False Advertising and Unreliability

I will start off by saying that Leroy Merlin SA has little to no regard for their customer service.

I purchased 3 units of the same item on the Leroy Merlin SA online store not so long ago. Immediately after payment I received an automated confirmation email saying that the payment was received. About 10 minutes later I received a confirmation email saying that the purchase was approved by the supplier and that my purchase will be “sent promptly” – the exact words (does this not constitute a legal purchase agreement? Apparently not). So now I am super excited because my purchase should arrive in the next week or so. Nope. I get an email about an hour after the previous email with the subject line: “Refund in progress for order #...” with the email reading:

Item name: XYZ Item condition: New Item price: R **** Quantity: 3 Reason for refund: Price error

Should you require any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service at ***

Thank you.

An automated email, yes. And not a single phone call or email from a human being to tell me what was going on, and to apologise for the inconvenience. So, I proceeded to call the customer service number provided, and managed to speak to a very sweet lady. She understood my frustration and said that she would escalate it with that department and that I should expect communication from them soon. Needless to say I did not receive any communication until I rep**** to the automated refund email, to which I received a one-liner response saying: “The order has been cancelled due to a price error.We apologise for the inconvenience.We wont be able to fulfil the order and we will process a full refund”. And yes, this is a copy and paste of that email – grammar errors included. Another email also arrived around the same time which had a little more detail, but again with the same pathetic apology, as well as a screenshot of one of the clauses in their terms and conditions (clause 4.3 to be exact) which states that they are not obliged to provide a product to you if there is an obvious error in description, price or image. With another line stating that my refund will take 7-10 working days to be processed.

I responded to this email stating that I did read their terms and conditions prior to purchasing, due to the very good price of this particular product, in which clause 5.2 states “Prices displayed in Store, on the Website, in all communications, and on marketing material are correct at the time of such display and when viewed by you.” I explained that this is a complete contradiction to clause 4.3, and that I would like to know how they can justify one outweighing the other, where one clause protects the buyer and the other protects them. I also expressed the fact that this whole situation has been a complete inconvenience to me, due to their mismanagement and false advertising, yet they walk away scot-free and I am left empty handed ****erally without the amount I spent on this purchase for 10 days) and without a proper apology.

And I have now been ghosted.

In summary, if you purchase something on Leroy Merlin’s online store, I suggest you be extremely patient and/or be prepared to be disappointed as there is a chance that the item you purchased is incorrectly priced, in which case you will be refunded in a process that takes 7-10 working days, and that you will not receive any proper form of communication in respect thereof. In other words, this company is not reliable and will not honour their purchase agreements with their customers. So much for the consumer protection act protecting me as a consumer. I therefore make my experience known to the public so that you too don’t fall prey to this ********* retailer.