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“Advertised non-existant product”

written by sunshine7685 on 07/08/2012

I reserved a Cannon 1100D SLR camera through Jessops online to collect at store. When I did this I was given an option of pickup days and stores. I selected Saturday as I live 26 miles away from the store and work 9-5. I received an email confirming my order stating collection from 9.45am on Saturday. It also said I would be emailed when it was ready for collection (which I presumed would arrive sometime Saturday). I didn’t check for an email because as I had to travel I wanted to make the most of my time in the city. When I got to the store they told me that the camera was not in stock yet. Why are they advertising a date if they cannot deliver on that date? I went away rather unhappy.
The confirmation email stated that the camera would only be reserved for 3 days. I emailed the collect@store address asking what I needed to do so I didn’t lose the reservation as the camera hadn’t arrived at the store yet. They emailed back saying the goods we were ready to collect. I decided to ring the store to check that the goods had in fact arrived and to reserve them for longer. Good job I did as I was told that the camera was not there as it had been discontinued and the last one they had in store was back in April. They would not be getting any more in. In other words they advertised a product that they did not have. FALSE ADVERTISING
Both times I spoke to staff in store they tried to sell me the same camera with a different lenses at a higher price. They would not budge on price and the store manager said that he could only offer compensation in the form of discounted hardware SD card if I bought a different camera. However, the discount wouldn’t be much. Pathetic considering a number of items are discounted when you place an item in your online shopping basket anyway.
I have spent time and money (fuel, parking, train fare and phone calls) chasing a non-existent camera. If I had not rang the store to check the information I would have wasted yet more time and money on a pointless trip to collect a non-existent camera.
I asked how I could complain to head office both when I visted the store and when I rang them, the first guy said that there was no complaints dept and I had to complain via the store. I later found a complaints email address online. The second guy told me that any complaints simply get passed back the to store.

The response I got from Jessops when I emailed them was dismal. I sent one email when I couldn’t pick up the camera on the date specified and a second when I found that there was no camera. The responses were extremely similar. They probably have a standard email that they modify slightly taking little responsibility for the appalling service.