Terrible Service and Mismanagement – Avoid CTM at All Costs

On the 16th of December, I placed an online order for tiles through CTM's website. During the checkout process, I was prompted to choose between delivery or collection. I selected collection and chose the closest branch to me – Tokai. I completed the payment, but minutes later, I received a call from Andrea from CTM's online sales. She informed me that Tokai did not have stock and that the only branches with stock were Watergate and Somerset West, both of which are far from me.

I explained to Andrea that the website should have indicated that Tokai was out of stock before allowing me to proceed with payment. She unhelpfully said I should have checked stock availability myself. First of all, I didn’t even notice this option on the website. Secondly, shouldn’t it be mandatory to confirm stock availability before payment?

I asked if they could transfer the stock from another branch to Tokai for collection. She flatly refused, saying they don’t offer that service but could arrange a courier at my expense. This is outrageous – why should I pay extra because their system is flawed?

Andrea offered to send me options for alternative tiles, but in the meantime, I contacted the Tokai branch to try and sort this out. They told me they couldn’t help because my order hadn’t been invoiced yet and that they were waiting for the online sales department to act. After multiple calls over 2 days, I finally received an email from Andrea on the 19th with an alternative tile. However, this tile was more expensive than the one I originally ordered, and I was expected to cover the difference!

A friend eventually offered to collect the tiles for me from Watergate, so I emailed Andrea on the 19th to proceed with this arrangement. By the time she responded, she informed me that the tiles I had paid for had been sold!

This is completely unacceptable. How can CTM sell tiles that I’ve already purchased? On the phone, Andrea claimed I wasn’t interested in the tiles – a blatant lie. I was furious and asked to speak to her manager. Of course, the manager had conveniently left for the day. I requested a call by 9 a.m. the following morning, as I had plans at 10. By 10:30, no one had contacted me.

To make matters worse, their website still lists the tile as available for purchase, with stock showing in George and Mossel Bay. If they had stock in those locations, why couldn’t they transfer it to Cape Town instead of selling tiles that were already paid for?

This entire experience has been a nightmare. The customer service is appalling, and their systems are poorly designed. CTM has made it clear that they don’t value their customers. I will never recommend CTM to anyone. Instead, I suggest going to Kale’s Tiles, where I’ve had much better experiences in the past.