Banned from every John Lewis for taking too many TVs back
IN these tough times for the high street, stores are usually only to willing to mollify an unhappy shopper.
But now it seems one major retailer has had its patience tested to the limit by a customer’s litany of complaints about faulty goods.
Paul Chambers had been buying televisions from John Lewis over the last three years and then returning them, citing problems such as ‘ghosting’, ‘calibrating’ and ‘pixelating’.
But when the 54-year-old, who suffers from severe epilepsy, returned his 12th TV set, frustrated bosses at the department store finally snapped.
An operations manager has now written a letter to Mr Chambers, telling him not to buy any item from any of its department stores, website or even from branches of Waitrose, which it also owns.
The nationwide ban follows a long-running dispute which has already seen Mr Chambers barred from buying any electrical item from the home technology department at his local store.
The letter said: ‘In light of your recent enquiries, we now feel it necessary, and prudent, to terminate our business relationship with you. This decision applies to all John Lewis department stores, JohnLewis. com and Waitrose.
‘This will take immediate effect. Please be advised we shall not process any orders you attempt to place by telephone or online channels. We have taken this decision due to our firm belief that we are unable to meet your service needs, nor do we believe our range of products will meet your expectations.’
The letter asks Mr Chambers not to visit the Solihull store or any other branch of John Lewis and warns: ‘If you do, we shall ask you to leave immediately.
We would not wish to embarrass you in this way so we would kindly ask you to comply with this request.’
Mr Chambers said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I opened the letter. They have banned me from every John Lewis in the country and I can’t buy anything off them online. The TVs were faulty so I returned them.
‘There have been problems with ghosting, calibrating and pixelating. I do suffer from epilepsy and I need the TV to be visually perfect. I was paying up to £900 for the TVs, so they had to be right.
‘Every time I have taken them back, the staff have been very friendly, so I was shocked to receive this letter.’
The row comes after Amazon beat John Lewis in a survey for customer satisfaction.
Amazon took top place for the sixth consecutive time in the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, in figures released on Wednesday.
It scored 86.7 points out of 100 – just ahead of John Lewis which
‘I’ve borrowed an old set from a friend’
was given 86.5. Next and Yorkshire Bank came joint third on 86.1.
Following its ban, a spokesman for John Lewis said: ‘We’re sorry to hear Mr Chambers is disappointed. We always want to deliver the very best service for our customers, so we never take this kind of action lightly or without investigation.’
As for what Mr Chambers is going to do now, he said: ‘My friend has let me borrow his old TV now and it has been fine. But I would have liked to have gone back to John Lewis to buy another TV in the future.’