United Towbar Wales - www.unitedtowbarswales.co.uk

I booked United Tow bars and my diary entry reads: Wed 09/04/2014: Volvo V50 fitting for caravan lights and Jag checked. 9.30-10.00 United Towbars £65 for upgrade. I needed to go to Swansea but delayed departure to wait in for United Towbars to show up. At 10.10 am I phoned to find out where their fitter was. The person on the phone said she would phone the fitter to find out where they were. She said she would call back.

A few minutes later one of my receptionists phoned to say she had had a call from United Towbars saying "they do not cover my area".

I called the 0800 number above back, got the same person I spoke to earlier, who informed me the fitter had a lot of calls in another area, and my post code was too far away and 'out of their area'. I asked why had I not been informed earlier as I had waited in for them. She claimed they had left a message with my 'secretary'. However United Tow bars (a) did not know the name of the person they allegedly spoke to my end, (b) I do not have 'a secretary' in any case and (c) when I booked the appointment originally, I specifically asked if my postcode was covered and they assured me it was. They had quoted £65 for the call-out and I had explained exactly where we were.

So I am not impressed. Also I do not believe any message was left, and her's why. 1. Surely if they had decided in advance they were not coming to my post code, the moment I called they would have been aware of this. 2. This means when I first called, the conversation should have gone - logically - "Oh, didn't you get our message, I'm sorry but we had to cancell the appointment because...." But this is not what happened.

Instead United Towbars had to phone their fitter to ask where he was - and only then did they came back with this story they had spoken to my (non-existent) secretary earlier.

Well, if they had, surely on my first call they would have referred to this alleged message. What I reckon happened is they had booked the fitter up with too many calls, and he simply decided not do our visit.

The receptionist at United tow bars, unable to handle the logic of the above, then put the phone down in mid conversation. No inappropriate language had been used on my part to provoke such a reaction, other than she realised she could not make her excuses stick. This is not the way to treat customers who are being logical and reasonable - why say a message was left when one wasn't. Anyone knows if you leave a message you (a) take the name of the person you spoke to and (b) you enter the call on a database logging time and date of call. I would have asked if this was done but as the phone had been put down on me, I cannot say whether they even have such a procedure. What this means is that any call you make to United Tow bars is probably not logged anywhere effectively, so its pot luck whether they turn up or not. I would like to have continued the conversation and verified how they do log their incoming and outgoing calls, to establish where the error occurred, and then spoken to a manager. Since I was never afforded this opportunity, I can only complain on line.