hosted services
The dealings that I had with JUAL Domestics are detailed below.
I don't mean to discredit them before they deliver any goods, I would just like to point out the following things so far (prior to the appliance being delivered).
Company VAT Number: 208 2576 27 Company Registration Number: 3464514 Phone number 01977 609400
Like with all the companies listed in this category I put their details here so that you can make the decision on weather or not to do business with them.
delivery
I specifically requested that the appliance be delivered to the to the first floor flat which we live in. I had to make this request as I work a shift pattern and cannot take the dryer into the flat if I'm not here to receive it.
The sales person assured me that they would be able to send a driver who can deliver it to the first floor.
contact
At the same time as I made the purchase the sales person wanted a land line so that the order could be accepted onto their system. They said they would not use this to contact me, but it would instead only be there as a land line reference. I expressly asked that this number must not be used for any purposes and that my mobile number should be the point of reference for any contact regarding this purchase. This however was ignored any my work desk phone was used to contact me. This emits stupidly and careless on their part.
assessment
From my experience its best to avoid companies which make promises they can't keep. Also be sure to check out reviews on independent review sites. From my involvement with their edits of this particular review I would suggest you ensure that you're not reading sock puppet reviews.
actual delivery
At 0615 on [[:category:20100325|20100325]] the delivery driver arrived with the dryer expecting to leave it at the communal entrance. I told him that I had checked with the sales people at the time of order that it would be delivered to the first floor. He tried to make a claim that this wasn't the case. After informing him to tell his sales people not to make false claims about delivery and that I would have to take the dryer myself to the first floor unaccompanied he agreed to assist with delivery to the first floor.
From this experience I suggest that if you're ordering from this company get it on their letter head that the delivery will be to the first floor and some form of agreement that they will carry out their promises.
web presence
Third party reviews on JUAL Domestics appear to under go a vetting process. Several attempts to edit this page have been done by a user named JUALDomestics. It might even be worth looking at the differences between this page which details an actual event and how they choose to edit that to meet their marketing needs [http://www.s5h.net/wiki/index.php?title=JUAL_Domestics_Ltd&diff=116680&oldid=112557 in this edit]. The annoying thing here is that an attempt has been made to cover up a review of their service with a series of praise, when in fact, what would probably have been better customer support would have been to apologise for their false promise of first floor delivery, then this page probably wouldn't even exist.
As you will see from below [[JUAL_Domestics_Ltd#review_centre|review centre]] that JUAL Domestics have a very aggressive web censoring programme. This is highlighted by the legal threats they make towards independent web review sites. Despite all their aggressive tactics, all they'd had to do in the beginning is apply some customer service.
other sites
Further to this review placed here and their edit of it, I thought it would be a good move to check other reviews about this company on the web. What I found was a long string of praise to which I thought it would be worthwhile pointing out that this may be based on their own authoring (based on what happened here).
One of the very high profile review sites sent me an email the following evening asking me to validate my claim since they have protested it and that I should provide them with proof of dealing with JUAL Domestics in order for the review to remain on their site.
This further enforces the fact their there is serious censorship going on behind this company and their online reviews.
review centre
ReviewCentre is a very popular forum for discussing consumer experiences online. JUAL Domestic know just how important it is to censor bad reviews there, but I've done my best to ensure that a bad review remains on that site since I want people to know that JUAL Domestic have a very aggressive post-sale customer service department.
To begin with I was very positive about the price of the item, but following this experience I've decided to deduct that based on the effort they have consumed from review centre and from myself, which is completely unnecessary.
Below is an un-modified copy of the conversation between myself and review centre, I hope this conveys just how much hassle they have caused.
The short version of all this is that about all I can say, without putting reviewcenter in a bad position where they can only defend that which will hold up in a court, is what my personal feelings are towards a company that I have bought from. This boils down to the feeling that I am bitterly disappointed with their after care. Since it's based on feeling I find it fair that they should get a few bonus points in my review there.
DATE: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:47:10 +0100 FROM: ***@reviewcentre.com X-MAILER: RC_Email To: ed Subject: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com [-- Attachment #1 --] [-- Type: multipart/alternative, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 5.3K --] Many thanks for your contribution to Review Centre! As a consumer review website we encourage people to express their opinions (both positive and negative!) of the experience that they have had, but we must also take into consideration any concerns of businesses affected by these reviews. I have received contact from a representative of JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com regarding reviews published on Review Centre. I have included a copy of the review you have written for your reference - (included below). They have expressed their concerns regarding the review content and so we have temporarily removed your review from www.reviewcentre.com while we ask you to confirm your position on the matter. Please let us know which one of the following options you would like to take by 17/09/2010 1. You would like the review to stay on Review Centre in its original form. 2. You would like to write the review differently on reflection as some of the information is now not relevant. 3. You are happy for the review to be deleted as the matter has been resolved. If you wish to stand by your original review (or an edited version), we ask that you provide your contact details for our records (full name, address. telephone number, plus any evidence to authenticate your review). Information collected is to validate the authenticity of your review and will not be passed to anyone without your expressed permission. Please be aware that representatives of JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com may at some point in the future choose to take the matter further. We look forward to hearing from you soon Thanks again! ............................................................ Your Review Jual Domestics delivered on time but not in the manner I expected. To this effect I wrote a review about them here: http://www.s5h.net/wiki/JUAL_Domestics_Ltd I later found that they took the review and JUAL Domestics edited it to the extent that it no longer represented the original content of their poor customer service and instead contained a very long dialogue of good customer service. In light of this, I would advise you take some time to research all "good" reviews to find where they came from.
As you can see above, this was mostly prompted because this page was modified, I wouldn't have thought about making a review otherwise except I remembered reading positive reviews on review centre before purchasing.
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:27:28 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: ***@reviewcentre.com Subject: Re: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com I now wish the review to remain in it's present form, with the additional text: "JUAL Domestics would rather have bad reviews removed from the internet rather than apologise for poor customer service." This is due to the fact that they are still unwilling to apologise for promises that they did not wish to keep. Thanks
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:02:29 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Hi Ed, Thanks for getting back to us on this matter and we are really glad that you have decided to stand by your review. However, now that we have received this complaint we are required by law to satisfy ourselves of its veracity just in case Jual take it further. This means that we will require your contact details (just for our records) and proof of your custom with Jual. This could be a receipt, invoice, email exchange....just anything that shows that you have used their service. Sorry to have to bother you again with this. Kind regards
So, now they need proof, I expect JUAL have requested this.
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:59:17 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com [-- Attachment #1 --] [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 5.2K --] Hi ***, Thanks for your prompt response. I've attached a copy of the screen from (BANK) when I searched for the tumble dryer which we bought from them earlier this year. Important details such as the account number and sort code (along with my balance) have been obscured for obvious reasons. I do wish this review to remain on your site as it now confirms what I've written about this company in the past, since they tried to remove my other review about their delivery. For your records only, here are my contact details: Mr Ed ... It makes me wonder which other reviews they have complained about and the customers have no longer got their paper work or don't have the energy to provide proof of purchase. Best regards Ed
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:24:28 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Thanks so much for your help Ed, your review is live on our site and i will keep you updated on any future correspondence from JUAL. Thanks again!
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:37:24 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com Thanks for republishing this, although when I read it back there are a couple of spelling mistakes from myself. Best regards
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:35:49 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Hi Ed, Thanks for your email. I had a read through your review and I couldn't find any spelling mistakes? We will need to make a small change to your review - in that we will need to remove the link. I am aware that without this the review will make little sense, and so if it's not too much trouble, please could I ask you to write the review on our site? There are several reasons for this: * Jual Domestics are claiming that legal proceedings are imminent... we do not react well to threats, however if we are going to go down the legal route we need the content we are defending to be on our site. * We need to ensure that content complies with our guidelines, we cannot be responsible for content that is not hosted by us. * As we are an independent review site we need to eliminate any association between ourselves and another site. If you could send me an edited version of your review I would be happy to make the changes for you. Again i apologise for the inconvenience and repeat that we are not backing down... we just need to make sure everything is compliant with our own guidelines before we batten down the hatches :-) Thanks again for your contribution! ***
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:11:17 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com Hi ***, Thanks for the update, I'm very pleased that you're defending this. Since you cannot contain the link to the site, I'd like to have the review contain relevant content, so are you happy for the whole review to be replaced with this block of text? I think it conveys the message that I placed originally. --[ begin ]-- JUALDomestics delivered on time but not in the manner I expected. To this effect I wrote a review about them on another web site. JUALDomestics originally got a bad service note, since we live on the first floor at a block of flats we wanted to make sure the dryer could be delivered to our flat door (my wife was not able to help me carry it so I needed to check that the delivery driver could assist). The customer service person at JUALDomestics assured me that the driver would help and delivery was to the flat door. When I asked the driver to deliver as agreed he refused to assist until he realised I was prepared to refuse delivery on this basis. Delivery to the first floor is something that I considered a condition of sale since this was agreed prior to the order. I later found that they took the review and JUAL Domestics edited it to the extent that it no longer represented the original content of their poor customer service and instead it contained a very long dialogue of good customer service. The edits to the page (from user JUALDomestics [email authenticated at JUALDomestics domain]) - removed my background information on JUALDomestics + added information about their company history + added information about nationwide delivery - removed section about the review nature + added vast information about their delivery service + added their contact information and several contact telephone numbers + added their own assessment of their selves + added four reviews without any citation (no idea who praised them so well) - removed my contact information for them - removed my review of their delivery service - removed my reasoning for why they're getting a bad review - removed the badservice categorisation + added a new summary + added the review to the goodservice category For legal reasons I cannot link this to the actual edit but if you search for 's5h JUALDomestics' I'm sure you'll find it, but reviewcenter is not obliged to link to content once legal proceedings have been threatened against them. All this could have been avoided if there was a simple "sorry" from the company rather than attempting to remove the fact this happened. In light of this, I would advise you take some time to research all "good" reviews to find out exactly where they came from. --[ end ]-- Thanks again for sticking by this review.
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:48:08 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Thanks Ed, i have made the requested changes. I have removed the line about legal proceedings as probably best not to mention that... Thanks so much for all of your help and i do apologise for any inconvenience, i only wish all our reviewers were so helpful! I will of course keep you updated.
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:38:28 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com Thanks, I'd like to be kept up-to-date with this, I don't think legally that the company has a leg to stand on. I've noted that the formatting of the review has been lost, the entry on the page has the correct formatting in the source code, but it looks like the line breaks might be missing
tags so that the lists are a bit more prominent for the user reading it. It's not a biggie, but it makes it easier for the end user to digest :) Thanks
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:30:13 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review on JUAL Domestics Ltd www.jualdomestics.com X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Hi Ed, I have sorted the formatting on the review as it was making it more difficult to read. Thanks again for getting back to us and we will let you know of any developments. Kind regards
So, I think this is the matter closed now.
re-opening the case
On the first of September I find a new email from the reviewcentre. This time they're telling me that the matter is not closed. JUAL have yet again provoked them about the review. I think about how many other people there in the country buying from this company and having bad experience but unlike me, perhaps they don't have the time to record these things, perhaps they have children to look after or maybe they are trying to work two jobs.
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 17:48:04 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: Your review X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 [-- Attachment #1 --] [-- Type: multipart/alternative, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 16K --] Hi Ed, Sorry to have to be in touch with you again about this matter but Jual have threatened legal action against us unless we remove the review. The problem we have is that, as publishers of the review we are liable for its content and the information that you have provided us with so far only shows evidence for part of what the review says. If we were to end up in court, we would not have a leg to stand on. For this reason we have had to again temporarily withdraw the review while we hope you will agree to edit it within, what I am afraid are rather constrained boundaries -ie what we can actually prove. I realise that not only is this a pain, drain on your time and unjust, but we really hope that you will persevere. If you have any questions or want advice we can help you. Your review ...
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 20:06:14 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review Hi ***, Please can you elaborate on what you think cannot be published? Please put the review back on, this was all dealt with by your colleague *** last week after some very careful editing. Since you have taken the time to mail me about the second attempt for JUAL Domestics to remove the review, please make your selves clear to them that you are sticking to your users reviews by permanently having it at position 1. Thanks
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 11:21:32 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Hi Ed, Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this matter. We have been having discussions about it our end and liaising with our solicitors. I am afraid that you will not be happy with the outcome that we have come to, which is that the significant elements of the review which mention how Jual have edited the Wikipedia page that you have created for them cannot be put up on the site without our running the risk of becoming embroiled in legal proceedings. As I am sure that you know, Wikipedia is a site that anyone can have access to and though we are in no doubt that the user who changed your review was someone from Jual, we cannot prove this. It is an unfortunate fact that Jual are very well versed in our responsibilities under UK law and they know that we cannot host this information. It may be scant consolation that we are really happy to have the other parts of your review on the site. We are truly sorry that we cannot be stronger on this matter and hope that you can understand why we have undertaken this act of self preservation. I will be happy to hear back from you about this matter and with your newly edited review should you wish to write one. Kind regards
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 17:25:44 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review Hi ***, Have you confirmed with *** that this issue has already been dealt with? Thanks
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 10:48:49 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Hi Ed, We are sorry that we cannot be of further help on this matter. The delay in our replying to you is because we hate this situation so much and the last thing that we want to do is concede any ground to Jual. But in this case they are right in saying that we cannot prove anything that is in the review if it came down to a legal battle. Please believe us that we are so disappointed at the outcome of this. We hope that you can understand, if not fully accept our decision. We would love it if you felt that you could edit your review so it just outlines the undisputable facts. For example: 'I bought goods worth xx from Jual. Their delivery was on time but I was very dissatisfied with their after sales care.' I know that this pales in comparison to the great review that you had written but the effect on their ratings will be the same. We are sorry. Kind regards ***
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 17:31:38 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review Hi ***, I believe the review should stand, but I think the fact that they have modified third party sites should be contained in the review in some shape or form, there has to be journalistic rights to free speech here and it should be mentioned, perhaps in an alleged form. Can you advise the best way to do this please? I would like to mention the trouble they have caused here about the review. I would also like to have all the star rating dropped to zero stars for customer service. Do your legal bodies have any objections to me mentioning conversation around the legal matters of this review on a third party site? I will assume that you have no objections and I feel so strongly that companies should get the acknowledgement they deserve. Reviewcenter will not be shown in a bad light whatsoever. I hope you enjoy the weekend. Thanks
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:09:50 +0100 From: <***@reviewcentre.com> To: ed Subject: RE: Your review X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Hi Ed, We realise that it must have been galling to have to submit this edited review but we are really glad that you have done so. It is now live on the site. Kind regards
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2010 20:25:48 +0100 From: ed User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) To: <***@reviewcentre.com> Subject: Re: Your review Hi ***, Please change the review to: "I bought goods from Jual. Their delivery was on time but I was very dissatisfied with their after sales care which has left me bitterly disgusted with Jual." Please also change their ratings to: overall: 1 Value for money: 1 quality of website: 1 Customer Service: 1 All ratings are adjusted in accordance with their after care. Thanks
So, there you go, once again JUAL, you caused me more problems than I thought to begin with and as a result it's been reflected in the overall review.
I'm glad that we've got it all documented here.
reflection
In reflection of all the above, it really does beg the question, just how reliable are the reviews that you read online. Perhaps I'm an exception, perhaps I'm so anal that I like to document things, particularly those that addle me. Just how many reviews out there can you trust when a company spends enough time and effort to chase independent reviewers with sticks and legal threats until they back down. Companies are in business to make money, if online sales are their business then it is perhaps justifiable in their eyes to ensure that their name appears clean online, and more power to them if this is done through ensuring customer satisfaction and fine tuning their business until this is the case.
However, if this is done through editing or censoring online presence then I don't have any respect for that.
