It could be curtains for you : Simon Perry: Schemes, dreams & trivia

Words can't say what I mean. Chantelle (Source: Colemanballs, Private Eye)

It could be curtains for you

2nd April 2003 by Simon

I don’t know if you’ve had to buy curtains. Let me tell you, if you’re going to get them made, it’s an expensive business. Our first port of call was John Lewis, but given we’ve got pretty large windows, the costs were seriously expensive, so we went along to the Curtain factory outlet in North Finchley, London, UK.

When you are placing your order, the staff are jolly and happy - you feel they’re probably a bit sharp, but they’re in the rag/schmattah trade - what do you expect?

One of the assistants, Joe, took our order and we showed him our windows diagrams with full dimensions on them - “I don’t need that,” he said, “we’re experts.” OK we assumed.

After a four weeks, the two sets of curtains came back. One set was fine, but the other set were not wide enough by about a metre on each side and therefore light streamed in through the bedroom windows.

My wife took them back and explained the problem to another assistant, Margret, who said given the detailed diagram we’d provided, she couldn’t understand how the mistake had been made. She’d get them back to us in a week.

After various calls made by us over the next ten days, we were eventually told that the curtains hadn’t even been sent for alteration.

After a sale, when they’ve got your money, their attitude changes to become unpleasant.

Now, we’re not the type to shout and stomp when something goes wrong - we’re balanced, reasonable people who give the benefit of the doubt but sadly some people abuse that, so the only time we got a response, was when we had to go to the shop and speak firmly to the owner, Dave giving him a deadline of when we wanted the curtains returned. Dave’s attitude was slightly off-hand, but to his credit, the curtains were delivered on Monday as promised, but it did take over two weeks.

BTW - There’s a photocopied article from a magazine by Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen praising the shop. I’m sure he got fantastic service, but I wonder if he knows about the people who don’t.

I for one will not be recommending them to anyone - quite the reverse.

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