DON'T FALL FOR THE BRAND NAME - WORST EXPERIENCE EVER!

Anglian Windows Reviews
★★★☆☆
3.0
53.0% of users recommend this
  • Value For Money

KateNW6's review of Anglian Windows Reviews - anglianhome.co.uk

“DON'T FALL FOR THE BRAND NAME - WORST EXPERIENCE EVER!”

★☆☆☆☆

written by KateNW6 on 19/05/2016

I got a recommendation from a friend who had his windows installed through Anglian and he was semi-happy about the process. So my husband and I thought we would order our windows with them, afterall it is a company that has been in the market for years and has earned its reputation. I wish I read more reviews before picking up the phone and contacting Anglian.

We first contacted Anglian in February 2014 to replace 6 windows in our bedrooms. Putting aside a very annoying salesperson who arrived an hour late and then took 3.5 hours to speak to us (mostly telling us about the books he writes in his spare time!), we signed a contract and Anglian handled our application to the council to approve the works - all went smooth there. We got the approval from the council within 4 months, the order went into production (the waiting time was only about 8-10 weeks) and the windows installation date was confirmed for early September. The fitters arrived on the date, and there the story began.

The windows arrived but it turned out that the trims (architraves that go around the windows to close the gaps) were never ordered. The fitters turned to us asking why we never ordered them. We had no idea this was our responsibility. We called Anglian who confirmed that it was their error and this should have been ordered. We lived with holes in the walls around the windows for 2 months. The gap between the walls and the frames was not closed properly so at some point the rain water started leaking through into our apartment. We called Anglian but they said there was nothing they could do until the trims were ready and the fitter could come in to install them and close any gaps in the walls.

Once trims arrived, the fitters came in again. They installed the trims which turned out to be made of a completely different material and did not match the colour of the window frames. We raised our concern but the fitter couldn't do anything and said we needed to contact the office.

So we contacted the office and were told that apparently Anglian does not produce the trims and these come from a different supplier. That is the reason why the material or the colour would never match. This was absolutely absurd!! We were never told about this in the sale process. We still insisted on Anglian coming back in and making sure that the trims were at least sanded so no rough pieces of timber were sticking out and scratching. There were also some black marks on the white trims which Anglian agreed to paint. In the end it was 2-3 times that someone had to come in and paint again and again but the stains would come through the paint again. We simply gave up in the end.

This year we were changing the balcony door and for various reasons had no choice but go through Anglian again. The surveyor came in and I used the opportunity to ask for his advice on what to do with the trims which by now started cracking in places and some of them are about to fall off the wall. The surveyor looked at the trims and said he could not advise because this was not installed by Anglian and hence is not the product he could comment on. I had to ask him to explain what he meant because it was installed by Anglian. He looked at us in shock and said this is not the trims Anglian produces. !!!! Anglian surveyor confirmed it to our face that actually Anglian does produce trims and yes they match the frames and yes they are of the same quality as the window frames!! We were simply lied to back in 2014!

So I got on the phone with Anglian again to book an appointment with a surveyor to come in and have a look at the trims which are now days away from falling of the wall and hitting us and our toddler on our heads - they were that poorly fitted. I reached out to Anglian in late March / early April. The earliest appointment they had was for 18 May. As always, the surveyor was supposed to come in between 8am and 5pm, no fixed slot. I took a day off work to stay at home. By 2pm there was still no sign of the surveyor and I had that gut feeling that something was not right. I called Anglian who told me that our appointment had been cancelled on 12 May. But they did confirm that no one actually tried to contact us to let us know that there was a change of plans. Apparently the surveyor had a heart attack so all his appointments were rescheduled. The next available date is 29 June!! 3 months waiting time for an appointment??!! Not to mention that no one cared to call us and let us know the date had been changed or check if we were in fact around on 29 June for this appointment before scheduling it for us!

So we are yet to deal with this issue. I suspect we will never get to fix the trims.

In the meantime, a glass in one of the windows cracked into tiny pieces back in April. After hours on the phone over a week trying to arrange a replacement I had no patience left and went on facebook to make a formal complaint and see if taking this public would help speed up the process. Took less than 5 mins to get a response from customer service finally acknowledging that this is indeed a manufacturing fault and yes this will be covered under our 10 year guarantee. I was assured that the order had been placed. This was 29 April 2016. I subsequently called to check on the status of the order and was consistently told that the order had been placed and they were waiting for the confirmation of the delivery date.

When I spoke to customer service with regard to the surveyor appointment mess up, I decided once again to check on the status of the order. I was put on hold while the representative on the phone was checking records. He came back to deliver the news - there was no record of the order and it had never been placed. So between 29 April and 18 May Anglian kept me under the impression that all was in motion and I was simply waiting for the installation date to be confirmed. This was the last drop. My complain was escalated to the manager, everyone was apologetic. Apparently someone incorrectly put a note on the file saying the order had been made but it actually hadn't been. I was assured that this is now escalated and taken care of. I made another call to Anglian today just to make sure the order indeed had been placed. The person on the phone gave me the same answer - we are just waiting for the installation date. When I asked him to double check he came back saying that the order had not been placed. I am still waiting for the confirmation of this order going through.... I have specifically asked several times to receive the confirmation in written but no confirmation yet and people are quite bluntly unwilling to satisfy my request to provide any written confirmation.

I do not know what exactly is happening but judging by the behaviour, reluctance to provide any confirmation or finally place the order, I am beginning to suspect the company is going under and no one wants to process any orders.

As I mentioned above, we also changed our balcony door with Anglian this year. That was an experience of its own!

The sales person missed the first two appointments - good we spent 2 Saturdays indoors waiting for him to arrive! Ultimately someone else showed up for the third booking, who I can only suspect is a junior sales guy who just picked up this job because he did not have any idea about the product range. Ultimately we explained what we wanted, helped him take the measurements (of course he didn't have the measuring tape with him, why would he, he just relied on us to provide it!) and agreed a sale contract. As the guy was leaving I asked him if he thought it was a problem to bring the new balcony door to the 5th floor (that's where the balcony door is) up a very narrow staircase. The guy said it was not a problem, they do it all the time. I insisted on him taking the measurements. Sure enough, he measured the front door and realised that the new door was too big to fit through our front door.

He told us not to worry, worst case scenario he could get two of his friends to come in with robes and pull the new balcony door up from the balcony. Sounded a bit odd to us but ultimately I left this with him to flag it to his surveyor / fitter.

A surveyor comes in a few weeks later to do the final measurements. I flag the point of size again and how the balcony door will be brought upstairs. Again the surveyor says no problem. I insisted on him checking the measurements. Sure enough, the new door still doesn't fit through.

The surveyor then told us not to worry. The contract covered first 2 levels of scaffolding to be put in place. Worst case scenario we would need to pay for 3 levels of scaffolding to bring it up to the 5th floor.

Weeks go by, no update from Anglian on the order. I kept calling but was getting the same response, our order was being dealt with. After a couple of weeks I started calling every day but there was still no progress until I finally spoke to one person who said that there is a note on the file saying the order was not approved. Again - no one thought of calling us to let us know!!

The reason why the order was not approved was because the cost of scaffolding was higher than the cost of the new door and therefore it was not in Anglian's economic interest to proceed with the order. They did offer us a deposit refund though - of course after I asked for it.

Again - no one thought of calling us to discuss whether we would potentially be willing to arrange scaffolding at an extra cost. This didn't cross anyone's mind at Anglian! Problem solving is not what they do.

I proposed to Anglian that we cover the cost of the 3 levels of scaffolding and Anglian provides scaffolding for the other 2 levels as per contract. Anglian came back quoting us £3,780 for scaffolding. I asked Anglian to confirm that this price was indeed for 3 levels only and not all 5. Anglian refused to confirm this saying they can't see the breakdown as the quote is provided by one of the subcontractors. I insisted on getting a copy of the quote, Anglian refused to provide it insisting that they are happy to refund the deposit and cancel the order without trying to resolve the issue. I had a gut feeling something just wasn't right.

In the end I told Anglian that I will find a subcontractor myself to put scaffolding in place. It turned out that we had to have a very specific light weight scaffolding for this job for various reasons. We couldn't find a provider so I simply thought of calling Anglian's general enquiry line and check who provides their scaffolding. The person on the phone gave me the name of the company they use. I called the scaffolders directly and they quoted me £1,170 for the job!!! This is more than 3x less the quote Anglian provided me with!!!!!

I cannot believe that the scaffolding company would charge Anglian 3x the price they would charge me. To me it sounds like Anglian makes money on scaffolding as well. This is the only explanation I can think of why Anglian refused to provide the confirmation of the scaffolding quote to me in the first place.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not pay for scaffolding through Anglian - it is a trap!! Simply call E&D who provide standard scaffolding (or anyone else you wish in your area, just do a google search) or call Hi-Lite if you need a special light scaffolding (which we needed in our case and this is the company Anglian use). They will provide you with a reasonable quote and they follow the requirements Anglian applies to scaffolding (health&safety / insurance etc).

In the end we got our balcony door installed but it did take us over a month to resolve the scaffolding issue, not to mention the time we wasted waiting for the installation date while Anglian knew the order was never approved. And of course Anglian never fulfilled their contractual obligation to pay for 2 levels of scaffolding.

I struggle to describe this company in one word. Their service and quality are disappointing, unacceptable, ridiculous, pathetic. Not to mention lack of transparency, communication of misleading information which turns out to be simply not true or incorrect. If this company wants to retain its reputation and stay afloat, some drastic changes need to be made to internal processes and customer service.

  • Value For Money

Was this review helpful? 0 0