After placing an order online for a Samsung 9kg washing machine on Saturday 26th December 2015, we had a delivery date confirmed for the following Saturday which was the 2nd January 2016. The first problem we encountered was the delivery time. We were quoted that it would be delivered between the hours of 11:00 to 15:00. After receiving no call (which is the normal procedure) and the time pressing on, I decided to call the delivery company which was an independent courier service around 14:45 to be told that the drivers mate was not well and my order had been passed on to another team and it would be delivered but they were running late. They stated they would get in touch with the delivery team and would get them to call me with an ETA. I had made arrangements that afternoon and decided I wouldn’t waste any more of my time waiting and went out still expecting a call from the delivery team. I never did get that call. I returned home around 17:00 and not long after there was a knock at the door. They delivered my item in a rush (as I could only assume they were busy and running overtime) and left it in the garage where requested. There was no packaging which I thought was strange. After they had gone, I was inspecting the washing machine whilst reading the instruction manual and notice that the drum bolts were not installed. I called John Lewis that very day to report this and was told it would take up to 48 hours to get a response from Samsung. Little did I know that the item was being delivered direct from Samsung and John Lewis was the middle man. Expecting a call on Monday 4th January 2016, I chased them and was advised that there was still no response from Samsung and they would chase this up and come back to me Tuesday 5th January 2016. After waiting all day Tuesday, I called them again that evening and was advised by a different advisor that Samsung still haven’t come back to them and so they would chase them up and come back to me on Wednesday 6th January 2016. Whist speaking to the advisors over those past couple of days, they agreed with me that the bolts should have been in as stated within the manufacturer’s instructions. I found myself chasing John Lewis again on the Wednesday evening and spoke with a third advisor who apologised for the other advisors not getting back to me and said he would chase this up again and come back to me. He called me Thursday morning to explain that Samsung had now replied and that it’s a company procedure for the delivery team to remove the bolts and packaging prior to delivery into my property. He stated that Samsung said that they would send the bolts out in the post. I was not happy about this as the bolts should not have been removed in the first place and if its standard company procedure to remove the bolts, then surely it should also be a standard customer procedure to advise the customer that the bolts have been removed and hand them to the customer for safe keeping. As the manufacturer’s instructions state ‘appliance must not be moved in transit without the drum bolts installed’ so if I ever needed to move this, I would need my bolts. He agreed with this and said he would go back to Samsung and state that I am not happy with this and that I wanted the machine replaced. It was now Thursday 7th January 2016 and this had gone on long enough. After speaking with my partner, I took it upon myself to chase John Lewis yet again in the evening for an update. I spoke with a fourth advisor called Demi who was very apologetic and sympathised with the time this was taking as I advised her I am without a working washing machine and needed to get this resolved. Demi spoke with her line manager and stated that they both agreed with me and that this wasn’t acceptable and took it upon herself to personally deal with this situation from now on and stated that she was going to called Samsung and request that the machine is to be replaced and would call me on Friday 8th with a delivery date for my replacement machine. I waited until the afternoon of Friday 8th January 2015 and found myself chasing John Lewis yet again only to be told by another advisor that Demi had left for the day but she had left a note on the system to say she had chased Samsung with no response and customer not advised. I was then told that as Samsung are not ‘playing ball’ and not responding and that this would be escalated from the John Lewis Omi department to the higher John Lewis diversion that negotiate the contracts and they would tell them that they are to send out a replacement machine. I asked the lady how much longer this would take as I could not wait another week for a replacement machine. She stated that the division it was being escalated too would make sure Samsung sent out a replacement machine and that it would be with me before the following Saturday which was the 16th January 2016. She also stated that I would get a call on Monday 11th January 2016 with a delivery date for my replacement. Again I found myself chasing John Lewis Monday afternoon to be told that there was no response from Samsung , they would chase again and come back to be Tuesday 12th January 2016 with a delivery date for my replacement machine. I called them yet again on Tuesday 12th January 2016 only to be told the same thing they told me the day prior. Wednesday 13th I received a voicemail from John Lewis stating that they were still awaiting a response from Samsung and would get back to me. By this point It was becoming a joke. This level of customer service is not acceptable so I called again Wednesday evening and at this point I was very irritate, angry and disappointed with the service. I stated that this was enough now and told them that I just wanted my money back and was no longer interested in the replacement. I told her I was well within my rights for a refund and John Lewis had taken too long to resolve this as it had taken 8 working days to get to this point still with no resolution other than verbally agreeing to replace it. I called yet again Thursday 14th and asked to speak with Demi. She was not available and the lady I spoke with said she would speak with Demi and call me back shortly as she could see there was a large build-up of notes on the case and wanted to look through it all. She called me back only to advise me that I would not be getting a replacement machine and the bolts would be sent out to me. At this point I completely lost it. I told her it’s taken you nearly 2 weeks to tell me the same thing you told me at the start even though it was verbally agreed by yourselves that I would get the replacement. I told her that your calls are all recorded so you will be able to trace back through them. She then went on to be very difficult and patronising asking me what I wanted knowing full well the history of this case. I stated that I now wanted a refund due to the appalling service and that the least you could do is refund me straight away so I could purchase a replacement machine elsewhere. She advised me that I could but would have to wait until the machine had been collected for the refund and would have to pay an uplift charge for the machine to be collected. It felt like she was goading me! I found this extremely disgusting and unacceptable. I went on to state that not only have to wasted my time, you have let me down, mislead me and your customer service has been appalling over the last two weeks. You have failed to do your job correctly and now you want me to pay an uplift fee to have the item sent back. Out of all the advisors I had spoken to over the last two weeks this advisor was unprofessional and had either clearly not read the history correctly or had very poor customer service training. I had to ask her several times that I wanted to speak to a senior member of staff as I was not prepared to speak with her anymore. I was then put on to Omi manager Amanda who was unaware and unprepared for our conversation as she too was not very helpful. Amanda was really only dealing with the issue of the uplift charge to which she was not prepared to initially wave. After explaining the whole situation over the last 2 weeks, it felt like I had to convince her to eventually wave this uplift fee. After all John Lewis has sold me the washing machine which was delivered incomplete as purchased (as the bolts were missing) and I know that I am well within my consumer rights to request a refund and collection on an item which is incomplete at no cost to myself which I would expect your company / staff to know. I felt it was a total insult to even request that I should pay this uplift fee after the pour customer service that I have received from John Lewis over the past 2 weeks along with the fact that you also stated verbally that you would be replacing the machine, to then retract this statement and refuse to replace it is disgusting. Amanda eventually agreed to waive the uplift fee and would arrange for the goods to be collected and said she would call me back. Amanda called me back and at this point I think she had now had a better understanding of the situation. Firstly she refunded my part paypal payment and also paid the remainder back on to my debit card which was originally paid for using vouchers as I stated earlier to Amanda that I would defiantly not be purchasing anything again from John Lewis. I think now John Lewis realised exactly what had happen and to received my refund prior to collecting the goods to me felt like John Lewis finally knew they were in the wrong. What I am still not happy about is now you want me to waste more of my time and my personal annual leave from work to sit at home waiting for you to collected the goods on Wednesday 20th (between 07:00 – 14:00) which I am not prepared to do. I will be calling week commencing 18th January 2016 to state that in fact you will need to rearrange this collection date to a weekend. I have used you over many years and have spent thousands of pounds with yourselves in the past and you have failed me and have now lost yourself a valid customer. I will also ensure that I tell anyone and everyone of your appalling service on this occasion and will be copying this complaint on to social media to warn others so hopefully for the future you will improve your training to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.