Carrefour

[Qaterine]

This is my first post so here goes. Has anyone had any problems when dealing with Carrefour and their lack of any form of customer service. I bought a television from them on 28th April 2015 which only worked for just over two months and gave up the ghost in mid July. I tried to contact the maker in Madrid as Carrefour informed me that their guarantee only lasted 15 days from date of purchase. It turned out that the telephone numbers given on the guarantee and the instruction manual for the maker (TD) were all unobtainable and even Carrefour could not contact them. Eventually in early September Carrefour agreed that their technology people would try to fix the television. I eventually got it back on 8th October and it broke down again on 12th October. Contacted Carrefour again but was informed that they couldn't/wouldn't help at all to try to resolve the issue. I am now in the process of completing a claim form and taking my complaint to FACUA. I would be grateful for any advice/comments.

Many thanks,

Catherine

[TorreDelAguila]

If you take this through FACUA or OMIC, you should win a full refund.
Carrefour also have a responsibility not to sell durable goods from suppliers/manufacturers who either cannot be contacted, or cannot support the legally required (2 year) warranty.

Notwithstanding, worth noting that hypermarkets do have a certain track record in this area. Eroski earned a reputation for similar (and illegal) unhelpfulness a while back, which they have recently, allegedly, gone some way to mend. Supermarkets, I think, tend to see themselves as primarily "box shifters", and can tolerate a percentage of customers being dissatisfied and never returning.

Also, great with hindsight, avoid products from 'unknown' companies. Support from them will often be marginal.

Good luck with the consumer complaint. If you haven't already done so, make sure you lodge the standard four-part Consumer Complaint form with Carrefour, together with a copy of your original receipt. You should now be asking for a full refund, or perhaps exchange for a high-quality replacement.

[costakid]

Carrefour are one of the worst offenders for this type of behaviour. We buy food there but nothing electrical anymore.
El Corte Ingles for us.

[pensure1988]

My Friend in Spain bought a Smart Wifi Samsung TV from them in Los Barrios in 2013 only to have a Plasma Screen develop a fault after 10 Months into the 24 Month Guarantee Period. She took this TV into them who had their Repair Company, who presumably were Samsung Appointed Agents, tell them the Television had been dropped and therefore could not honour the Guarantee. She and her Husband bought a second Samsung TV from this self same Branch of this Shop,only to have the same Fault develop again in 10 Months into the Warranty Period. Again this TV went back to the Shop and they came back with another excuse why the Guarantee could not be honoured and therefore no Replacement TV could be obtained. They now have a 2015 LG Wifi Smart TV .which they are perfectly happy with, bought from another Supplier in Puerto Banus. Just shows you Guarantees and Warranties mean nothing to Certain Suppliers in Spain. I think you have to ask the Shop for a Complaints Form( Hojas de Reclamaciones). See how to use this form below.My Friends did not know about this form so did not go down this route . Pity though,maybe things could have been differently handled this case.

http://www.spainexpat.com/spain/informa ... int-forms/

[gerryh]

Just to balance things up.
I bought a "install it yourself" own brand air con system from Carrefour. It developed a fault after a few weeks use. Phoned Carrefour help line and they arranged for a fitter to come and repair it all at their expense.
Bought a juicer from Eroski, it stopped working after several months use. Took it back to Eroski and they sent it away for repair and phoned me when they had it back.
Taken items back to both stores, within the 15 day return period, and either had an alternate item or a refund without any quibbles.
Cheers
Gerry

[Wicksey]

The 15 day thing is usually for returning goods for a refund whatever your reason. The guarantee will be two years on electrical goods.

Like Gerry I have had good service from these shops as well. We have bought a DVD player from Worten and a camera from Eroski that I bought purely to try them out at home. When I didn't like them I took them back after a week and got a full refund without any question. I have even returned a USB pendrive to Worten (I opened the packet carefully so I could reseal it) and got a refund without question.

My camera from Worten did go wrong after about a year and I took it back and they sent it for repair and it came back in a week all OK. Seems to be luck of the draw as to who deals with you and how well it is resolved.

A set of expensive solar lights from Carrefour failed after about 6 months and I took them back and got a refund as they didn't have any more in stock.

Good luck with your claim and I hope you get it sorted out.

[Qaterine]

Many thanks for all your advice and comments, much appreciated from a 'newbie' on this forum and in Spain.

[El Cid]

The 15 day thing is usually for returning goods for a refund whatever your reason. The guarantee will be two years on electrical goods.
.

You're quite right, this is a concession offered by the store and has no connection to your legal rights.

It usually works pretty well. If you think about it, they don't have to offer it so if they do, it would be pretty stupid to not honour it.

That's the good bit, sadly many of these retailers wash their hand of you after that period and tell you to get in touch with the manufacturer. That is clearly against the law. EU law gives you a two year warranty which the store must accept. However it's not as simple as that. The legal warranty covers two distinct periods with very different conditions. For the first six months it is assumed that the fault existed at the time of purchase (damage or misuse excepted) and it is the retailers responsibility to sort it out, either by repairing it, replacing it or refunding the purchase cost ( a credit note is not acceptable).

After the first six months it becomes the buyers responsibility to prove that the fault existed at the time of purchase. This might involve sending it back to the manufacturer for confirmation of this, but clearly, if the retailer is not helpful, you are now in a difficult position.

What it comes down to is that the much vaunted 2 year EU warranty is essentially only a six month warranty unless you have a lot of time on your hands to see it through.

This also applies in the UK but the UK Sale of Goods act trumps the EU warranty conditions so generally you get a better deal which can actually apply for up to six years.

If you don't get satisfaction if you have a warranty issue, especially within the first six months, then ask for the complaints form. The store cannot ignore that as you send a copy to the relevant local consumer protection office and they will take it up with the retailer. If the store refuses to give you the form you can call the police - that should elicit a quick response from the retailer!

Sid

[Nimrod]

All this palls to the free 6 year guarantee with my new 55" samsung tv from Richer Sounds in the UK.
I had a problem after 5 years with my previous tv,the replacement part was unavailable and they gave me a huge p/ex against my new tv....
Now that's service,the like of which I don't think you'll ever find in Spain.

[flyeogh]

Very interesting thread so tx to all. However for me it is not the handling of issues that jumps out but the number of faulty products

That said yesterday I signed up to Carrefor online only to have the system break as I went to pay for my first order. Then the contact message page failed. Then it refused to let me sign in. Then when I used the "forgotten pssword" facility it said email sent but no email ever arrived (yet the welcome email did ). I tried two browsers and numerous attempts. Then I called and the auto said they'd call back - they didn't

When I see rubbish like this on a web site and a total lack of interest it makes me very supicious of the QA of the company concerned.

I'm with Costakid in sticking to El Corte which we use in Madrid. They seem to understand that a good reputation is worth defending even if they are not the cheapest. Cheers

[truebrit]

Just by naming and shaming helps. Let other people see how these places have treated you. I also find a message on their FB page if they have one, helps. Also be very quick to praise those who deserve it.

[Mowser]

Tried to buy white goods online with Carrefour. Same problem as flyeogh. I contacted support and they tried to help. I was told they'd call back in 10 minutes. That was a month ago. I emailed head office - no response. In short, a really crappy company.

[Unicorn]

I don't know whether this helps but i tried to buy something a little while back on carrefour online and it wouldn't go through. When I called them they said they didn't take 'foreign' cards. I was paying with a Barclays debit registered to my address in Spain but that wasn't Spanish enough for them. I paid with my Spanish bank card and it went though. Strange, but true.

Maybe of some help.

[flyeogh]

Unicorn for sure seen that with foreign cards but mine is a local debit card.

Just to follow on I registered with hipercor in Cadiz having given up on carrefour and more problems. They offered a delivery date and confirmed it by email. But when they couldn't do the delivery at least they called and discussed the issue.

So again terrible IT implementations but at least they wanted to put it right For spain I'll take that .

[TorreDelAguila]

Over recent years we have wrestled with numerous large and global trading outfits who struggle with the same thing: buyers who live in one country (eg Spain) but bank in another (eg UK).

This list has included Amazon, eBay, PayPal, M&S, Next, BhS, to name just a few. American companies have been the worst, but that doesn't come as a surprise, knowing the legendary US ignorance over non-US geography. It took PayPal more than two years to faciltate cross-border European purchases. None of our e-mails or messages to them were ever acknowleged.

Some purchasing sites fall over simply because, although they offer a choice of Country for the purchase, the site will only accept a UK postcode! This then throws up the error "invalid postcode".
It seems likely that many large on-line shopping sites are never properly road-tested before being rolled out: customer service departments can be as confused as customers by this sort of thing.

Curious, too, to see anomalies within Amazon.co.uk. Many marketplace traders will flag up "cannot deliver to Spain", sometimes annoyingly only at the last moment when payment is being attempted. However, go on to Amazon.es (or .de) and you will frequently find the same item, supplied by the same UK stockist, freely deliverable to a Spanish address. The price may be a tad higher, but it will often include the international delivery involved. This may be a marketing attempt to boost the turnover of Amazon.es, but it doesn't explain the ready availability on .de .

[markwilding]

I would never buy anything but food from Carrefour and they only get my money because they sell products unavailable in other supermarkets.

They are very fond of looking into my trolly to check if I've put everything onto the belt while charging me for products twice.

Never allow any shop to fob you off with the 15 day excuse. The first problem I had with them was a glass top garden table which shattered into small bits the first time a plate was put on it. Carrefour insisted it was not down to them but they must prove that,not the buyer.

You should always ask for the Hojas de reclamaciones and make a complaint to the local consumer office. By doing this I received an apology and a new table..

[alisonb]

When we first arrived in Spain I bought an ironing board from Eroski, neatly shrink wrapped. When I got it home, one leg was longer than the other, and it sloped almost as much as my garden. I took it back and they gave me a refund as they didn't have another of the same model. Following week, the self same ironing board was back on sale. They were presumably hoping that someone wouldn't notice that their shirts slid off when trying to iron them.

[Enrique]

Hi alisonb,
The way the floors slope in some old Spanish Campo houses it would work a treat................