Trading Standards - Know Your Consumer Rights!

Beware All Ye Who Enter Here - prepare to lose your consumer rights.

I am very upset today.

I am upset because one of my closest and dearest friends has been treated in an absolutely appalling manner by a well known High Street Retailer (I wasn’t going to name-and-shame but you know what? It might get them to pull their socks up! RIVER ISLAND I name you!)

My friend is not an angry customer, nor has she been rude – she bought two coats online, decided she didn’t like them and returned them within 4 days. So far so good right? Wrong. What should be a regular and entirely normal refund process has turned into an absolute circus, where I feel even her honesty about the order has been questioned.

I won’t go into the nitty gritty but in short River Island have been unhelpful, vague about when she should be getting her refund (just another 28 days!) unaware of their own return policies and refusing to uphold basic consumer rights. To the point where they’ve even questioned if she paid for her order in the first place – how would that even work?

It’s not just been a shoddy customer system but the people she’s spoken to on the phone have also been downright rude, insulting, and have refused to do basic things like allow her to speak to a manager. I know this because I’ve been reading her her consumer rights as she’s been on the phone to them.

She’s been left without an apology, without an explanation as to when the problem can be sorted, and severely out of pocket.

Adding to this she’s just come out of hospital after having an emergency appendectomy, this is an additional stress she could really do without at them minute – although this doesn’t mean she should receive any extra special service, it just shows a complete lack of care or concern for any of their customers)

I had a quick look on twitter to see if people had a similar view of this and it seems the overwhelming response is yes, River Island’s customer service is absolute balls, and to be honest I think it represents a problem that runs throughout the British High Street and even the UK economy at the moment.

Once upon a time I was stood supervising a changing room being shouted at by an elderly couple that because of ‘people like me’ the economy was such a state. I smiled and politely disagreed with them then but now I look back and find I do agree – although I’ll change the ‘people like me’ to ‘shops like this’ (I’d like to say for the record that I had been extremely kind to this couple, and had been helping them for a while with choosing formal shirts. The shop I worked in had a policy of letting people try on shirts from a rack of already unpackaged shirts which were exactly the same but all black – when I told the couple that they would only be able to try on these, rather than removing others from a packet as is the nationwide school policy, they suddenly got very very nasty, and very very personal)

Back to the main issue though – what I mean by ‘shops like this’ is that there has been a definite decline in customer service in favour of boosting the stores profits (although one could argue surely they are both linked?) How do we expect any current economical situation to get better if when people do go to the shops they’re generally treated either like their invisible, or that they’re an inconvenience.

 What I noticed from working in-store myself is that one of our main jobs wasn’t to be readily available to customers, but was to push the store credit card. Our job performance was based solely on that rather than how we interacted with consumers, and often we were all kept so busy with silly jobs (re-fold all the jeans in a different way!) that there were no staff available to help with enquiries on the shop floor. It was  alsooften recommended that we had to ask the same customer 3 to 4 times if they wanted a store credit card in any one transaction. Annoying to both the customer, and to us, I personally felt like I was being forced to bully customers, and that I wasn’t doing my job properly by not being there to help anyone who came in. Surely the experience of shopping is meant to be pleasurable – who wants to stand and be pressured into signing up for a credit card everytime you buy something? Especially after you spent 45 minutes wandering around trying to find someone who could answer a simple query like where the toilets are! I wouldn’t go back to that shop, and I think it’s a fair point to make that it was the fact everyone was signing up for credit cards left right and centre that got a lot of us into trouble in the first place!

Why are people expected to keep shopping when they’re treated like they don’t know what they’re talking about, or make them feel like their being difficult just because their asking for their consumer rights to be upheld? Sure you get your nasty, complaining for the sake of complaining customers but I’d say 90% of people are polite, and honest, and are people are ALLOWED TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS.

River Island’s treatment of my friend has been terrible, and I’ve recommended to her that she report them to Trading Standards. Either they need to start hiring better staff who can do the job properly without being impolite, vague and dismissive, or they need to put in a better training system. Either way I think its an imperative issue that all shops need to be doing – not just with the returns but with customer service in general.

The days of ‘the customer is always right’ are certainly long gone and it was definitely not always the case anyway – but companies need to realise that customers are more than just a walking pound sign – someone to get to sign up for a store card, or upselling a crappy lint roller. Customers have brains, have rights, and have a choice – not to return to your store and give their hard earned £££ elsewhere, and if they are in the wrong its no bother to politely explain to them what the situation is and where they can go from there.

What could help boost this is KNOWING YOUR RIGHTS. Never go into a battle without suitable armour & weaponry. Protect yourself, but don't be afraid to go on the offensive and state where they've gone wrong. Be polite always, and consider writing a letter to the Head Office with a suggestion as to how they could change their system for the better to avoid further problems. 

Did you know that you have EVEN MORE rights if you buy online, because of Distance Selling Rights?

The Unfair Contract Terms Act of 1977 can also invalidate a lot of exclusion causes that retailers put into their contracts of sale.

That’s what buying something is – you’re entering a contract with the seller where you both have ends to keep up. If the item is faulty, damaged and even if you change your minds, within a certain amount of time ,you have the right to return it – even without a receipt.

It’s important to know your rights to avoid getting swindled by the (lets just say it) greedy, self serving corporate retailer pigglywigs. If they could get away with giving the customers no rights, they would and they probably so often get away with it because people don’t have the know how to deal with them.

They’re not doing you a favour by selling you a coat, YOU’RE giving them money and therefore ensuring they make a profit, THEY NEED YOU to come shop with them, therefore why aren’t they encouraging us to do so – with effective customer service?

It seems so simple, doesn’t it?

Anyway I better finish this off before I get any angrier and end up marching on the Arndale Shopping Centre with a vicious placard.

The best website for helping you know your consumer rights is this from the Citizen's Advice Bureau and also this from the Government which links you to different sites which detail what your exact rights are for different situations. Money Saving Expert even offer a free print out, wallet sized guide of your consumer rights!

T x

Come back Otis! We need you!

Let me know if you have any stories of really bad (or even really good – see a past post) customer service – nothing better than a juicy horror story from retail to make me glad that I escaped!

Just a quick note – remember that awesome children’s programme dealing with consumer rights, ‘Short Change’? Bring it back!

Picture sources:

Daily Mail Online & The Telegraph Online