To be furious with Marks and Spencer ?

[ChocolateNutsAndCreamLiquer]

For cancelling the order for the Christmas hamper that I ordered in OCTOBER for a gift to be delivered on 20th December, e-mail cancellation sent to me on 19th December, 40 minutes after the e-mail confirming it had been despatched ? They've sent me a refund which I've yet to check on my credit card statement but how does that help ? I live overseas, how the hell am I supposed to send a present to this family for say, fifty quid, in the next 24 hours ?

YANBU! That's very disappointing, completely unprofessional and quite unexpected - M&S are usually fairly good! I detest shops botching orders at this time of year in particular. M&SABU!!

That's awful - have you rung them to find out what is going on with their systems? It could be a computer glitch. Ime M&S are very good when something does go wrong, but best to speak to them. It's 23rd now, have you only just read your emails?

As a fall back, do you know anyone who can help you out by getting an alternative gift to the recipient?

YANBU. How utterly crap of M&S. Amazon are doing 1 day delivery so that should get a gift to your family/friends on Christmas Eve. Or if it's a food hamper that you really want could you see if there's a deli in their area that could put something together and deliver for you?

Hope you've written to their customer service dept? no idea what happened but they've been lousy this year. Order something else from waitrose direct or Fortnum's, and email them to explain what happened - not your fault clearly! Their IT has been pants - I had several confusing emails about my orders and the dispatch notes bore no relation to the delivery dates...

Have you tried tracking the order, hopefully it's just a glitch.

If it is not, then PayPal the money with a message saying get yourself something special.

Thanks one and all. I've e-mailed their customer service dept. Even though the cancellation e-mail was sent from e-mail addressed no reply @ m&scustomer services. Grr

If a chocolate gift is any good hotel chocolat are doing deliveries tomorrow if you order before 3 pm today.

Lakeland are excellent and my SIL who lives abroad sent a hamper from them last year.

If you've emailed them on the no reply address no one will read it as it's automated. Can you ring?

That is really poor. I had a similar thing happen to me in the summer with debenhams. I had ordered a dress with a big international order but the dress was dispatched separately before the other items and I received an email confirming dispatch. On the day it was due to arrive I got an email saying that the dress was out of stock but that they had refunded me the cost of the dress. The dress was still for sale on their website. They eventually admitted that the courier had damaged the dress in transit but wouldn't send me a replacement and insisted that I would have to make a new order, which would have cost an extra £7.50 for a £17 order. I complained but they would not budge and so I am never ever using debenhams international delivery again and would think twice about shopping in store.

Perhaps the same could have happened with your item and they realised time was too tight to send out a replacement. Still no excuse though and you have every right to be angry.

You could phone a florist local to your family and they will deliver Christmas flowers the same day. I did this yesterday, in a panic.

Hello (Customer Name removed by me)

Your order number is: (removed by me)

Just a quick note to let you know that the item(s) below are on their way to you.

Want to know where your delivery is right now? If you've placed an order for home delivery you can track its journey in your account. If you have purchased as a guest, you can use our guest tracking order page. Please note, if you’ve ordered multiple items, they may arrive in more than one parcel.

Thanks for shopping with M&S.com. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Best wishes

The M&S Team

I can't track the order as their website has crashed. I can't even find out their customer service phone number or their opening times as their website has crashed.

I was away last week and only got the e-mails yesterday.

0333 014 800
(from overseas +44 208 090 9564)

EXACTLY the same thing has just happened to me with the added insult that all gifts are still available online, bar one - so they cancelled the WHOLE order?!

This is one day after rereciving a crawly email apologising for previous crap service this Christmas

I'm picking up out Christmas food order later and expecting similar disasters. Last time I will order from M&S

That's really unacceptable. Marks & Spencer ought to be thoroughly ashamed of such poor customer service

Do you have a twitter account? Tweeting complaints of this nature (using the company's @accountname) can help escalate it to a level of seniority where it can be fixed swiftly.

m&s hampers have been disgusting this year. Stuff went out of stock early or didn't even come in.

The helplines don't open til 8am

I've already tweeted about another issue fish - no response to 3 polite tweets

John Lewis screwed up my order this year and did nothing to replace/sort it out. Got stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of meaningless emails, each one contradicting the other. Only thing that got things moving was when I posted on their facebook page but Jesus, what a palaver.

FinancialWizard thank you

I hate to say it but Amazon have been amazing this Xmas at delivering orders at v short notice (even without paying for express delivery )

That's awful of m and s!

This is the e-mail from M&S cancelling the order:

Dear Mrs Customer

Thank you for placing an order with us.

The Delicious Hamper has been very popular, and is now no longer available. I’m really sorry, but this means that I’ve had to cancel this item from your order; an automatic refund has been issued and the full amount will show on your statement in the next 3-5 working days.

I appreciate this is disappointing, but please don’t let this stop you from coming back and browsing other items in our range.

Kind regards

Your M&S Customer Service

The supreme arrogance of them 'appreciating' this is disappointing and asking me to browse other items in their range !

My cancellation email doesn't even say sorry but yours trumps mine on arrogance chocolate