' (a misleading euphemism if ever there was one) resulted in a very long wait in a queue of no doubt similarly disgruntled customers, followed by a hearty chuckle when I dared to ask why next day delivery didn't mean next day delivery. The customer ‘service' comprised of a promise that someone from the 'Priority Team' would email me. This struck me as odd as it presupposes an understanding of the concept of a 'Team'. Anyway, the mythical email must have joined the barbecue in some ethereal realm known only to The Shower, because it never arrived in my Inbox.

My subsequent emails were answered courteously enough but were riddled with loopholes such as 'we are expecting...' or 'delivery should...' Not once 'it will be here' or 'it will be delivered'. And don't expect any help from their order tracking system either; even 3 weeks after the barbecue was eventually delivered, in itself 4 weeks late, it was still advising that the dispatch date was 'not known'.

One of the items we ordered, a gas regulator, was never delivered but they have said they will credit the money back to us. Mind you it took 4 emails of increasing invective before someone deigned to answer. Having said that, the reply, when it eventually came, was courteous and commendably succinct.

Despite these exceptional highlights we should not forget that this is a company that sells barbecues and does so, at least in our case, with spectacular incompetence. If you have any notion of what a minimum level of service should be, these are not the people for you.