Comet Review

Overall Rating

None really

Comet couldn't give a diddle-dee!

Our 6 month old washing machine broke down (we have 4 little boys, including a baby who, at the time had a vomitting and diaorreah bug!) - helpline called and engineer called round a week later to announce that a rod had snapped and the counterweight was loose and basically smashing the machine to bits - not our fault but a big job. Parts would have to be ordered but he assured us that as we had 4 young children we would be priority! Very reassuring and we were sucked in! After 10 days of having to ask friends/ family to do our huge mounds of washing (+ me doing hours of handwashing) I phoned to find out when the parts would be in. We were told it would be at least another 12 days (a total of 22) for the part to arrive as they were still in a factory in Italy and then a few more days to get an engineer out (we could be waiting up to a month - no joke with kids and a sick baby!!) There was no way we were going to be able to continue sending out our washing (no launderettes in local area and from what we saw of the nearest launderette pretty expensive per load!). My very calm and persistent hubbie decided to phone and investigate whether we could borrow a machine to help us out as the cause of the problem had not been our doing and was a malfunction in the machine they had sold us 6 months earlier - they were less than helpful - my hubbie asked to speak to someone higher up and was passed from dept. to dept. with the same result. He finally told them , very calmly that if there was no positive outcome (ie a promise of a replacement/ new machine) that afternoon he would be contacting my brother who works at the BBC who would pass on the case to Watchdog, contact the local papers and mount a protest ouside the local Comet handing out non- libelous/ slanderous but factual info re: Comet Customer Services (none of them idle threats!!). No joy - my hubbie thanked them for their time and told them that he would be in touch shortly! Within an hour he had a call to say that they were very sorry for the huge amount of inconvenience that our family had suffered and that they would be sending us a special code to take to the local Comet store to get a replacement. We were delighted and the next day we received the letter and hot footed it down (with the kids and washing machine) to Comet. They had hardly anything in stock but from the selection they did have we found one with viryually the same spec as the other but with a lower spin speed. The only problem was is was slightly more expensive ( £50) - the chap said they would probably exchange it and not charge! Sadly not, they were adamant we had to pay the extra - explaining that had they sold us a machine that actually worked the first time around we wouldn't have been pestering them. We really had to hold firm as they then tried to plam us off with a display model and one that was smaller than our other one! Eventually (after an hour!!!!) we managed to get them to meet us almost halfway and came away with a new machine for £25!
Our messgae - don't give in to them. Had the machine broken due to misuse then fair enough but to keep a family waiting for over 2 weeks with a further 2 weeks wait is not on!! Won't bother with Comet next time.