THE Herald has been thanked for helping a Headley couple to resolve a three-month nightmare over a new kitchen.
The "nightmare" began for Melanie Pearce and Mike Betts of Bowcott Hill when they visited home improvement store MFI at the beginning of September to order their new kitchen.
Having had the wrong appliances fitted, the oven wired to the wrong plug, no hobs and no waste pipe for the sink, Miss Pearce contacted The Herald after letters to the store's customer service department "got her nowhere".
"I wrote letter after letter to the company and I telephoned them numerous times, but it did not change anything," she said.
The Herald contacted MFI customer services and was told by Pat Fawson that an installation manager would visit Miss Pearce "to assess the situation and hopefully sort it out before Christmas". He said: "We apologise for the inconvenience caused to Miss Pearce."
Said Miss Pearce: "One phone call from The Herald and suddenly the area manager appears at my house, assuring me that the kitchen will be finished before Christmas, even though only a week before, the company had 'washed their hands' of my kitchen."
The kitchen was fitted and wired up by 2 pm on Christmas Eve. The couple nevertheless spent Christmas in Gloucestershire at Miss Pearce's parents' house, because they had not expected the kitchen to be ready in time.
"I am really pleased, but I don't believe that anything would have been done if it wasn't for The Herald," she said.
The catalogue of errors began when they ordered their kitchen from the MFI store in Woking on September 3. After five phone calls to the store, a kitchen "prefit" was finally arranged for September 15.
"The kitchen pre-fitter did not arrive and I was telephoned after he was supposed to arrive to be told that he was not coming.
"It transpired the reason for this was that the MFI salesperson had designed us an 'illegal' kitchen and it would have to be redesigned,"said Miss Pearce.
A further 16 phone calls to the store followed, before a new date was arranged. This time the fitter turned up on the wrong day and at the wrong house.
The prefit was finally completed, she said, after numerous further phone calls between Miss Pearce and the store.
"We were told by the kitchen fitter, who was a representative from Personal Touch, that the Belfast sink the salesperson had designed into the kitchen would 'cause the surfaces to fall apart within one week', so he refused to fit this.
"He also said that 'the position of the hob was deemed dangerous and against safety standards'."
Miss Pearce said the manager of MFI Woking advised them to take a similar white porcelain sink, which they did.
Just when Miss Pearce thought her kitchen was close to being fitted she received a "very rude" phonecall from MFI on October 15, stating that if she did not pay the balance of her bill by midday the kitchen would not be fitted on schedule.
"Up until this moment I had not been notified of the outstanding balance, but I paid the balance that day," Miss Pearce said.
After the bill was paid Miss Pearce realised that her kitchen had been redesigned with a stacker cupboard oven which would not fit in the under unit gap and the fridge she had ordered was no longer available.
Fortunately the two problems were resolved by the company.
The catalogue of errors continued, however, with the wrong kitchen sink being delivered - a silver one, which was then exchanged for the white one she had ordered after a week. The cooker hob was not delivered on schedule, arriving a week late.
"The kitchen fitters put in the sink only to discover the fridge would not fit in the gap underneath. All the surfaces had to be replaced because the hole was the wrong size for the sink," she said.
After the problems with the sink, Miss Pearce was then recommended to have a Belfast sink as a replacement.
However, remembering the previous advice she had been given about the surfaces falling apart, she decided to have the silver sink which had to be redelivered.
The couple were relieved when work finally began on October 22 and were told that it would take two days to fit.
She contacted The Herald on December 15 when the job was still unfinished.
Under-wall lights which had been ordered had not arrived and Miss Pearce said she had had specifically asked for no insurance on the kitchen but had been charged for it.
"I am so angry. When you buy something from a big organisation you expect to be treated properly," she said.
Miss Pearce contacted the Hampshire County Council Regulatory Services Advice Centre who advised her to get the work completed by another company and forward MFI the bill.
She would then have had to take MFI to the small claims court to reclaim the money.
A spokesperson for Regulatory Services Advice, which deals with more than 24,000 enquiries and complaints like Miss Pearce's each year, told The Herald: "Our staff will explain the consumer's legal rights, and how to pursue a complaint.
"If a complaint cannot be resolved we will give out the names of organisations that may be able to help further, or we can take it up with the trader on the consumers behalf."
After the advice Miss Pearce had arranged for a self- employed kitchen fitter to come and fit the kitchen on January 9, but she is now pleased that her kitchen is fully operational for the new year.
p National consumer programme Watchdog featured a report on MFI kitchen installations in October 2001 after it had received 258 complaints about MFI kitchens over the past 18 months. It interviewed three people who had experienced much the same problems as Miss Pearce.