At the start of May, with the garden centres closed, I thought why not order some plants online for the first time. Looked through my Gardeners' World mag and saw some ads for Thompson and Morgan. They looked good, their website was good and had quotes from satisfied customers, so I placed an order for 3 items.
BIG MISTAKE!!
The first 2 deliveries took one week to arrive from being posted, so were obviously dead on arrival. Emailed them (website said phones were off so email only) to complain and ask to cancel remainder of order which hadn't been sent yet as I didn't want to receive yet more dead plants. Got a reply with an apology and then a refund for the dead plants, but she said I couldn't cancel the remaining item that wasn't sent at that time as it was being picked and they couldn't stop it being sent. She said to reject or return the delivery and when they get the items back they would refund.
Hmm, bit strange but I thought OK as they said picking took 5 days so I was expecting them quite soon so should get the refund quite soon. That was 28th May and they still haven't been sent! Or refunded!
I looked into Consumer law as I was sure I had the right to cancel, and sure enough it says online you can cancel any time after placing the order up to 14 days after you receive the items. Since I haven't received the items, nor have I had an email telling me they have been sent, (nor an email telling me they are delayed from the original date of 21 days which has now long passed) I emailed them again 2 days ago, yet again asking to cancel the remainder of the order.
Yet again I was told they can't cancel as it is being picked. I asked them about the Consumer Contract Law in my email and they completely ignored this - just sent the bog standard 'sorry we can't cancel send it back if you don't want it sorry for any inconvenience' email.
So here I am, 6 weeks after ordering items that were supposed to take 3 weeks, still waiting for a company who so far have taken 19 days to do something they said would take 5 days, to send me an order I don't want which I then have to reject or return to them and then wait to get a refund.
If they can pick and post an order they can cancel it. What a complete farce of a company! Looking at their Trust Pilot and the various FB complaints groups, I am amazed they are still in business. Shame I didn't look before I ordered...
And to top it all, I paid using PP so I thought that would be OK so I tried to dispute it. PP opened the dispute and I got an email saying my email was passed to T & M so to wait for them to reply.....not the most helpful!
I expect I will get my money back at some point but for goodness sake how crap a company is this?!?
Anyone who can't get to a garden centre and who is considering ordering online - I strongly recommend you AVOID Thompson and Morgan! AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!