I have worked in war zones, but Leroy Merlin online service's is what nearly broke me

I rarely write reviews. I believe I have written about ten in the last decade.

Only when the service is stand-out brilliant or - as in this case, unfortunately - when the service is particularly, remarkably bad.

It is never to vent (as most poor reviews invariably are). It is to warn future potential clients of my experience in the hope that, if this is read, they might avoid the nightmare that I have experienced.

And a continuing 2-3 week kafkaesque descent into hell it has been.

Honestly, I have worked in war zones in Africa and nothing normally really phases me. But this episode almost brought me to the brink.

This has cost me at least 4 hours of time and effort on my side (for something that continues to be unresolved) for a simple 14 litre ceramic water filter that costs R69 (total R100 with delivery costs added). We'll come back to that second charge in a second.

So, I ordered the item. After an initial short delay, I wrote to Leroy Merlin customer services who got back to me to let me know that the depot of their courier service in Cape Town had been ****** and SAPS forensics was on-location and there would be a delay in deliveries.

I thought it was a bit strange as the order was for a shipping address in Bedfordview, Joburg and it was supposedly coming from the Leroy Merlin Boksburg branch of the same city - only 15km's away. So why a courier services' Cape Town depot had anything to do with my order was a bit off, but I put it down to internal logistics.

A day later though, when I got a message saying the item had been delivered, it finally dawned on me that Leroy Merlin had delivered to my billing address in Cape Town and not the shipping one in Joburg.

OK - so at this stage, I'm calm. TIA (this is africa - stuff happens).

I re-arranged with Leroy Merlin customer services to pick up the item and re-deliver to my correct shipping address. They at first tried to put it on me. That I had given the incorrect shipping address. But it was all on the order so they relented, apologised and ordered re-delivery to my correct Joburg address.

Three days later, they picked up the delivery from the Cape Towb billling address and re-delivered to the correct address. But alas, the ceramic filter was broken!

I cannot tell you the way my heart sank after opening the box.

Anyways (still), keeping calm, I sent in a photo of the broken ceramic filter to Leroy Merlin customer service.

I gave the correct order number, re-sent the original order confirmation with my joburg shipping address and re-iterated (twice) to have the new replacement sent to the correct shipping address this time and not to Cape Town (you can see where this is going!).

Two days later. I got a frantic call from the courier service, Nucleus, that Leroy Merlin outsources these tasks to asking me where they had to come pick up the item from a cape town address. I told them, thinking there is no way on earth they could have re-delivered to the wrong address again, that they had already picked up the order and re-delivered (the original one) to Joburg.

It turns out - of course - inevitably - they re-delivered to Cape Town.

An item not 15km away from the correct shipping address has now done more kms than a one-way journey from Joburg to Nairobi. If I ever get it sent up here to the correct address, it will have done the entire return Nai-Joburg trip of over 5500km.

That's crazy. So much so, that it goes beyond anger to pure bewilderment.

If you have a different shipping address to a billing address on your Leroy Merlin order - for the love of god. Do not do it. Please. Save yourselves.