Consumer Affairs 3 – Play.com

I ordered an album from play.com last March (Broadcast and the Focus Group since you ask). I waited and waited but no CD. By the summer I contacted them asking where it was – I think I got ‘standard bollocks email number 54’ where they say they’re having trouble getting copies from the supplier. A few months later I sent them a rather cross email asking what was going on and pointing out that the CD was still being advertised on their website. No reply. Finally, 9 months in I contacted them again explaining what had happened and asking them to note that I’d ordered 72 items from them over the last couple of years. I also asked them to note that I’d completely stopped ordering from them since their failure to send me the CD. I also provided them with a link to the album on their own website in case they couldn’t find it.

This time I got a reply saying “Unfortunately this item was only available in limited quantities and all stock has now been sold. As it is unlikely that we will be able to offer the item again in the near future we have cancelled the order. rest assure you were not yet charge for this order. Please be advised that the item you are seeing now on the website is not from play.com anymroe. Instead, thisi tem is being sold by a Playtrade seller or third party seller. You may order the item if you still want it”.

Leaving aside the grammar and spelling, what they’re saying is ‘yeah, it’s for sale on our website but it’s nuffing to do with us chief’. So there you go. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it appears on the ‘Ducks R us’ website and you pay We Supply Ducks Ltd to supply you a duck – but actually it's not a duck and they don't know what you're so upset about. It must be from another firm and somehow got on the Buy a Duck from Us website by accident.

So if you want a CD from Play.com they probably have fuck all to do with it, it’s just there for sale on their website but nowt to do with them.

In case everything else on their website isn’t really from them and they can't supply it I’ve decided to try to find someone who does have some responsibility for what’s in their shop.