Zavvi www.zavvi.co.uk Review

Overall Rating

So I went and ordered a Wii Fit from zavvi.co.uk - their website said it's in stock. Right after I placed my order the availability notice went to "Currently unavailable".

"Great!" I thought, "I must be really lucky to have ordered the very last one they had in stock!". After all, my order status was on "Processing" right after I placed the order - which must surely mean they are walking to the shelf in the warehouse to pick and ship my item as we speak!

So I wait. And I wait. Time passes. I wait some more. After 5 working days passed, I checked my order status... still "Processing". And still "Currently unavailable" on their website. Suspicious, I have become.

After 9 working days, I happen to walk past a Wii Fit in stock at a local retailer, so I buy it there and take it home. I figured I could just cancel my zavvi order since they haven't shipped it yet. But no, there's no cancel functionality on the order. So I try and call them, but there's no phone number anywhere to be found, only the standard "Contact us" web form with a little drop down list of options. I use this to send off a manual request for cancellation and I get an autoresponse saying they'll aim to answer within 48 hours. Which they do, after about 40 hours - a form reply that says, "Sorry, your order is being processed already, so you can't cancel
it."

*6 DAYS* after I got that email, the item is finally delivered to me. I don't even bother opening the box, I just get the returns form out, fill it in and amble down to my local post office to send it back. A few days later - how surprised am I to find that the Wii Fit is returned to me, because (according to Royal Mail) zavvi refused to sign for it.

So back to the web form... 4 days later I get a response that says
"Because we use a PO Box, you cannot send recorded delivery to us,
just send it with regular mail."

Like I'd send something like this without having evidence that they received it!?

Since when did it become acceptable for companies not to have any other way of their customers contacting them than a web form - and then the only thing you can get back is a clearly templated reply? (And the irony of listing said contact form under "Customer Services". Oh the hilarity. Stop before my sides split.) I highly recommend that zavvi.co.uk's online ordering should be avoided.