On 15 August 2000 I spent £631.37 with Graham Goode on 2 x PIAA driving lamp kits, plus brackets and Super White headlamp bulbs. I fitted the lamps plus headlamp bulbs myself around the end of August to our two MY00 cars, which were both less than a month old.

One of the H4 headlamp bulbs failed in Carolyn’s car on 20 December. I called Graham Goode and they said return it, which I did on 30 December. I then heard nothing from them.

Early in January the second headlamp bulb failed in Carolyn’s car. I wrote to Graham Goode on 14 January and returned this bulb also. Three weeks passed and they had ignored both letters.

On 04 February I emailed Graham Goode. Lee Wileman responded the next day and said “Sorry we haven’t contacted you but yes the matter is in hand we have returned them to PIAA but we may have a problem as they were out of their warranty period”.

They ignored me again.

On Friday 02 March one of the H3 driving lamp bulbs on my car failed. I sent Graham Goode the following email the same day:

QUOTE
Today I have had one of my H3 120w bulbs fail (in our other Impreza to the EWC1 failures), bought at the same time. I shall be sending this back to you also.

This is unbelievable and utterly inexcusable.

PIAA are selling probably the most expensive bulbs in the world and they do not last any time whatsoever.

I am not particularly interested in what PIAA say. My contract is with you the retailer, not the manufacturer. Whether they are or are not in warranty is also irrelevant.

Under the Sale and Supply of Goods and Services Act the goods have to be fit for the purpose and expensive bulbs that fail after a few months are not fit for the purpose. When I have sent the third bulb back if you do not agree to replace them I shall issue a summons in my local county court.

I have chosen not to splash this over Scoobynet (4000 members) yet but if it is not resolved satisfactorarily I shall have no hesitation in doing so.
UNQUOTE


The following day Graham Goode himself replied:
QUOTE
I am sorry to hear that you have had problems with your PIAA bulbs purchased from us, If you have not already sent the bulb back please do so and mark it for my attention. I would hope there is an explanation for the failures that we can identify for you.
UNQUOTE


I sent the H3 bulb back on 13 March, with the following covering letter:
QUOTE
I refer to our recent email exchange regarding my third PIAA bulb failure. I am returning the bulb herewith.

Proof of original purchase is per my letters of 30/12/2000 and 14/01/2001.

As mentioned I am not interested in PIAA’s warranty, my approach is my rights under the Sale and Supply of Goods and Services Act, which state the product must be fit for the purpose, and clearly they are not. My contract is also with you the retailer, not PIAA.

Since nearly three months has passed since I first wrote to you I would like this resolved within the next fourteen days, i.e. either the bulbs replaced or a full refund.
UNQUOTE


Fourteen days passed and Graham Goode ignored me again. I sent the following email on 28 March:
QUOTE
I presume you are in receipt of the third bulb I returned with my letter of 13 March. In my letter I said I would give you 14 days for a full refund or replacement of the bulbs.

The 14 days expired yesterday and I have heard nothing from you.

It has now been three months since I first wrote. I am not prepared to let this go any longer.

If I do not hear by close of business on Friday that you are either refunding my money or replacing the bulbs, I shall post the full story on Scoobynet (where a lot of your custom derives from). Nothing libellious, just the truth, which is fairly unsatisfactory. I shall keep returning it to the top of the forum until I get replacement or refund.

I am sorry to have to do this, but three months is long enough.
UNQUOTE


On 29 March Graham Goode replied:
QUOTE
Sorry about the delay there is a letter in the post to you today.
UNQUOTE


Graham Goode’s letter said:
QUOTE
I am sorry about the delay getting back to you, the bulb had been passed to me but I completely forgot about it until I received your email.

Having carefully inspected the bulb I note that the glass portion of the bulb has turned grey, this indicates low voltage as stated on our “trouble shooter list enclosed”. Therefore I strongly suggest you check out the wiring particularly the connectors on the back of the bulbs. As a gesture of goodwill I am prepared to supply you another bulb at 50% discount, if this is of interest to you please get back to me.
UNQUOTE


I replied on 31 March:
QUOTE
I am in receipt of your letter of 29 March.

This is totally unacceptable. You mention the "bulb" in the singular (the one you "forgot" about - I can see how much thought and priority this was given) so I presume this was the H3 one I returned last.

What about the two previous H4 bulbs I returned to you (my letters of 30/12/00 and 14/01/01)?

Dealing with the H3 bulb first, this was as fitted to the lamps as supplied by you. I have not touched them. So, if there is a fault with the connectors on the back of the bulb then it is a manufacturing or assembly fault.

I spent £631.37 with you in one go. I do not feel you have dealt with these issues with any urgency (I first wrote to you three months ago) or commitment. I need not remind you of where this stands legally with what is clearly a product that is not fit for the purpose.

I have expended a great deal of my time (and thus money) over the last three months and got nowhere. I am not going to do this any longer. Having just telephoned, I understand you will be in today and will pick up your emails.

If you do not agree to give me a full refund or replacement for all three bulbs by 6pm today then I shall post the whole sorry story on Scoobynet (over 5000 members plus many many more read it), plus the Mitsubishi, RSOC, EVO forums and any others I think of. I will keep returning it to the top of the threads so everyone reads it. There is a current thread on Scoobynet regarding persistent PIAA bulb failures and although I am itching to reply to it I have resisted so far. This will change at 6pm. All these people can them make up their minds if they want to do business with you. I shall also go over your head and make my complaints made clear to PIAA direct.

I am sorry, but the outcome of this is up to you.
UNQUOTE


Graham Goode ignored me again. On 01 April I sent the following:
QUOTE
Re my email yesterday, I have extended the deadline of posting on Scoobynet etc until Monday evening, ONLY out of courtesy to you in case you did not pick up your emails yesterday.

There will be no further extensions.
UNQUOTE


Since then, nothing…….


I THINK THIS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

 

I shall be one of the people that thinks twice about bying anything from Graham Goode in the future after what happened to Dave T-S
And what happend to good old customer service, what happend to our statutory rights as a customer and sale of goods act ?

Huxley

 

OUCH thats damn right ridiculous.!!. What an idiot. Companies should not treat people so bad, regardless of the money involved. What ever happened to pride in your job and respect for your customers, especially from the bos. Gone, gone, gone.

I'm glad I logged on today as GGR is just down the road from me and I wanted a set of Spots, plus the dash pod kit and gauges.

Looks like I WILL be going elsewhere, as theres no way I’m going to put myself through that.

M

 

Hey again.

Just remembered something similar happened to me.

Dave did you pay with your Credit Card??

If so you complain to them, they will then refund you then take it up with GGR.

The Credit Card compaies are on your side.


M

 

Customer service at it's worst!!!!

TOP

P.

 

Dave

Sorry to hear of your problems, it seems that once they have your money in the bank they are just not bothered with any kind of customer service anymore.

It makes me angry when you hear stories like this, if i treated my customers in this way i wouldn`t expect to be in business very long. Lets hope that Mr. Goode takes notice of this thread and resolves your problem before he loses anymore customers!

Paul

 

Well - theres plenty of other companies out there, I'll be getting bits elsewhere....

Absolutely shocking customer service.

 

What a sh1te way to run a business

 

Update on situation - I emailed Graham Goode from home so only see what, if anything, has happened at 7pm when I get home.

As of last night, absolutely no response whatsoever to my last emails from Graham Goode. I emailed the whole story direct to PIAA UK last night. Perhaps they might take it a bit more seriously.

Watch this space.......

 

In my opinion there is too much of this type of thing on scoobynet at present.

Obvioulsy it is good that we are all informed when there is a serious reason that we should not use a supplier, but it seems that most of these threads turn out to prove that it was all a fairly reasonable every day problem that could have been easily sorted out with a phone call.

We relaxed our strong views on this kind of thread a few weeks back to see if it could run without doing any harm, but too many people have exploited this situation and it is doing ScoobyNet and our community no good at all.

I must stress... I hate people being short changed or treated badly, but there are many threads that are popping up that are not this, they are just every day mistakes, or mis-understandings.

But in the mean time, the company involved is seen to be incompetent, etc.

I must ask that from now on, we all think a little more carefully about whether the level of potential damage we are going to do to a company with one of these posts is really waranted?

I am NOT refering to this thread in particular and have copied this post into each of the posts that I am now closing. I am closing all similar posts so that there is no "well why was this one closed, and not that one". It is a shame for the people with valid complaints, but it has gotten a little out of .

I would respectfully ask that we don't now start a "freedom of speech" thread as we will not be closing threads just for the sake of it, but will encouraging people only to post a complaint if it will really do some good and they have tried everything else.

Very best regards

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