Complaints E-mail

[Tomkat]

An e-mail my friend sent me earlier. He wrote this himself, as he's the poor sod having to complain to the company about this cruddy mixer he was sent. It amused me!

It's kind of long so I've put my favourite bits in bold.



Dear Sir / Madam,

Today I received delivery of part of an order placed yesterday which
included a Behringer 1204 12-channel mixing console. However, when I
unwrapped the external packaging I noticed that the mixer's box was not
sealed and in poor condition. When I opened the box I discovered much of
the internal packaging was missing and the cables were not tied or in
plastic bags but lose in the box. More importantly the mixer has
sustained considerable damage - one fader has snapped off and there are
several dents on the metal panel probably caused by the mains plug
scratching the mixer during transit. However, the most considerable
piece of evidence which suggests this mixer is not "brand new" is that
amongst the creased manuals and warranty papers is a set of instructions
to a board game of Backgammon.

I therefore sought to find the instructions on your website for returns
and immediately noticed there were none listed. I then looked for a
phone number, but again there are no contact details listed for your
company. I also attempted to google your company's phone number but
nothing came up in the search. The only address I could find was for
your webmaster and I presume he/she is not particularly interested in
the damage to my Behringer mixer. Eventually, I decided to call 118118
and the helpful lady there managed to dig out a number for your office
which I rang several times between 10.30am and 2pm. On about my 8th or
9th attempt the call was answered and I explained my problem - I also
conveyed the urgency of this matter as this mixer is required for an
event on Thursday. However, your member of staff maintained that all
your products are "brand new and sealed" and the problem I was
describing was simply not possible. She then suggested that perhaps the
mixer was damaged in transit and therefore I should not have signed for
it. I then explained how your company had chosen to wrap the product in
several layers of black bubble wrap and this was in-turn covered in UPS
shipping packaging. I asked whether all your customers poses the miracle
of X-Ray vision or whether this was a skill that only I am meant to
have? Suffice to say it would have been very difficult to asses whether
a mixer was scratched through the various layers of packaging and the
UPS driver was probably not too keen to hang around whilst I unwrapped
it all before signing.

Rather than argue this point I decided to explain how my "brand new and
sealed" Berhinger mixer was missing much of its protective packaging but
did come with a set of Backgammon instructions which, as far as I'm
aware, bears very little relevance to the world of audio processing. I
must say you clearly have the most loyal members of staff working for
you, as she still maintained that your company could not have been
responsible for this as you "only ship brand new products". Therefore, I
can only assume that in her mind, the explanation for this could only be
one of the following:

a) Berhinger have decided to implement a new environmental policy of
shipping their products not with polystyrene packaging, but sets of
screwed up board game instructions.

b) The UPS driver decided to open the box, have a look at the mixer,
give it a good scratching and replace it in the box with half the
packaging missing but not before leaving his usual "calling card" of
Backgammon instructions.

At this point I decided to request your email address as I feel this
situation warrants the attention of a senior member of staff.

As you can probably tell by the tone of this email, I am truly amazed by
the excuses given to me to avoid replacing this product. Before I start
quoting my statutory rights and various sections of the Trades
Descriptions Act 1968, I would like to give you one more opportunity to
replace this product with a brand new, sealed equivalent. If you would
like to offer new and even more implausible stories of how the
Backgammon instructions found their way into a "brand new and sealed"
mixer I would be glad to hear them.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

George Foden