A failure to return calls when promised, full answering machines and no response to emails for days or sometimes weeks - these are some of the complaints that Fair Go has received from customers fed up with Trade Depot.
The company has since offered a full apology and promised that measures are in place to improve how complaints are dealt with.
It's not unusual for Fair Go to get emails from disgruntled customers regarding appliances from various retailers, but recently we'd noticed a spike in grumbles about this particular company. One was from Justine Caddy from Rangiora.
She's a foster mum who needed to upgrade to a bigger fridge-freezer to cope with the growing appetites of the three sisters who'd come in to her care.
She bought one from Trade Depot and was pleased with the extra space. It had shelves fitted in to the door which she could use for her three litre plastic bottles of milk and cartons of juice. But after just a few months, the door shelf started to pop out.
On one particular day, as she put the milk back in, it came crashing to the ground taking the lower shelf with it. On closer inspection she saw that the shelf was held by a narrow rim and secured in place by a small piece of plastic that had snapped off.
As the fridge was well within it's warranty period, Justine contacted Trade Depot straight away. But the company refused to take any responsibility, saying that the problem was caused by user fault.
It said it was a case of "too much weight" put on the shelf and that they'd received similar complaints before. Justine wasn't giving up, she asked how much weight the shelf should hold, but the company failed to provide a response.
Justine then saw an advert for the fridge in which the shelf was holding four bottles of wine. These four bottles would weigh more than her milk and juice so she continued to contact Trade Depot.
She took a screenshot of the Consumer Guarantees Act regarding goods being "fit for use" and sent it to them but says, "I was left for weeks messaging them, asking how is this going?" Her persistence paid off.
Trade Depot eventually agreed to supply a replacement door but there was a kicker. The company said she had to pick it up and install it herself or pay $280 for parts and labour.
In her opinion, "it was really bad customer service, they left me hanging for so many weeks and then wanted me to fix it myself anyway".
Fair Go tried to call the warranties department and had a taste of the delays. It took 40 minutes of getting an engaged signal, then the call was put on hold for another 20 minutes.
When we finally got to speak to someone to say Fair Go would like to speak to the warranties manager, we were told he was away from his desk and that he'd call back in 30 minutes.
Two and a half hours later and there was still no return call, so we tried again. This time we were referred up to General Manager Scott Riley. On hearing Justine's situation, he agreed to help, offering free delivery and fitting and a $100 voucher for her troubles.
Justine was very grateful, however, she wasn't so happy that the manager continued to say the issue was caused by user fault. Riley explained that Trade Depot engineers had looked at the photos and said it was due to unusual force in an outwards direction, rather than the weight of products causing downward pressure, as if someone had been pulling at the shelf.
The only explanation Justine had been given up to this point was that it was due to excess weight. Either way, she didn't feel their customer service was acceptable. On this point, Riley agreed. He apologised to Justine and to other Trade Depot customers, saying the company had experienced low stock, staff shortages and insufficient systems.
He added that there were also problems beyond the company's control. He then promised the service would improve, with the addition of more staff, improved communication and direct access for customers to managers like himself via email.
Fair Go hopes these changes take place to provide a much better service for all their customers.
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