Mar 10, 2008 03:00 PM
3957 Views
YES, the title is supposed to be slogan for Home Town. You want to make your life miserable? Go to Home Town. Its a unique one stop shop to make your life miserable!!! Here's my experience:
My first browse of hometown was tremendously good. A big five storied store with full of all sort of stuffs usable for domestic purpose. The decor, the showcasing, the gloss everything matched with the stores I have seen in the UK. I told myself, wow!! I will take hometown service to do everything with my new house.
First visited Mr Painter. I wanted to find out if they can give me any quote for the painting of my house. I know the local players give the quote if you give them the plan of your house. However, hometown told they will charge Rs 350 for this and they will send a person to my house to take the measurement. Also, they said that they are completely booked next one month. I told myself, never mind, I will avail their service next time.
Wanted to purchase a chimney for the kitchen of my new home. Have selected one from the display and ordered by paying the full price (by debit card) which costed me around 13K. They told that it will reach in 5 working days. On the 4th working day (I told my wife, 'See the quality of customer service. They really value the customers' time and money.') someone from hometown informed me the unavailabity of the stock and requested me to wait for two more days. On the 6th day I was again informed to wait for 3 more days. On the 10th day I did not receive any call and then called the concerned person and heard his apology that the product did not reach to their warehouse and requested me to wait for 3 more days. I wife was impatient. so am I. Both of us went to the store and met the manager of the concerned department. We demanded the money back. The manger was not apologetic, rather told that this is against the policy of the company and we have to spend the 13K in their store only. This statement was good enough to lose my temper. I stood still to my stand and told otherwise we have to go to the consumer court and would like settle the matter there rather spending 13K in the store. The manager took some time to discuss with his manager and informed us that the money will be returned back to my account within 5 working days. They will inform me a 16 digit ref. number based which I can query with my bank regarding the amount. We waited 7 days. The money was not back. We again visited the manager. He went to their finance department to get the 16 digit ref number but did not get, but he assured that somebody will inform me next day. He assured that the money is already transferred from their bank account. I waited two more days. Again visited the manager. This time he took half an hour time to give me the ref. number and told within 3 working days money would be transferred. We questioned him why it was not transferred before. He could not give any satisfactory answer. The whole episode took almost a month and at last I got the money back.
In parallel to the case 3 above, we have ordered a sofa of cost 63K. Having above unpleasant experience, we contacted the furniture department and informed our suspicion. The furniture department assured us that in case of furniture it is 'built to order'. So once the order is placed you will definitely get it in time. I paid the advance of 30K. Nowhere in the cash memo it was mentioned that I have to pay the balance amount at least 48 hours before the delivery date - neither someone informed me over phone from hometown. It was our bitter experience (case 3 above) which drew me to home town to personally inquire about this. I came to know that before 48 hours of delivery date I have clear the balance.
An it was hardly 24 hours remaining. With lot of difficulty (by arranging cash from several of my bank accounts on a sunday afternoon) I intended to clear the balance. At the time of billing I noticed confusions among the various staffs regarding the product I delivered. It seemed that the product was never ordered on behalf of hometown to manufacture. We called their manager whose name was Niranjan. He bashed at the staffs in Kannada (which we could not follow) and told us that it will take little longer may be another week to send the product to us. We were completely disgusted and expressed our anger but of no use. However, our angry comments have drawn atention of some other customers who wanted to order furniture but pushed off. Now here comes the real horror!! On the delivery date they delivered us the sofa and the delivery boys declined to unpack the same. My wife refused to sign until they were unpacked.
Once unpacked, it was found that a complete wrong product was delivered. My wife asked them to take it away and did not sign to confirm the delivery. I contacted Niranjan - he was completely unapologetic. Next day he informed us that the wrong product was sent by their bombay warehouse. He wanted 15 days time. We did not insist on money back as we have wasted a lot energy behind the sofa. I put a condition that he has to return back the money with interest if he fails to deliver. This time he was apologetic and told us that he was taking his personal interest to deliver this on time. He informed us that his company will give us some gift vouchers. Again one day before the new delivery date Niranjan informed that his boys could not locate the sofa in the warehouse. However, on the date of delivery he managed to deliver the sofa, things were in desired condition with minor modification in cushions, which was acceptable. However, there was no gift coupon. We went to the store then and there and demanded the same. He took 15 minutes to approve 1k free purchase. We purchased for 1.2K and demanded the same free of cost and was granted. At the end of thestory that was the only gain.
