Golf Depot

[Foxholer]

Heard quite a few stories like this about Golf Depot, so not a company i'd deal with!

Going via your Credit/Debit Card provider may be a better way.

Good luck!

 

[chellie]

Heard quite a few stories like this about Golf Depot, so not a company i'd deal with!

Going via your Credit/Debit Card provider may be a better way.

Good luck!

Surely the credit card company will want proof though. I know mine did when I sent something back and the retailer didn't refund.

 

[PNWokingham]

Paul, like Davemac has said their online reputation isn't great but it's a great little shop for a bargain. I assume their online business isn't well staffed, if you ever want anything picking up from there let me know and I'll get it and post it on to you.

I'd be inclined to get in touch with Royal Mail aswell as speaking to your credit card company.

thanks for the offer Stu - but I would not deal with this company again ever on principle - but looking forward to catching up in a month

 

[PNWokingham]

Just forwarded all info to credit card company, so will see if they can do anything.

I agree with everything about going recorded and would have done that but my dad sent them back for me before I could tell him that!

I always try to imagine what I would do in the other position and even if they claim they have not had the shoes back, I would have made the refund in good faith as TBH, it is not a huge company and can't have thousands of deliveries a day - and if a parcel comes back with the shoes in the box and the dispatch note with all my details, it is pretty obvious it is a return and they are incompetent for not processing or losing track of it. Or maybe, as was mentioned, they just don't like paying anything back. I will give them the one in a thousand (probably a lot less frequent) that the parcel went missing, but I very much doubt it

 

[richart]

Hope you will have a decent pair by Sunday, and you will not be wearing your old man dirty brown ones.

 

[Deleted member 1740]

thanks for the offer Stu - but I would not deal with this company again ever on principle - but looking forward to catching up in a month

No problem mate, use it as a learning experience, you won't return anything else any other way than recorded delivery.

 

[Tashyboy]

No problem mate, use it as a learning experience, you won't return anything else any other way than recorded delivery.

Still find it strange in this day and age how differant companies have differant returns procedures. It seems the cheaper companies have a poorer return policy.

 

[Deleted member 1740]

Still find it strange in this day and age how differant companies have differant returns procedures. It seems the cheaper companies have a poorer return policy.

It's an independent shop so his returns policy will always differ to the likes of AG with their 30day return policy.

That said, on this occasion and probably many more there's no excuse for the poor service and the unsavoury reply that we've read on this thread.

It really is a boss shop and you can grab a bargain on most stuff. I wouldn't buy anything of significant value as he's not an authorised seller as far as I'm aware.

 

[Slab]

Just forwarded all info to credit card company, so will see if they can do anything.

I agree with everything about going recorded and would have done that but my dad sent them back for me before I could tell him that!

I always try to imagine what I would do in the other position and even if they claim they have not had the shoes back, I would have made the refund in good faith as TBH, it is not a huge company and can't have thousands of deliveries a day - and if a parcel comes back with the shoes in the box and the dispatch note with all my details, it is pretty obvious it is a return and they are incompetent for not processing or losing track of it. Or maybe, as was mentioned, they just don't like paying anything back. I will give them the one in a thousand (probably a lot less frequent) that the parcel went missing, but I very much doubt it

I hope you get your dosh back, I really do, but just as devils advocate

In their shoes (see what I did there ) would you really really really make the refund?

Of course you would.... for any single customer... because despite trying to be in their shoes your not really, your only concerned about one order and one refund but how long/far will your 'good faith' in your customers really last if it was your shop, with all the orders, all the refunds, from your profits, your wages... 10 customers, 100? Fifty pounds, £2,000, more?

At what point as the shop owner (who's own salary may be at risk) do you say "enough's enough, these good faith refunds are costing us way too much money and if we keep doing them then we'll have to increase the shelf price across the board to cover it" (& isn't their keen pricing one of the few reasons folks shop there) It sure isn't their sparkling customer service

Naturally if their goods-in process is a shambles then their good faith needs to be stretched somewhat, but if its pretty slick and the customers didn't use any signed for return service then it may really come down to how many times these unsubstantiated claims happen to them

There's plenty threads online about poor courier/postal service to suggest it may be far more common than you think for an un-tracked parcel to be delayed/lost/nicked

If it were my shop and I'd been hit again and again with refund claims like this I'd probably offer customers a 50% refund (in good faith)


Of course there's always the chance their goods-in is as poor as the customer service and your shoes are there, and you'd be right to be fizzing about it, but how do you prove it

 

[PNWokingham]

I hope you get your dosh back, I really do, but just as devils advocate

In their shoes (see what I did there ) would you really really really make the refund?

Of course you would.... for any single customer... because despite trying to be in their shoes your not really, your only concerned about one order and one refund but how long/far will your 'good faith' in your customers really last if it was your shop, with all the orders, all the refunds, from your profits, your wages... 10 customers, 100? Fifty pounds, £2,000, more?

At what point as the shop owner (who's own salary may be at risk) do you say "enough's enough, these good faith refunds are costing us way too much money and if we keep doing them then we'll have to increase the shelf price across the board to cover it" (& isn't their keen pricing one of the few reasons folks shop there) It sure isn't their sparkling customer service

Naturally if their goods-in process is a shambles then their good faith needs to be stretched somewhat, but if its pretty slick and the customers didn't use any signed for return service then it may really come down to how many times these unsubstantiated claims happen to them

There's plenty threads online about poor courier/postal service to suggest it may be far more common than you think for an un-tracked parcel to be delayed/lost/nicked

If it were my shop and I'd been hit again and again with refund claims like this I'd probably offer customers a 50% refund (in good faith)


Of course there's always the chance their goods-in is as poor as the customer service and your shoes are there, and you'd be right to be fizzing about it, but how do you prove it

how many "good faith" refunds would you expect from a small business when, having sent the parcel back via Royal Mail non recorded (I suspect most send recorded and I also would have had my dad not jumped the gun), with full papaerwork, do you expect to either a. not get delivered orb. from your own incompetence not get booked in? Te answer is hopefully a couple a year at most.....Compare that to an increasingly negative reputation...uhhhmmm - one option is probably better in all business respects than the other!

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Not wanting to appear unpleasant, but there is an assumption the shoes actually made it back to the retailer. Using a signed for service is not just for the the retailers benefit, but as protection against the item getting lost in transit. I have had too many signed for items go missing to even think of using a normal parcel service.

 

[Slab]

how many "good faith" refunds would you expect from a small business when, having sent the parcel back via Royal Mail non recorded (I suspect most send recorded and I also would have had my dad not jumped the gun), with full papaerwork, do you expect to either a. not get delivered orb. from your own incompetence not get booked in? Te answer is hopefully a couple a year at most.....Compare that to an increasingly negative reputation...uhhhmmm - one option is probably better in all business respects than the other!

How many? Well just as a general point and not an example of your experience

I assume every one of us knows that shoplifting has gone on as long as there have been shops. I also assume that since the boom in online shopping everyone realizes that shoplifting still happens to online retailers

There are thieves out there buying stuff online every single day with the deliberate intent to rip off the retailer and get refunds without giving up the goods and using social media and many many other ‘tricks’ to shame or persuade the retailer into giving refunds (if anything its even less risky for the thief than physically stealing from the shelf, they just don’t get the ‘benefit’ of visiting the same physical store time and again, but they can easily go nationwide)

The honest public are pretty unaware of the huge scale of the problem because it doesn’t really impact or concern us but just in in-store losses, I was once told by someone in the retail security trade that if every single retailer sold every single item at zero price for an entire day then it equates to how much is stolen every year

Detecting these thieves must be tough unless they make a mistake (just like the in-store thieves) and distinguishing the real customer who just ‘lost their receipt’ from the thief who just ‘lifted it off the shelf yesterday’ can’t be easy. You’d naturally and quite rightly have to let dozens of suspected guilty ones get away with it on ‘good faith’ rather than risk falsely accusing one genuine customer.
So to minimize the opportunities the scammers have you have a set of rules to cover your retail business and expect both sides to adhere to it

For the most part those rules aren’t there to make life tough and inconvenient for genuine customers (that’s just an occasional unhappy by-product) they’re there to make it tough for scammers and thieves and to conduct business to a level that’s considered reasonable by both parties.
Without them it’d be an absolute free for all, Christmas come early every single day for thieves and the retail prices would go up exponentially and if that means a few punters who deviated from the rules regrettably lose out on their refund so that the prices stay lower for the masses then I can reluctantly live with that… as opposed to the alternative

Let me just say I’m not on the side of the retailers and I don’t have an online shop After all there are plenty online retailers out there scamming and thieving from genuine customers too. And the retailer in this example has some pretty shocking service levels to look at (that poor service alone might be worthy of a good will refund)

I just think it’s sometimes worth looking at things from both sides

So back to ‘how many good faith refunds’ I don’t have numbers but your example is just one of dozens of things that could go wrong with a transaction/warranty/scam leading to a request for a good faith refund but let’s just say to cover all good faith refunds it’s as ridiculously low as one every couple weeks with a spend of £50… that’d be my best/worst guess

 

[Smiffy]

Hate to say it Paul, but I do tend to agree with Golf Depot mate.
The only thing I would have done differently to you, (failing sending them recorded), would have been to contact them a day or two after you sent them back to confirm that they had received them.
Waiting 6 weeks or so was asking for trouble to be honest.
But I still love you.
xxxx

 

[Fish]

I wouldn't buy anything of significant value as he's not an authorised seller as far as I'm aware.

If this is the case it explains a lot, in that, if he's not an authorised seller of particular brands he sells then they could be grey goods.

If that's the case he's importing himself and can't and/or doesn't have the ability or authority to send anything back to a UK brand distributor.

It will be too expensive for him to send anything back offshore so he has to write them off or look for get outs in some way as he doesn't have the support of the brand by not going through the UK distributed network, which is why everything is possibly cheaper.

I won't support companies that do this, it's one thing getting s bargain but it doesn't help authorised stores doing it properly.

It's not illegal but it's a consumer risk.

 

[Deleted member 1740]

If this is the case it explains a lot, in that, if he's not an authorised seller of particular brands he sells then they could be grey goods.

If that's the case he's importing himself and can't and/or doesn't have the ability or authority to send anything back to a UK brand distributor.

It will be too expensive for him to send anything back offshore so he has to writ
e them off or look for get outs in some way as he doesn't have the support of the brand by not going through the UK distributed network, which is why everything is possibly cheaper.

I won't support companies that do this, it's one thing getting s bargain but it doesn't help authorised stores doing it properly.

It's not illegal but it's a consumer risk.

I'm almost certain this is the case. AG won't price match because he's not an authorised seller allegedly.

I usually only buy balls and bits from there, though there's loads of tour bags dotted about with second hand gear that's reasonably priced.

 

[pool888]

Totally agree with Slab. The problem for the OP is that he is an honest person and thinking like an honest person unfortunately not everyone else acts and thinks the same. Being a business owner I can assure you pretty much all of us will have our horror stories dealing with the general public, believe me there are plenty of scammers out there who would try anything to get something for nothing, and often expect compensation on top.

 

[shivas irons]

I'm almost certain this is the case. AG won't price match because he's not an authorised seller allegedly.
.

I know AG wont price match Golf Depot cos I tried it but does it say anywhere in AG's price match policy that they wont price match unauthorised sellers?ive never seen it.

 

[Papas1982]

I know AG wont price match Golf Depot cos I tried it but does it say anywhere in AG's price match policy that they wont price match unauthorised sellers?ive never seen it.

http://www.americangolf.co.uk/content/pricematch-guarantee.html

its plan to see in their t and c's

 

[Fish]

http://www.americangolf.co.uk/content/pricematch-guarantee.html

its plan to see in their t and c's

Yep, clearly states 'authorised' retailer. I was confident it was in their but I couldn't be arsed to look 😜

How can you compete against grey goods, you can't, and if that shop went out of business and the goods were imported, the U.K. brands distributor doesn't need to help either.

Things are normally cheap for a reason!

 

[palindromicbob]

Price is king. Unfortunately this is exactly the type of company that can survive bad service for a prolonged period.