Decathlon-Disappointing

[400bhp]

Not sure this is in the right forum.

I bought a childs rear seat from Decathlon a few weeks back (Hamax Siesta). The seats have footrests that have a rubber strap and a plastic hook to keep the childs foot secured. The plastic hook broke (they are quite weak but that's another story).

The footrests can be purchased separately for about a tenner.

I took the seat back to Decathlon and asked them to exchange the footrest. They initially said that they don't sell the footrests as spares but they would take one off another seat. After doing a bit of browsing I went back to the reception desk to be told they were going to exchange the whole seat as it was easier for them to do this Fine by me.

What I then witnessed was one of the bicycle mechanics take a stanley knife to my original seat, completely ruining it. I asked him why they do this and the reply was along the line "we have to, to stop anyone using it". I implied that to mean either a) a member of staff walking off with it through the back door, or b) someone picking it out of their waste bin.

I said it was such a shame and a complete waste of a perfectly servicable seat. He then said they had to do the same with returned bikes

It saddens me that things like this get wasted. I'm no environmentalist but I don't like unnecessary waste. Surely they could donate to a charity?

Is this common and can anything be done about it?

Thoughts.

 

[david1701]

Canon smash the elements of slightly defective lenses. Its a quality control thing, sad though

 

[Gerry Attrick]

'Elf 'n' safety again?

 

[crazy580]

'Elf 'n' safety again?

Possibly, since the seat is defective if someone else picks it up (out of the trash, gets re-sold etc) and uses it, and it then breaks (possibly with the child on it) the company could be sued.

 

[Coco]

It may be peculiar to child car seats.

 

[ThePainInSpain]

Good for them...............

I have always found Decathlon to be very helpful and professional unlike many other stores here in Spain.

Here, stores will only accept the return of a defective item if accompanied by the original box (up to 14 days from purchase). Because they put that item back on the shelf.

I bought a fan from Lidl, when I got it home I realised it had been opened and repackaged. When I switched it on it was unbelievably noisy. As this was for the bedroom it was unacceptable.

I took it back, and before I said anything the the check out girl, she said "noisy"?. I said yes, she gave me my money back and someone took it and put it straight back onto display.

Some mug would buy it and not complain.

 

[PBancroft]

I would (and have) quite happily purchase something which has been bought and returned, even if it is less than perfect... as long as the store is upfront about it. If the item is less than perfect, give me a reasonable discount on it and I'll either live with the fault or try to fix it. Sure, I probably wouldn't want a noisy fan either - but I wouldn't consider myself a mug if I knew the fault in advance (which I appreciate is information Lidl didn't provide). I might have a use for a fan where sound wasn't the issue, but cheapness was.

It saddens me greatly when people destroy perfectly serviceable goods. Supermarkets destroy food before they put it in the dumpster lest anyone steal it. Primark shreds returned and "damaged" clothes (and I bet others do too). They do this in the name of protecting the consumer, but I seriously doubt that. It causes rising prices as destroyed items eat into the store's profits, and even if they must be disposed of could be done in such a way as to be made use of elsewhere.

 

[ThePainInSpain]

I would (and have) quite happily purchase something which has been bought and returned, even if it is less than perfect... as long as the store is upfront about it. If the item is less than perfect, give me a reasonable discount on it and I'll either live with the fault or try to fix it. Sure, I probably wouldn't want a noisy fan either - but I wouldn't consider myself a mug if I knew the fault in advance (which I appreciate is information Lidl didn't provide). I might have a use for a fan where sound wasn't the issue, but cheapness was.

It's not only Lidl it's most stores in Andalucia, they won't tell you there's a fault and no way will you get a discount.

Good Business, Professionalism and Customer Service just don't exist here.

However, with the possible exception of Decathlon..........

 

[400bhp]

Good for them...............

So you agree that throwing things away that are perfectly servicable is acceptable?

 

[400bhp]

It may be peculiar to child car seats.

1. That is a car seat.

2. They throw away bikes.

 

[mgarl10024]

I used to work (part time) in a large catalogue retailer's store, and was often on the Customer Service counter.

We would sell many items of flat-packed furniture. Often, customers would come back to the store because their particular unit was missing a couple of screws.
Our action would be to go to the warehouse, find a brand new item that was the same (sometimes could be upto 3 boxes, 30kgs each), open it up, remove the bag of screws, offer the missing ones to the customer, then seal up the warehouse item, haul it across the warehouse and label it up ready to go back to the warehouse.

I did suggest that perhaps having a collection of additional screws from the manufacturer in our store was possibly more efficient that hauling nearly 100kg of flatpack across the country for the sake of a few screws, but reasons of complexity or there being too many types were often cited.

Same thing would happen for TV's missing a manual, etc. I bet they still do it.

 

[Sleeping Menace]

One of the reasons for this is from a liability standpoint. With the litigious nature of the UK rapidly catching up to that of the US, people will sue over anything. And yes, especially something like a child seat.. had it gotten into some leeches hands, who then put their child in it, and through whatever circumstance the child managed to hurt a foot (from the strap not being there or whatever) then they would have turned around and sued the manufacturer, who at this point had no control over the seat - and chances are they would have won....
You can thank all the Lawyers4U / No-Win-No-Fee types out there, who have created an environment where it is safer from a liability standpoint to destroy perfectly usable goods than it is to try to find a way to make them available to charities or for some other cause.
There was a case in the US, back several years ago.. some illegal was dumpster diving at a Dunkin Donuts.. ate what he found.. got food poisoning.. sued them.. and won in court.... It's situations like that, which cause companies and manufacturers to have to destroy perfectly good food/products...


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Cycle related blog entries, including a few 5 minute reviews:
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[Sheffield_Tiger]

I can see why they do this

Although it's common sense to not destroy it, because the COMPANY will be liable for the actions of the staff, if the staff are negligent, or a customer tries to claim - it's safer and potentially cheaper for the company just to have a flat rule that any product like that which is broken/incomplete gets destroyed.

Although I'm not sure why they don't have a returns procedure - at my work anything like that would be palletised and returned to manufacturer. Although that said, some manufacturers/suppliers will look at our list of returns for the past 3 months and either (a) take them back (b) send a credit note and instruct us to destroy the product or (c) send a rep to verify the quantities and value of returns before proceeding with (b)

It may be that Hamax as the mfr have that "destroy" policy - in which case re-selling if Hamax found out, could cause problems with processing future claims and so Decathlon may have little choice

 

[festival]

I speak with some experience here.
Sounds to me like they recognised a genuine claim, but to them it was easier to scrap a perfectly good seat ( minus a foot rest ) than give you the part you needed and order a replacement footrest to make it complete again
Either way its a mad world!

 

[Coco]

1. That is a car seat.

2. They throw away bikes.

Sorry didn't realise it was a bike seat. But still I'm glad they destroy seats rather than stick them back on the shelf. I'd hate to buy one that had been damaged and may later fail. I know you didn't damage yours, but no-one in the shop can verify that.
As for the bikes, why don't you write to them and ask why they do that?