Appalling experience at Old Villa interior deco shop, Bellenden Road

[bibaradcliffe]

Received such bad service at this interior deco shop, felt compelled to make my first post on EDL!

Few weeks ago me and hubby went into Old Villa on a Sunday (for the first time) where there was a 20% sale on, and spotted a beautiful giant footstool that?s perfect for our lounge. It had lots of other stock on top of it, but measured it and told the shop Assistant to put it on hold for us while we went home to measure up.

Few hours later we returned to buy it (very excited), but when the Assistant removed the stock, we found a few noticeable liquid stains on the velvet upholstery. The Assistant agreed that it warranted an additional discount, and offered a further 10% off. We countered that if she gave us 15% we?d be happy to take it (and strategically scatter some cushions!). The shop would still be making ?416 from us so we figured it was fair! She said she had to phone the store owner/ manager who was at home on her day off to okay this.

5 minutes later she came back to say that there was no answer on the Manager?s phone, so she could only give us the 10% off as originally offered. We agreed to buy it and paid for the item on our credit card, and started covering the footstool with bubble wrap to take it home.

We had just picked up the item to carry it to the van we?d hired to take the footstool home, when the phone rang. The Assistant was gone for 3-4 minutes and came back out ashen faced. The Manager had called to see what was up, and told the Assistant that she had no right to negotiate a further 10% discount, and that we had to pay the additional 10% or leave the item.

Awkward moment! I told the Assistant that while we appreciated a mistake had been made, this was an internal issue between her and her Mnager and not our fault. We asked if I could speak to the Manager on the phone to discuss the matter/look at alternatives/etc. but the Manager was unwilling to talk to us because it was her ?day off?. When we pointed out that technically the item already belonged to us since we had ALREADY PAID FOR IT, she said her Manager said she couldn?t let us leave the store with the item!!!

My kind hearted Husband decided we should let it go, since the Assistant would probably lose her job if we did take the item, even though we?d ALREADY BOUGHT IT. So we were forced to take a refund of the money, and left with our tails between our legs.

The shop had our contact details and we expected the Manager to call us on the Monday to apologise or offer us an alternative or explain the situation?.but she never got in touch. This is singularly the most appalling customer service experience we have ever had, and we are still smarting from it! We expected at the very least an apology, since the mistake was on their part, and we had beenso inconvenienced by the whole thing.

I just don?t know how this 'Manager' person manages to run a business when she knows nothing about dealing with customers. In a location like this, you would expect that customer loyalty and word of mouth would play a big role in building a loyal customer base, so I don't know how she thinks she can treat people this way. But needless to say, after the shabby way we were treated, we will never spend our money in this shop, and would advise others against it unless they would like a dose of horrendous treatment from the proprietors!