Rebecca Smith from Christchurch was thrilled with a new remote-controlled, solar-powered, sliding gate for her driveway.
No more parking out on the road to manually unlock anything, it just oozed convenience, especially with a remote to go in each car.
That is, until husband Phil accidentally put his remote in the wash. At first, it seemed a minor problem. They simply got back in touch with Turtle Direct to order a replacement. Their order was confirmed, the money taken from their account. Problem solved. Or so they thought, but instead of getting a new remote, they were given their money back. No explanation.
Rebecca used the website form to ask why this happened. She was told “we only sell to people who have our product”. So she replied with proof she was indeed the owner of the gate. She heard nothing so made contact again, only to be told to contact administration.
Now, Turtle Direct is an online company. They have a website with a contact form, and a TradeMe page. There is no phone number, no administration office, no physical address. All Rebecca could do was use the contact form and try to communicate through Trade Me. But to her dismay, she found she was blacklisted from their TradeMe site, and blocked from their website.
She summed it up by saying, "It’s absolutely ridiculous!"
She and her husband were left with an impressive gate that only one of them could use. They tried once more to buy a remote, but again their money was taken and then deposited back in their account, only this time with no note of explanation at all. That’s when they turned to Fair Go.
Rebecca had already tried Companies Office for information on Turtle Direct but to no avail. So we at Fair Go put on our detective’s hats and did a little digging around to track down any information we could find on the company. Eventually we made contact with a relative of one of the owners. The owners’ first response was to make accusations against Rebecca that there had been abusive emails. That wasn’t the case.
In due course, they made further contact apologising for the accusation and explaining that they were unsure about the authenticity of Rebecca as a gate owner, as the original purchase had been made by her father using his company name. They said the father was the only one they could supply the replacement remote to, for security reasons according to their company policy.
In a statement they added: "Remote controls for Gate openers are security sensitive products and it would be irresponsible to sell them to random people. The matter has now been resolved and 3 remotes were supplied to the original buyer after he ordered personally a couple of days ago. It is of course regrettable that we could not gather the correct information at the time and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused. We changed the process in our web shop now in a way so order cancellations can be avoided in the future."
It’s good that the purchase could be made, but it raises the question of what would happen if her father died? Or if the property was sold and new owners needed an extra remote? We raised this with the company who have informed us they are changing their policy. At Fair Go, we believe they could also improve their customer service, but in the meantime, we’re glad Rebecca and husband Phil can now both happily and conveniently use their gate from the comfort of their car. Case (and gate) closed.
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