Beliani - Saga sem fim

An insight into the kind of treatment customers of Beliani Portugal can expect when buying your goods. I wish to stress from the offset that the customer service agents I have dealt with along the way have been perfectly professional, well-mannered and competent. This is rather a shocking story of mismanagement and 3rd-party failure.

Around the beginning of September I ordered a bed, order 9551083, which was ensured by your customer service team to be delivered upon my return from holiday. I received a call on the expected day of delivery from the courier who said that they couldn't get the lorry into the street as it was too narrow and could I meet them at the bottom of the hill. I found them there and they shoved the delivery slip into my hand to sign them turned to leave. I protested, asking whether the goods were heavy, to which they replied "not really" and drove off leaving me there in the middle of the road with too huge boxes.

You will see from the order that it was a bed, weighing 60 kilograms, and the headrest, weighing a lot less. I have a partial paralysis on my left side and was forced to carry this 60 kilogram item up the hill, as well as 4 flights of stairs once inside my building. I could have been seriously injured but luckily escaped with sore muscles and exhaustion. Lisbon is a town of narrow streets and hills. It can come as no surprise to the logistics firms that are based here that they may be confronted by a narrow turn, especially when you notice on the original order that I specifically mentioned this and that a large lorry should not be brought. In any case, under no circumstances should any of your customers be completely abandoned in the street with heavy goods. This was an act of gross misconduct and negligence on the part of your delivery partner.

I did complain to your service centre and received express apology, accepted. For this reason, and the fact that I was extremely satisfied with the product, I did not cancel my following order (sofa - 9617101), an act which I now profoundly regret.

The sofa was due to arrive on 14th October. I was informed that there would be a delay and that it would arrive on 19th. I re-iterated again what I stated at the time of the order that the delivery be carried-out by a smaller van. It was not. Thankfully, the 2 your men that were tasked with the delivery were of a much higher standard (this was a different delivery partner - Logic), and I came to the front door and found them, in a torrential downpour of rain, carrying the large box along the street, obviously having parked some way off. They delivered it into the apartment without complaint and made their way after gulping down the water I offered them (they politely declined a well-deserved dash of wine for their efforts).

Unfortunately, I was dissatisfied with the product this time. Although it looks lovely, the seating foam is of low-quality and my backside makes contact with the frame below the cushions (I am of average size), I immediately decided to return it. I wrote again to your service centre that weekend and on the Monday they, promptly as always, wrote back and asked if I would accept some partial refund/vouchers, etc. I declined, as I had no intention of using the sofa. I replied to them that the original packaging was intact and they provided me with the labels, etc. I stressed that I would be leaving the country on 2nd of November due to a surgery and would not be able to return to Lisbon until the new year, due to the recovery period as well as Christmas in my home country. Again, no problem for your local customer service team - the return was arranged therefore for 27th October, last Friday.

That morning I woke up with the sense that this enormous box would still be in my apartment come the end of the day.

In the afternoon, the courier phoned and said they would arrive shortly. They asked if I had the documents, to which I replied in the affirmative. They asked me what the item was. I told them it was a sofa. They told me they did not have room for it and told me they would have to phone their boss to send another driver to pick it up - "don't worry".

I was, unsurprisingly, worried.

He called back again, seemingly in disbelief that I had a sofa and again asked me how big it was. He said I would need to have it on the ground floor. I told him that that would be impossible as I am alone here and have no lift. He said he would have to call me back, but he never did. I tried to call him bu my calls were ignored repeatedly. I called your customer service team who tried to contact the courier team but to no avail. It was now late in the afternoon and it was clear that I had been abandoned yet again. Imagine if I had somehow managed to get the huge box down to the ground floor.... only for nobody to turn up!

I need to emphasize here that I am travelling this week for medical reasons, I do not look forward to it, and have made it clear to your team with some candour that I am trying to avoid stressful situations and maintain a calmness prior to this journey. Any calmness was completely shattered by my having to stress the entire weekend that there would be a failure to collect this item before I departed.

Yesterday, first thing, I contacted again the service team who called the "logistics" firm and called me right back telling me that although it could not be collected that day, it would be collected today (Tuesday) and that the logistics firm were aware that it absolutely had to be that day (tomorrow is a public holiday, the day after is my date of departure). I would point to a failure here, my only overt criticism of the customer service team - given the failure the previous Friday, the trouble already caused and the lack of any available contingency should the collection fail on Tuesday, as escalation should have been pursued between Beliani and the partner to ensure a priority collection on the Monday.

Instead, I expect by now I do not need to reveal that nobody has come to collect the item.

In addition to the earlier failures and stress I have now spent two days at home, effectively held hostage to the whims of the courier. I have endured the stress of non-collection twice, including over a weekend and now I have an enormous box in my house that simply I want rid off, I never want to see it again.

It's quite embarrassing that a completely online furniture company has so much trouble in both delivery and collection of furniture. This litany of failures might point towards your 3rd-party partners, but your management team in Portugal take ultimate responsibility for contracting incompetence into your sphere of operations with no apparent mind to establish hard SLAs so that the movement of your goods can be realised efficiently without attracting the numerous complaints on your website comments regarding the delivery failures.

Please could you establish with me the means by which you will rectify my situation? I hope that it is swift, as I do not wish to spend the coming weeks corresponding on this matter, for the reasons already stated. I have already provided your local office here photographic proof of the item's non-use and perfect condition. My suggestion, to which I have no doubt you will not agree to, is that you refund immediately the payment of EUR 650. Following my return to Portugal in the new year the item is returned without cost to myself and within a 3 hour window agreed upon with 48hrs prior notice.

Frankly, the treatment and level of service I have received has been absolutely shocking and I have never encountered anything like it.

The issue has been resolved and the courier company collected the sofa at the third attempt, thanks to the dilligence of JF at the customer support and the kindness of a friend who attended the collection in my absence.

The refund was processed as promised after a few days.

At every turn, the issues with the company stemmed from the lack of professionalism and competence of their 3rd party logistics partners. Were it not for the attentiveness and humane customer service agents of Beliani, especially JF, then the situation would have been unbearable.

I hope that Beliani both sacks their useless delivery/collection partners and that the management recognises the efforts of their exceptional customer-facing team.