Dapol-Customer Service???

[austinbob]

I don't think this even counts as a warranty claim - it's an offence under the Sale of Goods Act pure and simple, ie. it is not of merchantable quality because it doesn't do what it is supposed to do. The person who sold it to you is liable.

I have to say that tales like this put me off ever buying anything with a motor in it from Dapol even though they produce locos I could use on my layout, and I suspect I am not alone. I wonder if they realise that? The trouble is, if this had been bought by someone starting out in N they would probably give the whole idea up and take up barbershop singing instead and another recruit would be lost to the hobby... 

Chris

A few bad stories out of the hundreds of locos per running number does not make them a bad manufacturer. I would encourage the original poster to ring Dapol directly urgently first thing tomorrow, I would not have left it as long as he has in the first place. Letters, emails and contact forms are all to easily ignored a phone call is not.

I don't think this alters the fact that, in the interest of keeping customers happy, it is just common courtesy to respond to customer enquiries, complaints etc. It is just not acceptable under any circumstances to not reply to communications from customers.

[DesertHound]

Ditape, I'd go with Ntastic's suggestion to be fair. I'm with you all the way as a consumer and understand your feelings. Give them a call (the number's on the website).

I don't like it when companies put a "contact us" box on their webpage for you to fill in - it's not an e-mail from your account, you have no record of it, you don't even know if it's been delivered, and when you get no response you're left scratching your head. Many companies have this arrangement (I'm not singling out Dapol specifically here).

Let us know how you get on. I suspect there are some on this website who will be able to pass your concerns to the relevant people so this gets sorted.

Good luck.

Dan

[Richard @ N'Tastic Scale Models]

I don't think this even counts as a warranty claim - it's an offence under the Sale of Goods Act pure and simple, ie. it is not of merchantable quality because it doesn't do what it is supposed to do. The person who sold it to you is liable.

I have to say that tales like this put me off ever buying anything with a motor in it from Dapol even though they produce locos I could use on my layout, and I suspect I am not alone. I wonder if they realise that? The trouble is, if this had been bought by someone starting out in N they would probably give the whole idea up and take up barbershop singing instead and another recruit would be lost to the hobby... 

Chris

A few bad stories out of the hundreds of locos per running number does not make them a bad manufacturer. I would encourage the original poster to ring Dapol directly urgently first thing tomorrow, I would not have left it as long as he has in the first place. Letters, emails and contact forms are all to easily ignored a phone call is not.

I don't think this alters the fact that, in the interest of keeping customers happy, it is just common courtesy to respond to customer enquiries, complaints etc. It is just not acceptable under any circumstances to not reply to communications from customers.

I agree ALL comms should get a reply including sending in a product. My main concern is leaving it so long and then just sending another letter , then on hear slagging them off. If I was out of pocket for a DCC loco I would have been screaming back in January. I notice the original post is also on the Dapol Facebook page so it should get a response on their and hopefully resolved.

[Chris]

One other thing I've not seen mentioned, if you paid for the loco by credit card you can also contact your card provider and get them to reclaim your money back - they have a legal obligation to do so. If you paid by PayPal file an item not as described complaint.

[Dr Al]

Legally the retailer is responsible for returns, I believe. Therefore if the retailer was Dapol direct then sending it back to them is perfectly valid thing to do.

As someone else said, phone them up :

http://dapol.co.uk/index.php?route=information/contact

Or try posting on their Facebook page - this seems to be regularly viewed and updated.

Cheers,
Alan

[Westbury]

 In January I had to return a class 22 diesel I bought directly from Dapol. Did it via the contact us option on the website and got a prompt reply. The loco took about 2 weeks to be returned and is fine so no grumbles. When I mentioned posting costs they sent me a free 7 plank ICI coal wagon...

[Ditape]

It appears that posting on Dapol's Facebook page works,I posted my original post on Facebook and within 24 hours had this reply:-


Dear Diane Thanks for your message and my apologies for the terrible service you have received from Dapol on this occasion. I have been away from the office for the last couple of weeks so have only just been made ware of the situation and have started an investigation to see what has gone wrong. Hopefully, by now you should have been contacted and at east we can start the ball rolling on rectifying the situation. Please accept my apologies again. Kind Regards Joel Bright MD

A replacement loco should be with me in the morning.

[Bob G]

Well folks, as the NGS Helpline Officer you would have thought that Dapol would have responsed to a couple of my queries by email, but regrettably no.
I have been deeply disappointed by lack of the contact i have been able to get from the manufacturing and management side of the business, as it stops me helping my members with their questions, but i do believe the repairs side which is managed by DCC supplies is OK.

Bob G

[jivebunny]

Well, I think this thread has taught us all never to buy direct from Dapol 

It's quite incredible that they would just ignore a customer and hope the problem goes away, and only respond to the issue once a public post has been made on Facebook that might tarnish their image (they do that themselves if you ask me). Retailers need their customers to come back if they want to survive, Dapol presumably aren't bothered about people who buy direct since the retailers are their main source of income. If they lose a customer forever it won't make the slightest bit of difference to them.

JB

[trkilliman]

Well, people power can be a pretty potent force.

I have several Dapol locos, eagerly await their Grange, and want to see them prosper.

However, if their customer service can be so bad that to get anything done people have to shame them on facebook, maybe WE the customer should give them a tug.

There are things called boycotts that can very often have a miraculous effect/ reality check for the recipient of them. Just saying...

[Maurits71]

well gents and girls

everybody who knows me will know that I think that the Dapol Customer service is pretty sh......, especially when we are talking about DCC supllies.

But on the other hand it has forced me to learn to solve issues my selves, which brings me to the point that I start loving more and more all those people who are sending back loco's under warranty for all sorts of reasons which are coming back on market really really cheap. My latest massive laugh was a class 66 which I could buy for only £ 30,-- to found out that the problem was a blanking plug which was fitted the wrong way around.

So please do not feel offended legal rights are legal rights, quality is quality and customer service is customer service. but... sometimes we could have a simple look ourselves to find that a lot of problems are easy and simple to solve

[austinbob]

well gents and girls

everybody who knows me will know that I think that the Dapol Customer service is pretty sh......, especially when we are talking about DCC supllies.

But on the other hand it has forced me to learn to solve issues my selves, which brings me to the point that I start loving more and more all those people who are sending back loco's under warranty for all sorts of reasons which are coming back on market really really cheap. My latest massive laugh was a class 66 which I could buy for only £ 30,-- to found out that the problem was a blanking plug which was fitted the wrong way around.

So please do not feel offended legal rights are legal rights, quality is quality and customer service is customer service. but... sometimes we could have a simple look ourselves to find that a lot of problems are easy and simple to solve

You're right that we could (some of us) fix some problems ourselves but the whole point is that we shouldn't have to.

[jivebunny]

Great, so next time I buy a kitchen appliance or a power tool and it stops working after all of three seconds I should just open it up and fix it myself (thus voiding any warranty)? Not likely. I'm curious: what do you do if you open it up and find the problem can't be fixed, or you attempt to fix it and make things worse (we've all had our little soldering iron incidents)? Your warranty is void from that point on so do you just throw your £100 loco / appliance / tool in the bin use it as a paperweight?

If you return your defective products, not only do you retain your warranty rights but the manufacturer then has labour costs / hours to consider, since someone will have to spend time determining what the problem is and then fixing it. If the product can't be repaired and needs replacing, then addition to these labour costs / hours they have to factor in the cost of writing off the defective unit, the cost of sending out a free replacement, the cost of postage, plus the damage these defective products are doing to their reputation. If they had to factor this in 5 times for every 100 products sold then perhaps they might look into improving the quality from the outset. The fact that people refuse to return shoddy brand new goods to the manufacturer is part of the problem. In each of those cases the defective product has cost the manufacturer absolutely nothing to repair or replace. Zero. Nada. They produce sub-standard items and get away with it, so it's no wonder they continue churning them out.

JB

[red_death]

Here we go again.  JB is correct to a point, but as with almost every point there has to be an element of commonsense and proportionality applied.

If, for example, the circuit board or motor fails then absolutely send it back. 

If, again for example, the contacts are not making proper contact then it becomes a bit more of a grey area - it certainly wouldn't be unreasonable to investigate why the running was poor and ascertain whether it could be fixed easily.

Your warranty is not necessarily void the moment you open it - that would depend on the warranty conditions and what you try to do to it. Again as an example if the loco was designed to be serviced by taking off the body and you did that to eg apply oil then your warranty is not void.

Mike

[Maurits71]

tja JB

I though by starting my answer with don't feel offended that people should try to understand what I meant to say. probably next time I will reply in Dutch maybe you understand me better than.

You're absolutely right, we should expect a top quality product, we don't want to pay for it, but we still expect it. My point was and is that it's not needed to send something back without having a look.

will give you 4 examples

class 66 ews, bought as non runner - reason blanking plug was fitted wrong way around,
class 66 freight, bought as without working lights, reason one plug wasn't connected properly
class 43, dcc decoder fitted, non runner on dc, reason cv settings wrong
class 60, lots of noise whilst running, reason one bogie not fitted properly, runs perfect after an hour running in now.

that was my point, non of the previous owners couldn't be bothered about having a look, if they did and removing the body or bogies is allowed under warranty rules than they had a perfectly working loco.

don't understand me wrong, I am the first person to offend Dapol and DCC as I believe their quality control and customer service is below zero and I buy atm only if it's either really cheap or if I can't get it in a different brand but still.