Bought from Rutlands anyone?

[beejay]

I found Rutlands service recently to be first rate.
I ordered in the afternoon and it arrived next morning. Doesnt get much better in my book.
regards, beejay

 

[patl]

I tend to find that they're fine as long as its in stock. Unfortunatley most of the time I find something's out of stock and I have to remind them to send it when its back in stock. In short, I find them servicable, but certainly nothing special.

 

[speed]

my first order was 6+ weeks ago, a set of chisels

they sent a letter out saying out of stock, will be 5 days, after 2 weeks phoned them up and oh the delivery company has lost your order, we will send another set, week later phones back, they are out of stock again and im still waiting,

whooooo they arived at last

 

[paulm]

Some Rutlands experiences in this thread

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/view ... t=rutlands

Basically I avoid them and use Axminster or CHT or similar if at all possible, but do succumb occasionally when I find they have something that I can't locate elsewhere or there is a particularly good bargain in one of their sales, but otherwise try to avoid as I really don't get the impression they care much about their customers, certainly no where near as good as Axminster in my experience, and Rutlands often looks expensive for many items also, for example just bought these from Axminster, set of three for £9.99

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp? ... e=1&jump=0

A single one from Rutlands cost £8.95 !!! Same quality, nothing different or special

http://www.rutlands.co.uk/cgi-bin/psProdDet.cgi/DKBP6

Cheers, Paul.

 

[Dibs-h]

Placed an order with them early September for a Leigh D4R, a set of cheap chisels (that looked as if they came with a wooden presentation box - a present for someone) and a combo box of 16G brads.

Complete joke to be honest.

3 boxes turned up. Should have just ordered the D4R to be honest. The chisels were in a cheap plastic box, when I rang up to point it out and they looked at the website - I got a "yes, we can see how people would think they came in a wooden presentation case". The combo box of nails was one size short.

These I got today, after a complete Basil style adventure. ParcelForce tried to deliver on Thursday last week, no-one was home, as I hadn't been informed of the delivery by Rutlands\ParcelForce, left a card indicating they would re-deliver on Friday.

Never turned up, so on Sat am, I made the 90 min round trip to the Parcel Force depot, only to be told by, for what passes for staff, that my parcel had been left with the local post office and I should have received a card stating so.

Pointing out - "would I be stood here, if I had received a card and combined with the fact that I am stringing a sentence together not make you think?" Didn't go down well.

Rang up Rutlands today to let them know what crap service they offer and got a "wtf are you ringing us for" type of response.

In a nutshell - I will never purchase anything off Rutlands again, and nor advise anyone else to purchase off them. Furthermore, I am now even more reluctant to buy anything off any supplier, if it turns out they use ParcelForce.

As for Neil's post - if their MD isn't even bothered to reply, I'm not interested in ourchasing off muppets who hold their customers in such contempt.

 

[Mike.C]

This is a hard one and if I was Dibs I would be seeing red too, but on the other hand I have never had any problem with them. On top of that I have had some really good deals, for instance £106 for the Incra Twin Linear System which is the equivalent/predecessor to the £360 LS Super System.
When I have spoken to customer service they have always been fine, but there again I have never really phoned them with a problem.

In the survey they scored 5.63 which does not look good, but on the other hand out of 79 votes 54 were for average and above, which sounds better. I mean what ever way you look at it average is not bad.

So what do you do? There are members such as Dibs, who are telling you about the nightmare problems they have had with Rutlands, but you have not had these problems yourself.

Despite Neils unanswered email, I emailed them with a link to this thread on Saturday and I am waiting for either a reply or better still a comment on here. So lets see if they do care about customer service by replying. If not then maybe I have just been lucky and it is only just a matter of time before they do a Dibs on me, which I am not prepared to hang around for.
If they do not care about the comments of their customers then I for one will take my business elsewhere.

Cheers

Mike

 

[Dibs-h]

I suspect that I probably represent the minority of shopping experiences when it comes to Rutlands or any other online\mail order retailer, but it's the bad experiences that are remembered and usually passed on.

Excellent shopping experiences are rarely forgotten.

I suspect that if Rutlands have it in stock, the lazy ar.e ParcelForce delivery driver can be bothered to find your house and you're in, then you'll have a good experience. If any of those variables are out of whack - then you're highly likely suffer.

The thing is that money (within reason) isn't an issue anymore, if someone messes me about, I will go elsewhere, even if it means paying more. Sometimes just a simple acceptance of the issue\problem and an apology is sufficient.

Having the lady @ Rutlands asking me whether it said on the card to go to the ParcelForce depot. Does she seriously think that because I'm into woodwork, my knuckles drag on the floor and I struggle to string a sentence together or read one?

Had it been a shop and she'd been at the counter, I've never lost my rag, but I suspect this once, I'd have chinned the silly so and so.

I think statistically you aren't likley to have an issue with Rutlands. However, should you do - then you'll find they don't give a damn. It certainly shouldn't be a case of "you pays your money and takes your chances."

 

[Jake]

This is why I am hesitant about rating companies for customer service, even ones so obviously good as Wealden, without having had the 'difficult transaction' which tests a company's commitment to more than just taking some money, picking something from a warehouse, and putting it in the hands of a parcel company.

I used to think that Rutlands were OK, never had a problem, quick and efficient, etc. Then on about my 6th order or so, they picked and despatched the wrong item. OK, mistakes happen, no big deal.

So I called up and told them they'd sent the wrong thing. They were OK about replacing it, but wanted to do the 'return that one to base before we send out the right one', which really annoys me - this is your breach of contract, get the thing you are supposed to have supplied out, and then deal with clearing up your own screw up. Eventually talked them out of that - I needed the thing for a task which was urgent - but it was like extracting teeth.

They then refused to use a courier who could give a timed collection/delivery slot, not even morning/afternoon - why? Because 'our courier' doesn't do that. OK, so you expect me to take a day's holiday to sort out your mess? Why don't you use another courier company, this once, given that this is your problem and that will save me one of my day's holiday? Can't do that, sir, impossible. Why? We have a contract with 'our courier'. I doubt that contract is exclusive, it may give you discounted prices, but I doubt it prevents you from ever using another company for a one-off? Can't do that sir, we don;t have contracts with any other courier companies. Well, ring them up and book one, that'll be a contract. Can't do that, we have to use our carrier.

I lost that argument, and a day's holiday, and do not use them anymore unless there is really no alternative. Small thing really, but the attitude throughout was that they were doing me a massive favour by arranging to collect the item they had wrongly despatched and sending me the right thing was another one. Really irritating arrogant couldn't-care-less manner from the two or three people I spoke to, the memory of those phone calls still galls everytime I see them mentioned.

 

[Jimbill]

I have just joined the forum so I can post a reply on this topic.
I ordered from Rutlands for the first time last week - a Tormek plus a kit of jigs and some other stuff - nearly £500.
Within an hour got an email saying the jig kit was out of stock but everything else would be dispatched unless i contacted them. I rang immediately to find out when the kit would be available and was told probably a week or so. I pressed for a more ddefinitiveanswer and was told it was actually now obsolete but they had other kits- none of which i was interested in. I said why don't they send me the individual items from the kit for the same price (would have been £19 more expensive), but they refused out of hand so I cancelled the whole order as without the jigs in question the Tormek was useless to me. This all happened within and hour and a half of placing the original order. Despite doubting their commercial ability I didn't think anymore of it until I received a dispatch note from their courier!!!!
Rang them the next day and was told they were unable to stop the despatch but that the courier would bring the "in stock" items back to them and not deliver to me. I then noticed that they had debited my account for the items dispatched. Rang them again and was told that i would get a refund when the items i had cancelled and was never going to receive were returned by their courier!!!!!!!!!
So i am waiting with bated breath, relying on what, having read posts on this forum, is a potentially unreliable courier to return items i have never seen to get money back that should never have been debited.
To say i was treated with little sympathy is an understatement. On two separate occasions i was told i would be phoned back with progress updates on my refund - never got them, had to chase them up. At one point my bank account showed a debit for the items dispatched and a pending transaction for the original order so a total of nearly £900 which put me in overdraft and unable to buy these items elsewhere. Also when i tried to ring them their phone line was out of order making me think they were going bust and had been cut off. (It was only a power cut)
I did get a n email admitting they should never have dispatched a part order without contacting me for acceptance and certainly not debit any money, but they still made me wait for a refund which i feel is totally unacceptable.
I have finally got all my money back and thankfully nothing was ever delivered, but it has been 6 days of worry and a state of limbo when i really needed the stuff i ordered.
I will never use them again.
In retrospect I don't feel that they were intentionally causing these problems but i feel there systems are poor, there policies are not customer friendly and that there staff did not do enough to remedy the situation. In my mind it's not the mistakes that cause the frustration rather the way they are dealt with. If Rutlands had bent over backwards to sort my issue out promptly I would be writing on this forum to laud their efforts and would be placing many more orders in the future.
Further to a previous post, if the MD can be bothered to reply to the email sent to him about his company's service, how can we expect his employees to be any more interested.
A real shame.

 

[toddler]

I'm still waiting for my refund :x

I've sent them another email stating that I was legally entitled to a full refund within 30 days of me cancelling the order. That was back on the 20th of October!

 

[Dibs-h]

I suggest you contact your Credit Card company and intitiate a chargeback. Assuming you used a credit card, your contract is with the card company and not the merchant.

It can take upto 28 days to get the money back into the account, but it is very satisfying to know that the more times it happens the less favourable the terms will be from the merchant account provider. 0.1% may mean nothing to most of us, but to a % of turnover can be noticeable to the merchant. Too many chargebacks does affect the credit rating of the merchant.

If we are going to take it - no point taking it lying down.

The following links may be useful,

http://www.out-law.com/page-430

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resour ... gulations/

 

[woodshavings]

Toddler,
I suggest you write to the MD using recorded delivery - that is more likely to get his attention - as well as contacting your credit card company.
The responsibility is jointly with the dealer and the CC company .
John