For those who do not use trust pilot.
Went with Howdens as it was recommended by friends. Therefore, I started my endless adventure with Howdens in Cardiff in Splott. So, we got our design to minimum details and happy with the price we decided to go for it. Set up the delivery date, paid the deposit, everything was fine and we were looking forward to get our new kitchen in.
On the delivery date we were asked to pay the kitchen in full and without asking too many questions we did OVER THE PHONE (I’ll explain later why this bit is in capitals).
Anyways, the kitchen was delivered in the afternoon and all the cabinets were in wrong color. Managed to get in touch with the designer he said that they would have swapped the carcasses the day after. So this happened, got the new carcasses in with the requested color and everything was fine. Few days after I realise that there were no corner carcasses for the wall and some of the other carcasses were also missing. Here all the trouble begun, the designer stopped replying to my emails (while before the payment he would reply on the day). All in all after calling them through customer service for 3 weeks we still had carcasses missing and wrong tap.
Nobody cared about our situation, not the designer, not the customer service and neither the management, and after 3 weeks of back and forth we decided to send everything back to get our refund.
Luckily for us all the carcasses were still wrapped and we were allowed to get a full refund. Also, when I said I wanted my money back, I was answered: “what are you gonna do now, everybody is busy and you won’t have your kitchen before Christmas” (just so you know I will have my kitchen fitted in less than a week).
But, it is not over yet, unfortunately they couldn’t get me the refund back unless I went to the depot (that’s why I wrote that bit in capitals before). So, I went to depot to get my money back, the guy at the desk asked me what was the amount for my refund. I intentionally said that I didn’t know it and guess what?? He said an amount that was 200£ less from the total (nice try). So I replied with right amount and after about 20 minutes of waiting at the desk I got all the money back.
To conclude this review, they take the full amount without even sending you a screw, most of people wait ages to get all the parts. They don’t give a damn if you wait and nobody cares if you complain with them. My suggestion is, maybe not paying them in full will put pressure on them by providing a good service or just go elsewhere.
I hope the area manager addresses the organisation of this place cause it’s horrendous.