The saga of a new electric fire

Mary feels the cold and had a two bar electric fire for a mere fifty years. Then it went wrong!

Only forty years or so ago it nearly killed her. Of course the fact that she was trying to change the fire effect bulb without turning it off at the mains may have had something to do with it. Fortunately she was married at the time and her husband managed to pull her out of the thing before it killed her.

At least it taught her never to mess about with electrical equipment without isolating it first. Anyway as I said, it went wrong recently. Of course no electrician would touch a fire of that age so she had to get a new one. That’s where I came in and all the trouble started.

We couldn’t find any shop where electric fires were on display so muggins had a look on the internet. I soon found a modern fire of similar appearance to the old one and placed an order through John Lewis web site. The order was delivered to Mary’s flat and all went well at first.

Then Mary began to complain that her feet felt cold, while the upstairs rooms were pleasantly warm. We soon realised that her old fire had been of the radiant type while the replacement was a convector. She put up with this during the very cold winter of 2008/9 by covering her legs with a blanket. Then the fire broke down, the wiring had burned out at the switch.

A call to one of her friends produced an old fire found on a skip which worked perfectly well but was obviously a bit dirty. This one was satisfactory in that it was a radiant fire and her legs once again became warm. However I was now left with the job of contacting John Lewis to return the new but now faulty fire they’d sold me and get my money back.

Customer service in the store referred me to after sales, who in turn sent me on to John Lewis direct. Each one of these calls obtained only after pressing numbered buttons in a required order and a lot of time listening to background music.

At long last I spoke to a person who told me that I couldn’t get my money back until the manufacturer had seen it and sent a report on its condition back to JL.

You might have guessed it, Burley, the manufacturer who were located up in the old county of Rutland, couldn’t obtain the fire until JL sent them a release document to enable them to collect it from me and take it back to their works. JL Direct promised to send the necessary papers to Burley.

A few days later I checked with Burley who’d never seen any paperwork and told me that I now had to wait as they only sent their lorry to this area once a fortnight. They also gave me a new contact for JL known as JL Assist.

So back again to JL Assist, this time they assured me that the paperwork had been sent, but just in case would send it all again immediately. Another phone call with Burley to check and all was well.

Now all that was needed was a shiny new radiant fire to warm Mary’s feet, as the old one given to her was too dirty to be cleaned up to her standards. Back on the internet once again and I soon found a fire very similar to the one her friend had given her. So I ordered one, asking for the package to be delivered direct to Mary.

Big mistake!

While searching the net for a cheap radiant fire, I had come across Chemist Direct, who deal with all sorts of discounted articles. Being primarily chemists, their web site has a section for embarrassing goods. All their packaging is therefore unmarked concerning the contents.

A huge box with no markings other than Mary’s address duly arrived. Mary was suspicious, thinking that it might contain a replacement for the convection fire that she didn’t want. The van driver wouldn’t let her open it unless she signed for it first, so she wouldn’t sign and it was returned from whence it came.

It took me hours on the telephone going all through the numbers again, listening to a horrible repetitive piece of tinny music while I was kept waiting. I was promised immediate action by several members of their ‘Service team’ until at last several days after, I found a girl who was prepared to go and see the Warehouse manager to find out what had become of the new fire. Of course she said she would ring back but although I waited all day there was no result.

To my surprise, two days later the same girl phoned me back to ask if the fire had been delivered yet. The answer was no of course, but the next morning the box actually arrived.

Now I had to take the new radiant fire to Mary and collect the old Burley fire and the dirty old radiant fire to take home. Three cheers for sons in Law who have large motor cars.

Then things began to move at last. The dirty fire went up in my loft just in case it was ever needed again, while the Burley fire was collected by a nice young lad from the company: at 7-45 in the morning!! I asked him what time he’d started work and was told ‘quarter past four this morning.’

After a couple of days I rang JL Assist to try and collect my refund on the Burley fire. I was told ‘When the fire has been received by Burley the system will take care of it.’ They were quite surprised when I told them the fire had already been returned 3 days ago.

They told me they would replace the money on the card used to purchase the fire in the first place. Just in time I remembered that I’d had a new card in the meantime, which meant some delay while the girl checked with her manager if this was ok and how to go about it.

She came back with the answer saying I had to give her my new card number. “The money will be credited to your new card within five working days.”

So all was well! I do all my banking on the internet so I can check my accounts at will. However after five working days there was no result, fortunately I checked my emails and sure enough there was a note from JL saying that my bank had refused to accept the payment.

Of course they were still using my old card number in spite of the fact that I’d told them the new one. A repeat of the new number actually produced a result.

So now I have my money back and haven’t heard a thing from anyone for weeks and all is well; I think.

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