I fitted my waterbutt the other day. I was given a second-hand one and had to fit a new tap on it and a rain diverter - did quite a good job of it if I may say so myself! :) I was really excited to see it had about 2 inches of water in it the next day - how sad am I! lol ;D
I am still waiting for my compost bin I ordered from Blackwall. I put in the order first week in March and I've still not received it (They have taken the money from my bank account!). I gave them a call 3 weeks ago, and they told me that it had been delivered. Well it hadn't! They said that they would contact the delivery company and make sure that I receive it within 2 weeks. Three weeks on and I still haven't had it. Tried calling them yesterday - was on hold for 20 minutes and got fed up waiting so left a message for them to call back. Still not heard from them! I will try again. >:(
Ahh EmmaLou
I had the same problem with Blackwall a couple of years ago so I'm sorry they haven't changed ???
I found the only way to deal with them was when you eventually get through to get stroppy. I saw their advert through the City Council magazine and told them I was going to advise the Council not to let them advertise again and that if I didn't get either my compost bins or my money back by the end of the week I would take legal action against them.
Surprisingly my compost bins arrived 2 days later after they changed Courier company to deliver them!!!
Good luck - let us know how you get on.
I ordered a couple of dalek bins from Blackwall earlier this year and they arrived quite promptly. However, they were just dumped outside my front door. Not even a note through the door saying 'here they are'.
I suspect that just leaving stuff outside is asking for some folk to help themselves, and Blackwall aren't doing themselves any favours by not putting delivery notes through the door.
moonbells
I ordered two massive Daleks from Blackwalls through a Greenwich Council offer (£6 each!) and again, they were 'delivered' (ie. dumped) outside my front door this morning. My wife rang me at work to tell me she couldn't open the porch door to shift them! That said, I ordered them on 16th May so they did arrive quite quickly. Now I have to figure out how to get them in the car to take to the allotment...
Cheers,
Rob ;)
Still not heard from them. Guess I will be on the phone to them on Monday. I bet my phonebill will end up costing more than what I paid for the bin!
Might have to follow lazybones example!
Just got an automated message from Blackwall - they are obviously having serious problems!:
"Your enquiry to Blackwall customer care
Thank you for your e-mail enquiry to Blackwall customer care we apologise for not responding earlier.
We have had some problems with inbound messages to customer care which has led to a delay in the receipt or processing of some enquiries. We apologise if this has been the case.
Your enquiry may already have been dealt with. If so, please disregard this message which is an automated reply.
We cannot reply to your specific message. In order that we can best assist you, please read the information below. This mail may answer your query. If it does not, please follow the instructions given and our customer care team will then reply to you in due course.
When writing to us, if you have a reference number starting CU or OR, please include this in your message to us. This will allow us to rapidly track your order.
Blackwall customer care:
Over the past few weeks we have experienced an unprecedented increase in demand for our water-saving products. Whilst we did anticipate higher sales this year, we did not anticipate the ten-fold increase experienced over some of our campaigns. This has put a considerable strain on our systems and although we have added further resources, our service level has not been as high as our customers deserve. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused you.
This activity with waterbutts has also impacted on our ability to handle orders and enquiries for compost bins for which we apologise.
Telephone lines
The recent situation has resulted in very large volumes of telephone calls into our contact centre. We have added as many additional staff as our premises will allow and we are now opening a second facility which will come on stream during June.
We apologise if you have had a lengthy wait when contacting us or trying to call us.
Confirmation letter:
All orders placed (including on-line orders) are confirmed in writing once processed. This is usually posted in the mail by return. Some confirmation letters were delayed through April due to very large numbers of orders placed. If your confirmation letter took more than one week to be sent to you we are very sorry.
If you have not received a confirmation letter by the time you receive this message, please e-mail careteam@blackwall.co.uk with MISSING CONFIRMATION as the subject of your mail.
Delivery time:
Lead times commence from the date on your confirmation letter. As previously mentioned, we apologise if this was delayed. Please see further details below.
Delivery times are as follows:
Home composters
28 days maximum
General catalogue items
28 days maximum
(with the exception of Rainsaver Water Butt and Space Sava Mini Butt)
Rainsaver 190 litre Water Butt and kit
6-8 weeks
Space Sava Mini Butt
Orders are not currently being taken - waiting list only.
Outstanding orders will be delivered early July.
A letter was posted w/b 29th May to advise customers of the situation and give further options.
If your delivery is outside of the lead times stated above, please e-mail careteam@blackwall.co.uk and type DELIVERY in the subject field of your message. We will contact our carriers and ensure that delivery follows.
Charging
It is our policy not to charge for goods until they are dispatched to our carriers. Currently water butt orders are charged to credit cards with a deferred payment time to allow for the delay in delivery. However, we are aware that some accounts were charged immediately, particularly with Internet orders - this was prior to changes made to our systems.
If we charged your credit card early we would like to apologise. We are happy to refund your account and then recharge it again prior to dispatch. If you would like us to do this, please e-mail careteam@blackwall.co.uk and type into the subject field of your message REFUND/RECHARGE.
Through April, a small number of Internet orders were charged more than once. We believe that all of these have now been refunded and we are sorry for this system error. If you are still waiting for such a refund, please e-mail careteam@blackwall.co.uk with MULTICHARGE typed into the subject field of your message.
On-line orders
Orders placed on line have status "Pending" when they are initially placed and "Paid" when they are acknowledged by our order processing system. At this point a confirmation letter is dispatched by post.
Early in April we upgraded our web servers to cope with the additional traffic. A quantity of order information was not transferred over to the new server, but the orders were processed. This explains why orders placed on certain dates cannot now be tracked on the site.
If you placed an order on one of our web sites several weeks ago and did not receive a written confirmation in the post, then there will have been a problem in the transfer of your order. If this is the case, please e-mail careteam@blackwall.co.uk and type INTERNET in the subject field of your message. Please also advise us of the unique order number generated by the web site and advised in your e-mail confirmation.
Cancellation
If you have not received your goods and you would like to cancel your order we will fully understand. Please e-mail to careteam@blackwall.co.uk and type CANCEL into the subject field of your message. We will cancel the order and refund your money in full.
Other issues
If there is any other issues that you would like to mention or comments that you would like to make, please e-mail to careteam@blackwall.co.uk and type OTHER into the subject field of your message.
When will you hear from us?
We have set up a special team made up of our most experienced advisors specifically to deal with all outstanding customer care issues. Your reply will be dealt with by a dedicated advisor who will see your enquiry through to its conclusion.
Once we receive instructions from you we will aim to deal with your enquiry as soon as possible, ideally within 7 days. However, in order that we can have a solution in place when we contact you by return, please allow a maximum of 28 days before chasing a reply.
Blackwall and Straight plc would like to thank you for your custom. We are sorry that our service has not been up to our usual standards during this difficult time. It is our hope that we will offer our usual service by July."