Everest disaster

21 January 2011 ~ 16:57

We ordered a security door for our flat in December 2009 from Everest, after spending several hours with a representative of the company. The door was originally scheduled to be installed at the end of March 2010. The installers arrived and said they had brought the wrong door or something. They left saying they would call to let my husband know what was going on, but although Mark waited all day to hear from them, they didn't call. We tried calling them but got nowhere. We also received a FENSA certificate saying that the door had been installed on 29th March.

Weeks of calling and emailing followed but no clear explanation of what exactly was wrong with the door. Eventually we got a letter with no apology for the error just 'the parts have now been received.' We booked the door to be installed end of June. On the day, my husband got a call to say the installer's van had broken down. He works nights and had to get some sleep so we re-booked the installation for end of July. We had calls from Everest who even had the cheek to call me at work to ask if the door could be fitted sooner (I was trying to time it so that the first direct debit came out just after my monthly pay day), so I said no, also my husband had already booked time off work again. No apology.

Come the end of July and on the day, the installer arrived and told my husband he had the wrong kind of timber. More phone calls to Everest (not very helpful), who said it WAS the right kind of timber. This was a Friday and they booked the installer to come back Monday afternoon at 1pm. Monday at 8.45 the installer came, and started moaning about local parking problems. My husband wasn't ready for him as the appointment was actually for 1pm, but he said it was his only job in the area and he 'wasn't hanging around until 1 o'clock.' He somehow managed to persuade my husband to rearrange it for the following Sunday because he said the parking would be easier (my husband did not realise I was trying to time the payments right as they would come from my account not his). I asked my husband to phone Everest back to say the following Sunday was not suitable, but he could not get through on either of the 2 numbers I gave him. The installer did not turn up on the Sunday.

On 5th August we have received a letter from Everest to say 'We are pleased that you are happy with your new products' etc even though we had still not had the door installed. We arranged for the installation again on 29th August, but when the installers turned up, they said they had unwrapped the door and it had a crack in it. They showed my husband and of course went away without installing the door. This did not instil me with confidence in the products (just as the difference of opinion on the timber didn�t). In actual fact when we signed up to get the door I believed it was going to be metal and PU, not wood. We live in a flat so the door has to be fireproof for 30 minutes, but I feel we were misled about what product we were actually getting. It was meant to be a security door but they subsequently kept referring to it as a �fire door.�

We received another letter in September from Everest to say they hoped we were pleased with our products and that they would forward the guarantee shortly. I phoned them about the letter and they said it had been sent out in error. They said I needed to speak to the person dealing with my case and they would get her to phone me back. I was home that day and I made sure they knew to call me at home. Needless to say they did not call.

In December 2010 I decided that enough was enough, we had heard nothing from Everest and I rang them up and said we wanted to cancel and get our money back. They agreed I think because they knew how terrible their service had been. I told them that my husband had cancelled the credit card he used to pay the deposit and they said that they�d send a cheque instead. They also said they�d see about some compensation.
A couple of days after this a huge bouquet of flowers arrived at our home. We cannot put flowers out in case they are poisonous to our pet rats, so I phoned Everest and said we didn�t appreciate the flowers, we�d rather have had cash compensation. The flowers must have cost at least �50 which they could have sent us. All they said was that they would �make a note� of the fact.
When the cheque arrived, on Christmas Eve, it was payable to both of us � we do not have a joint account so we could do nothing with it! I rang Everest and got a recorded message to say they were closed until 4th January.
So it was 2011 when we finally had the money refunded onto Mark�s new credit card � our third year of dealing with a company we had received NOTHING from despite numerous phone calls and time taken off work.
To be honest, I�m glad we managed to cancel the order, it seems incredibly expensive to pay over �2000 for a wooden door (more than �6000 with interest if we paid the minimum payment on the credit agreement over 10 years, which was all we could afford to pay).
To be honest I do not know how a company who operate like this manage to make a profit.



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