Dreams

NOT WORTH 1 STAR BUT NO OPTION FOR 0

Having seen an advert on the television we made a trip to Peterborough with a view to buying bed with a TV in.

DREAMS offered us a very good deal as it was their birthday weekend. After a bit of haggling we agreed on a king-size TV bed with an upgraded size of TV built in and a top of the range mattress. The total order came to over £2000. We paid in full up front and came away with an order confirmation and advise from the store that we would receive a call within 21days to advise when delivery would be. Quick delivery was key as was assembly of the bed, and we made this clear when ordering.

Once 3 weeks had passed and we had heard nothing, I double checked the confirmation to see that actually it should be 4 weeks before we would get a call so I opted to wait an additional week. Looking back this was the start of the catalogue of errors that followed. The sales team in the branch are not even aware of the standard terms and conditions.

I called the help desk after 4 weeks to be told there was no order for me. As I had the order confirmation I was able to disagree but the helpdesk said the system showed no order that matched my name, address and order number. Finally after multiple calls including to the store manager at Peterborough, it transpired that the worker in the store had in-putted our order wrong and under another customer's name. Therefore we had to start the waiting process all over again! Somebody in Bourne was linked to our order. At this point you would have thought that the DREAMS system would have been updated but no, each time I called after this point, I had to tell them the wrong name in order to get through their security. I think this is actually a data protection breach but this has never been challenged. Another customer somewhere is in receipt of our personal details and payment terms.

Finally after daily phone calls we got a delivery date of 17th December. This was weeks after the date we had agreed and we had to revise our decorating plans at home because of this. Unfortunately due to the large time gap we had to get the area decorated before the bed came, which was not in the plan, in case the delivery men scraped any paintwork whilst assembling the product.

My partner took 17th December off work and sat in all morning waiting for the delivery which had been arranged. We were told it would be between 8-11. When it got to midday and we had still not had a call from Yodel, the contracted delivery firm, I called DREAMS to be advised that there was never any intention of the delivery coming out on 17th. We had just been fobbed off to keep us quiet. Bad mistake. As a purchasing professional I am more than aware of the terms which form a contract and those which cause breach! At this point I am now very angry and call back demanding to know when the bed will come.

Finally, the following day, we get confirmation that it will arrive on 20th. Again my partner takes a day off and remains at home and AGAIN no delivery comes. I call again, and am told the bed has only just arrived at the warehouse and has to have 3 days clearing before it can be released so the delivery will now be on 23rd.

It is worth mentioning that at this point we have not had a bed since 17th as when we got confirmation of the new one coming the old bed was disposed of as we don't have room for both.

The 23rd comes and amazingly a Yodel van pulls into our drive. However the driver has been instructed to drop the bed off and leave. We had been sold assembly of the bed in a room of our choice. At this point I call DREAMS again. By this time I am on first name terms with the Head Office Senior Team. Again understanding purchasing I was able to demand who to speak to and managed to get to the right team member to be able to discuss the problems. I also got a direct dial telephone number and an e-mail address so this person was unable to avoid my calls, although they tried.

On the phone I am told that Yodel are not trained to assemble TV beds. I press them further advising that is not my problem and if Yodel are the designated contractor then they have to assemble my bed. Finally after multiple calls to Yodel and DREAMS I am told the drivers will assemble the bed. The drivers were not happy and hence did not take off their shoes, traipsed mud and grease through my house, took chunks out of our new paintwork and left rubbish strewn across my property, inside and out. They had no idea how to do this but wouldn't even follow the instructions. The broke several bits and there was a bag of bits left when they had finished.

When they had made the bed they called us upstairs to sign it off and to our amazement despite the fact the delivery note and order said brown, the bed they had delivered and assembled was YELLOW! The mattress was also not brand new and had dirty footprints all over it and had not come packed as promised but lose with no film protection.

The delivery men left and I called DREAMS again. After many conversations whereby was told time and time again it is not possible to get a yellow bed when you order brown, and after me sending photos to prove it they agreed another error had been made.

We had no choice but the keep the monstrosity as we had family arriving Christmas Eve and needed somewhere to sleep. DREAMS assured me that they would correct the error as a matter of urgency.

The swap of the wrong bed for the right bed was arranged and again time was taken off work to accommodate this. Imagine my frustration when a very rude driver in a white van arrived on his own to drop off the correct bed but not take away the old one or assemble the new one. The driver was very rude, demanded I helped him unload the van as the goods were too heavy for one person. I am not a strong person and carrying boxes in excess of 25kg caused me some discomfort. I signed the Proof of Delivery unchecked and asked for my copy. I was not given a copy and told I wasn't allowed one. (DREAMS also confirmed at a later date I was not allowed a copy of the Proof of Delivery. I don't believe this to be correct. If a customer requests a copy one should be made available.) The driver then proceeded to do a 10 point turn on my lovely lawn rather than use the paved drive before wheel spinning away from my property.

At this point I am now in possession of two complete beds but only one mattress. The replacement mattress has not yet arrived or been mentioned by Head Office for a while.

I contacted DREAMS again – I now have been on to DREAMS help desk for no less than 5 hours in total, taken 4 days off work unpaid to accept deliveries, some of which never arrived and have a lawn resembling a pig pen, walls with chunks out, cream carpet with grease stains that will not come out, a bad back from sleeping on the floor previously – not to mention the stress of the situation.

DREAMS finally advised that a fully trained team of TV bed installers would come to my house on 27th January to correct the problem. They would take away the wrong bed, carry the correct bed to our room and make it up. I agreed this would be fine but I could not be at home before 2pm as I had an important seminar to attend. This was documented and I was told I would get a call when the team were ½ hour away.

On the morning of 27th I got a call at 0730 to advise that the driver was 15 minutes away from delivering. I asked whether he was trained to make up the TV beds and he said no. He was only dropping off a bed. Had I accepted this bed I would then have had three of DREAMS products. Again I called DREAMS to be advised the system had made an error and that I should not be receiving another bed. An hour later another man called advising he was ½ hour away and he was coming to take away a bed and make a new one up. This was more like the service I was expecting yet 5 ½ hours too early. I explained to this driver and he was fantastic. The first bit of good customer service I had experienced in over 3 months from DREAMS. This driver and me agreed to bypass DREAMS and sort things our way. The driver rearranged his whole day to be able to be at my house for 2pm to carry out the plans. I cannot praise him and his assistant enough. They arrived on time, wiped their boots, laid down sheets to protect the carpet and were courteous and went above the call of duty to assist. They said my sort of story is commonplace but as most people don't understand their purchasing rights things normally never get resolved.

On numerous occasions DREAMS told me they couldn’t do anything else and would just give me a refund. As I had an order confirmation and had paid a contract had been made so there was no way I was going to accept a refund because they had clearly made more errors than made it cost effective to correct.

Finally after 3 hours of hard labour by the Yodel delivery team,who incidentally had never put a TV bed together again, the work was done. DREAMS had lied again advising a fully trained team would be at my house to carry out the work.

Finally after 3 months we now have our bed. However the springs in the design are not fit for purpose and we have had to buy our own so the TV mechanism works properly. The cable supplied with the bed is also incorrect and shorts out each time the TV rises from the foot board.

I have not advised DREAMS of these two issues, not because I don't want to, but because I genuinely believe nothing will be done.

I am still waiting for the replacement mattress. The last correspondence I have regarding the mattress is dated 12th January and say I will be in receipt of it within 2-4 weeks!

Due to constant fighting and the fact I will not go away DREAMS finally agreed to give us some compensation.

This has had to be chased 6 times before they processed it. DREAMS blamed my bank for not passing on the refund, which was not true. I called the bank and asked and they tracked back to prove that DREAMS had not requested any refund onto my card. Another lie!

The amount of compensation I have received is pitiful. When you consider we have had to cover the below:

Loss of earnings for 5 days work
Replacement paintwork and repair to skirting boards – still ongoing
Replacement and repair of churned up lawn
Cost of visiting private clinic regarding back pain caused by having no bed - ongoing
Cost of deep cleaning of carpet (which has not removed all the stains)
Cost of over 5 hours on the phone to DREAMS help desk

No doubt another day will have to be taken off work to accept delivery of the new mattress – this will I am sure be problematic as everything else has been.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has had similar experiences which they have shared with you. Looking on the internet the stories are endless – nobody seems to have had quite as much aggravation and stress and my partner and I but I wonder if this is because the average consumer gives up and takes their standard £46 compensation payment.

I have written to the Board of Directors at DREAMS but surprisingly have been ignored. I would love for this story to be covered by the press and DREAMS forced to apologise publicly for their actions and refund us for the total cost of our purchase. Even if they did this we would still be over £1500 out of pocket due to all the problems.

Needless to say I will never ever use this company again.

UPATE- got a call to say mattress way finally in and delivery date was 6th. I advised that I wasn't prepared to take any more time off work as don't believe that the delivery will actually come. I was then advised a Saturday delivery would be booked for either 3rd or 10th. I got a call yesterday saying the delivery was coming on 9th! Obviously this is not acceptable as it is not what I was told less than a week earlier.....still the left arm doesn't know what the right arm is doing! Am I surprised? No....... I await DREAMS response.

UPDATE 10.03.12
So it is now 10th! However, as I got no less than 4 conflicting delivery times from DREAMS for the delivery and collection of the mattress today (it seems its not possible to collect and deliver something at the same time nor arrange a similar time for these to happen) I decided to bow out and give up. Thursday after another call to tell me what was happening and give yet again different information I told the courier not to come - told them to cancel the delivery/collection. I also called and emailed DREAMS to advise them of the same. They assured me that despite what the courier said the collection and delivery would happen at the the same time......but what time, nobody appears to be agreeing on this. Therefore the conversation and follow up e-mail said to cancel the replacement and collection, I was fed up wasting my life waiting for them to sort this out. I breathed a sigh of relief and put the whole issue to bed.....until 0830 this morning when the DREAMS courier said "got a delivery for you"..............PLEASE AVOID THIS COMPANY IF YOU EXPECT ANY OTHER THAN NOT GETTING YOUR RIGHT PRODUCTS, POOR SERVICE AND LIES.

UPDATE 13.03.12
Once the whole thing was cancelled you would expect that to be it? No, not if its DREAMS - still getting calls from the DREAMS team telling me when my bed is coming........C A N C E L - not the most difficult word in the English Language.

To top off the whole fiasco I have just been advised by the bank that my partner's and my credit cards have been cloned and used somewhere we are not. Not accusing anyone but the only company who has both our numbers/details in the last year is this one. Simply a word of caution.

Cat, Jeanette Conley, Lee Woodman, Tracey Furnessand Isabella Rock found this review useful