Start-rite Beatrice

Normally, my children's outgrown school shoes are passed onto friends for their children to use as there is still plenty of wear left in them. The exception has been the last two pairs of Start-rite (Rhino) shoes we've bought for my 9 year old. The first style "Beatrice" and the second "Olivia".

Both these styles are pump like shoes with elasticated straps across. The soles are thin, but this would not be a problem if they were durable. However, the soles at the toes of both shoes in both pairs wore away to reveal the leather and start to develop holes. Beatrice after about 8 weeks and Olivia after just 6 weeks. After 10 weeks, the Beatrice pair had holes in the soles and let in water.

Also, we found the leather looked very poor very quickly. After just a few days of wear, large areas of grey appeared where the top surface of leather had been knowcked off by minor scuffing (Olivia especially bad).

Rhino say its shoes are made from "premium leather dyed throughout" but, if that is the case, why are my daughter's black shoes light grey in so many places and needing polishing every day to make them black again? If black leather were dyed throughout, wouldn't it be black underneath? My Ecco shoes are.

Contacted Start-rite customer services, but I thought their response was quite poor. I certainly won't be wasting my money on Rhino shoes again.