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All Your Complaints under one Roof |
Tell the World what went wrong and hopefully the world gets better |
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Last update 17/10/2007 |
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Ad Efx UK Ltd
Company
Registration Number
0407643
Incorporated 20/09/2000
Telephone:0208 5638185
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Ad Efx UK Ltd 160 King Street Hammersmith London W6 0SP |
Complaint entered by |
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Ewel Road Cheam, Surrey,SM3 8AB |
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Complaint
Date February 2004 |
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It is unusual to receive two complaints at the same time relating to the same issue but this is what has happened in this case. Both complainant were approached whilst out shopping by canvassers from a promotions company named Ad Efx UK Ltd and after some hard sell agreed to purchase a promotion from Saks Hair & Beauty for their salon in Cheam in Surrey. They paid a total of £ 53.00 for two hair appointments and two beauty treatments at this particular salon and the only condition attached was that all visits had to be completed within 4 month of purchase. Apparently there was no problem with the two hair visits but when they made an appointment for the beauty visits they were told by the manageress of the Saks salon that there were printing errors on this leaflet and that, consequently the treatments they had been offered and which they had purchased could not be carried out, unless they paid extra. It was explained that the money they had paid to Ad Efx only covered half the cost of the treatments which, in the case of a CACI non surgical facial, meant that Saks requested payment of an additional £20.00 to carry out this treatment. Yet the leaflet clearly stated that it included a CACI non surgical facial and there was no mention of any extra payment. In addition, the canvassing staff of Ad Efx had made a special point that all these treatments were included when they pressurised the complainants into purchasing this promotion.. When they complained to Saks in Cheam they were told that the promotions company Ad Efx had made a mistake on the leaflet and that any complaints should be directed to Ad Efx and when they contacted Ad Efx they denied all knowledge and blamed Saks.
After the complainants contacted us we wrote to both, Saks and Ad Efx and pointed out to them that any printing mistakes or any misunderstanding should be between Saks and Ad Efx and we invited both companies to make a reasonable proposal to settle this complaint amicable with the complainants.
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Regretfully, both
Saks
and
Ad
Efx
chose to ignore our proposal but after we wrote yet another
letter to
Ad
Efx
they did send us a reply which is shown in part as follows and is
self-explanatory:
Firstly we object to various points in your letter. If you
send a company a letter by general post you cannot presume
it will be received by the recipient, if you had sent it by
recorded delivery then you would have a right to state your
comments. We did not receive your previous letter. If we had
we would have replied immediately like we are doing today.
Also your harsh use of the words stating we have ‘no common
courtesy’ by not replying to your letter and implying we are
not indeed ‘prudent and sincere management‘ is certainty
very defamatory to us and we take great offence. We are in
no way fraudulent and run thousands of promotions worldwide,
the local trading standards office is directly facing our
building and we have already had a meeting with them in
reference to a complaint and the outcome was that we were a
perfectly legit company with perfectly legitimate
promotions. We in no way feel the promotion was misleading,
we sold 500 coupons and these 2 ladies are the only ones to
complain. The other 498 people had the treatments advertised
on the coupon. Also we have no record of either one of
them calling us, obviously if we had chance to rectify the
persons concerns we would have done and the need for
contacting you would have been unnecessary.
In reference to the beauty visit (30 min facial or CACI
facial) this was a choice between one or the other. If you
choose the general facial it lasted 30 minutes on the whole
face, with the CACI facial it was also for 30 minutes but it
takes around that long for half a face and so all clients
are informed prior to this, the coupon is intended as a
taster treatment card and so for a discount you could
upgrade to a full face, if you didn’t want this then you
could have the 30 minute general facial. A CACI facial is
intended to lift the face, it only 15 minutes either side
the client wouldn’t notice the difference it’s a minimal
amount of 30 minutes per side, that’s why we added the
general facial in case clients didn’t want to pay extra for
the CACI facial.
Saks have been more than accommodating and we feel both
ladies would have been accommodated properly had they gone
down the same route as 498 people have via the salon and us.
We must stress that if you indeed post any defamatory
information on your website about our company we will take
action against you, as it is totally untrue and unbiased
from 2 inaccurate statements.
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| Both complainants had phoned Ad Efx prior to contacting us and Saks in Cheam was fully aware of these complaints blaming printing errors, but nothing was done by either to satisfy the complainants. Ad Efx have now admitted that the CACI treatment was intended as a taster treatment yet this was omitted from the promotion and nowhere in the leaflet did it state that the time given would not cover the full treatment. If a CACI treatment takes ONE hour then you simply cannot offer this treatment and the fact that 498 people did not complain does not make it right. As Saks is a franchise operation we also had sent a copy of our proposed web site to their Head Office in Darlington asking them to verify if this promotion had been approved by them. They replied very efficiently informing us that that they had been made aware that a number of their franchisee's had been approached by Ad Efx directly without their knowledge. On discovery of these approaches a memo was sent to all their franchisee's instructing them not to use Ad Efx or any such company for promotional purposes. At no point, so they said, would they condone the hard selling tactics as used by Ad Efx. They also requested details of the complainants involved and assured us that they would use their best endeavours to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this unacceptable situation and we have now passed the details to them. |
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So here it nearly ends. The moral
of all is quite simple.
Don't buy anything from a street trader or anyone else unless you have seen what you will get - the bargain they sell you is only a bargain for them and once you parted with your money it is rather difficult to get it back. Think before you pay and don't pay in advance. If they don't trust you, then why should you trust them! Always be suspicious and remember that nobody will give you anything unless it is to their advantage. Fortunately, in this case, it did involve a reputable franchise company who accepted responsibility for their franchisee despite the fact that they had warned them not to run any such promotion and we would like to express our thanks to Saks Franchise Services for doing so. |
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Update 11th July 2004 Regretfully we have to say now that Saks is clearly not such a reputable franchise company after all. Despite writing to us on the 25th March 2004 and confirming to us that they do not condone the hard sell tactics of the promotions company used by their Cheam store they have failed miserably to make us believe their sincerity. When they wrote to us they asked us to give them details of the clients involved and they promised in writing (see letter) that they would use their best endeavours to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this unacceptable situation. As far as we are aware they have done nothing about it, they never contacted the complainant and they have not replied to numerous letters we sent them asking them to keep to their promise. So shame on you Saks Hair & Beauty - You are clearly no better than the promotion companies you use and even worse you have gone back on your written confirmation that you would conclude this 'unacceptable' (your wording) situation. How can anybody ever trust you again?
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Complaint Status: ongoing
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