I brought a wooden curtain pole from homebase. After it had been up for a few days one of the curtain rings broke. Clearly the product was not of great quality. I had already thrown away the receipt as had no intention of returning the item and was not expecting the item to be faulty! In the interests of speed and convenience I decided to purchase a packet of replacement curtain rings from Homebase from the same range. Initially I tried to buy these online, however the website was shocking. Slow, hard to navigate. Frustrating. I decided that the quickest thing to do would be to visit the store during my lunch hour the following day, then I could also purchase a light bulb I required at the same time. When I got to the store (Milton Keynes Branch) they appeared to be out of stock of the curtain rings, certainly there were none to be found. Similarly, the light bulb section was chaotic and after some time reading labels with no success (I was after a small edison screw) I decided to seek advice from an assistant. There were no assistants to be found on the shop floor, so I visited the customer service desk to ask if they could check for stock behind the scenes re the curtain pole, and also to point me in the right direction re the light bulb, perhaps by looking this up on the system. The young man I spoke to was incredibly unhelpful. He said that he was unable to assist me with the light bulb as (and I quote) 'I would literally have to go over there and look myself' which is in my opinion what he is being paid to do! Furthermore, he half heartedly looked both items up on the system and informed me it said that there were 40 items in stock, however that their system was 'rubbish' and often 'incorrect' so if I hadn't been able to find either item, this simply meant they didn't have any and it would not be worthwhile for him to have a look on my behalf. I persisted for a moment and he called for some assistance in an ear piece. No one arrived so he spoke again in to the earpiece and told the person at the other side 'not to worry about it'. I left the store very frustrated. Especially as the only reason I wanted the curtain rings in the first place (one ring out of a pack of six! !) Was because of their product breaking in the first place. Chapter 2: got back to work and decided to order the item online. Again, the website is poor and that in itself was frustrating. When I reached the end of the ordering process I discovered that I had been allocated a reservation number and that I had been instructed to visit THE SAME STORE in three hours time to pick up my item, at the customer service desk! ! So I went in after work with my confirmation, this time I dealt with a different staff member who presented me with an incorrect product. They were light wood curtain rings, instead of the mid wood colour I had ordered. I demonstrated to her what I was after by showing her the curtain pole itself, on sale in the shop. She could not care less. There were no apologies, or effort to show understanding. To be honest, she should have just used her common sense in the interests of customer service and just given me a ring outof that packet (it was damaged anyway) given the circumstances and the fact that ultimately I am after ONE replacement curtain ring in the correct colour. However her attitude was appalling. She just didn't give a s**t basically. I won't be shopping at Homebase again. Worst customer service I have experienced in a very long time. What a catalogue of errors.