Homebase

Illegal? Certainly immoral

Similar complaint to John.
I was in the Aberdeen Bridge of Don store on 7 Oct 2012 to buy a few things. Whilst there, I spotted a 5 tier plastic shelving unit on offer at £26.19. Thinking this was a good price, I bought it. Struggling through the checkout with all my purchases, stressed about the ridiculous amount of time taken to get served and how I was going to get all this stuff out to the car without help from the few disinterested staff, I did not pay attention to the amount charged and did not notice that I had been charged £41.99 for the shelving.
I assembled the unit when I got home. It did the job so I went back the next day and bought another, taken from the same pile of stock in the same location in the same store. This was correctly charged at £26.19.
I only noticed this error as I was reconciling all my receipts. I took the 2 receipts back to the shop, along with the packaging, explained the situation and asked for a refund for the difference in price. The store manager refused stating that the products were clearly different as they had different product codes.
When I claimed that they were the same, he sent someone to get one of each unit. Other than the colour of the Homebase label, they were identical. However he claimed that one was clearly of a superior quality, hence the difference in price. When asked to point out which one, he had to resort to checking the product codes in order to tell them apart. When I pointed out that this reinforced my claim that they were identical, he said that they were obviously different as the
product description stated one was black and the other graphite. When I asked which was which, he was unable to tell them apart.
In summary, these units are ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL. Both units were picked up off the same pile which was clearly marked £26.19. I believe that requesting a refund for the balance is not unreasonable,and was very annoyed and disappointed that Homebase clearly thinks so little of its customers as to fob them off in this manner.
I emailed their Customer Services dept who forwarded my complaint to the Store Manager for response. However, I was fobbed of with a response from the team leader that I spoke to originally.
After several emails, I was informed that if I took the items back, unused and in their original packaging, that I could get a refund. They were quite safe in making this offer as I had already told them that I had assembled it and was using it.
All in all, thoroughly disgusted that a supposedly reputable chain should feel quite content to blatantly rip it's customers off in this manner.
I will NEVER shop in Homebase again.