Christmas Ruined.....

If you saw advert for a £350 child's electric car for £99 with delivery before Christmas you'd be tempted right? Well, I was too but as they say, if an offer looks to good to be true it probably is!

We initially ordered a red Veyron style electric car for my 18 month son for Christmas from thegadgetologists.co.uk – the offer was through KGB and the blurb on the site made this look like a dream come true for any child. We placed an order straight away on the 6th November 2011 and then we waited…..

And we waited….

And we waited…

Christmas was fast approaching so we decided to chase up our order. After countless calls we never got through to a customer services rep at thegadgetologists.co.uk. The automated system tells you how many there are in the queue and how long it will be before you are answered but when it’s your turn the phone just rings and goes through to answer phone and says ‘the person your require is away from their desk, please leave a message’. So, we tried e-mail – again no response.

Finally, I received an e-mail, “great!” I thought a notification of shipping! Think again! Unfortunately the red Veyron was out of stock so we had to choose from another type – we opted for the black Porchese and the wait process started again.

One week before Christmas the car did arrive so after my son toddled off to bed I opened the box and started to build the vehicle. First thing to note was the condition of the bodywork- it was scuffed and scratched and the black paint was grey in places and patchy. It looked 2nd hand to me. The build went ok until I noticed loose wires hanging from beneath the steering column – alarm bells started ringing – something is obviously not going to work! After a full test I discovered the engine sounds, horn etc did not work. For saying this toy was advertised as £350 it barely worth the £99 we paid for it.

Ok, so how do you return a product to a company that needs to send you a returns form via e-mail but does not answer their e-mail? We e-mailed, we called but nothing. We complained to KGB and their response was ‘we are aware of the number of issues relating to this retailer and we are investigating further’. Yes, KGB, you may be doing this but you’re also still selling vouchers for other cars from this company? We can’t even return the damn thing as we can’t get a returns form!

So, as it stands we have a poorly manufactured toy car that looks like it’s done the 24 LeMans with no sound and no way of knowing if we’re going to get a replacement.

Thanks thegadgetologists.co.uk for ruining our little boy’s Christmas and thanks KGB you sharks for selling vouchers for a company you know you have issues with.

Those testimonials look great on the thegadgetologists.co.uk website but as we all know they should be taken with a pinch of salt, I could sit writing testimonials for my own business all day – it would appear that this is what they have done.

A quote from their site reads -

‘Throughout this growth our ethos has always been maintained – to sell a great range of gadgets, with a fun and friendly approach, whilst maintaining a strong customer focused service’.

Yes and the moon is made of green cheese.

I’ve never been one to complain but the fact my son will go without his main Christmas present has fuelled me to take this further. BBC’s Watchdog have been notified and every other review site in the land will have this review on it.

A nice resolution would be a refund or a replacement but I feel there’s more chance of Santa elves making us a new one as the staff at thegadgetologists.co.uk seem to be as elusive as Santa himself.

Be warned – thegadgetologists.co.uk – the only ‘ology’ they have is in bad customer service and selling poor quality products.

Merry Christmas you sharks!