Disappointed with Mothercare

[Pedders006]

Not sure that this is in the correct section - just felt like moaning about Mothercare

I purchased a Britax Xtensafix on 26/10/13 from Mothercare. Last week I was speaking to my SIL who was looking to buy a new seat from my nephew. He tried ours and they liked it. She went on-line to purchase it and found it had been recalled by Britax on 12/11/14 as it failed Which? and ADAC tests. I contacted Mothercare who were aware of the recall and they confirmed that they would a full refund with the receipt. They did - no problems. Whilst retrieving the receipt I found a copy of the fitting paperwork. This included my name, address, email, phone number and car registration together with product details.

I am more than a little disappointed with Mothercare for not contacting me. I appreciate they are a large retailer but when they hold such detailed information and it is a safety issue I would have expected Mothercare to have the IT systems in place to make contacting purchasers easy. In addition, unless I am being dim (which I may be) I cannot find a "Recalls" section on their website.

I have no reason to trawl car seat websites looking for recall notices and wouldn't have known if not for my SIL.

AIBU?

That's a tricky one, I would be upset too but appreciate it must be difficult to contact everyone who has purchased the recalled item, for example if that was their policy to contact everyone and then overlooked one person by mistake then that would be awful for that person.

There is a recall section on the website, not terribly easy to find though, and I'm not in the habit of checking back to see if anything I have bought has been recalled. I tend to rely on in store posters/national press or social media for my recall information, though of course there is always the chance I could miss something!

Have you got the recall date wrong? 12/11/14 hasn't been yet.

You'd think that retailers would be able to track recent purchasers at least of items that are recalled because of safety issues. Sadly Mothercare have a bad reputation for customer service, especially with expensive items. You were lucky to get the refund because the item was recalled, if it had been faulty instead the saga could have gone on for months, it certainly seems the way with pushchairs.

It would be interesting to know whether Halfords or any of the nursery retailers online would have provided their customers with any recall information on products purchased by them.

Yanbu to want better service/information from Mothercare. But if I had young DC now I would not purchase expensive items where safety is important from them.

I am even more disappointed with Mothercare after receiving the response below.

They make no attempt to justify why they do not feel it is appropriate to email or write to customers who have purchased car seats from them after there is a manufacturer recall. They don't sell that many units - car manufacturers seem to have no problem when they have an issue.

Mothercare's interest in your childrens safety seems to end after they have sold and installed the seat. If the seat is subsequently found to be defective then good luck to you in finding out unless you monitor manufacturer websites

Dear Mr

Thank you for your e-mail.

I am sorry to read of your disappointment at your lack of recall notice for the Britax car seat.

We know how much our customers expect of us and do everything we can to make sure our products are safe and of the very best quality.

We have passed your feedback to our product team.

Thank you for notifying us.

Kind regards,

Customer Care

YANBU. Boots were once able to track me down via my Boots Advantage card to warn me some nail clippers I had bought had been recalled. They cheerfully refunded me the £1.50.

In this day and age were retailers have so much personal information about their customers that it's unreasonable to expect to be informed when a product is recalled.

I also feel really uneasy that on-line retailers are allowed to rate safety items based on customer reviews.

I have seen seats reviewed by Which? that have been rated "don't buy" or even "dangerous" because of terrible performance in crash test, yet on retailers websites come rated with 5 stars because "mummy's little princess feels all grown up in her pink seat".

It would be much more helpful choosing a decent seat if retailers instead published the NCAP safety report instead.

doughball...... Boots also emailed me via my loyalty card details when they were recalling a medicine I had bought due to a faulty cap.

My wife and I were saying the same about the independent tests - it isn't easy to get the Which? and Stiftung Warentest results without subscribing to monthly fees. You would have thought that they would publish them free or sell them for a one off payment as it is a matter of child safety.

In my response to Mothercares carefully thought out response (which obviously took ages to draft) I have pointed out that they have no problem using my contact details to target marketing...

If you get no benefit from Mothercare's expertise I might as well do the leg work myself and save money over the internet ... perhaps they should be called Motherdoesn'tcare ...

Yanbu. If Mothercare can e mail me about 5 sodding times a day to inform me of their offers then they really should have the ability to contact you about something like this! At my local one they ask or your e mail address at the till to "send you a receipt" so should certainly be able to inform you of a recall-as pp say, Boots do it.

Just on the point about availability of Which? reports - you can sign up to their website for a month for £1, so it's very useful if you want to check out just one or two big one-off purchases such as a car seat.

You have to give them your cc details and remember to cancel at the end of the month, or they automatically roll you over to the ongoing monthly subscription I think (which is what they're hoping you'll do, obv), but it's not much hassle and being who they are, they don't try and screw you over and force you to stay or anything. You can even cancel for free within the first 14 days!

up linky link

Bah, sorry, my phone in its wisdom auto "corrected" the link - try this instead.

"Never knowingly exceeded expectations" should be Mothercare's tag line. They do seem to set themselves incredibley low targets for customer satisfaction, and then revel in failing to meet the targets.

I think YABU - the retailer doesn't know if the end user still has the goods. people don't register their goods etc. etc. so it makes more sense to put it on their web site and let everyone know.

you mention cart manufacturers not having problems with re-calls - that's utter nonsense. ive had problems with 1 manufacturer and the dealer didn't even know the part was recalled - they confessed they charged 100s of people to change the part which was meant to be replaced under recall - this was TOYOTA. ive also got a friend whos car went on fire and the local dealer didn't contact them to say there was an issue with their car - another friend who has the same model car wasn't contacted by their dealer or the manufacturer either about a recall - luckily hers didn't go on fire.

The recall notice was issued 3 weeks after I bought the seat. I think there is a fair chance I would still own it.

Mothercare don't even draw your attention to recalls on their own website although somebody tells me it is on there some where - well hidden

Thinking about this further (the saddo that I am), it might be worth emailing Britax customer service too about your experience.

I was always under the impression that they take safety of their products very seriously. You would hope that would include requesting (and reimbursing the expense of) retailers taking all reasonable steps to contact consumers about a recalled seat.