Leroy Merlin, you will not see us again.

What a disappointing experience with the Kitchen department at Leroy Merlin Centurion. After having spent a considerable amount of money with Leroy Merlin during our last home renovation, we naturally thought of using them for some work that we wanted to do in our kitchen, and on a previous visit to their Centurion store we had seen the exact color and style that we were looking at. Our first visit to the kitchen team was on 02 August, where we were advised that the first step would be to send one of their contractors out to do measurements, at a cost of R700. We paid this while in store, and were advised that someone would be in touch to arrange a visit to our house. To our surprise we were contacted that afternoon by a contractor who advised that he could come through to do measurements on the Sunday, which he did. After hearing nothing back all week, on Friday the 8th I whatsapp’d 'Person A' at Leroy Merlin (the person that we had dealt with during our initial visit, and a Manager in this team), to ask if we could have an update on what the next step is … he gave us his number for this very reason, but to date it appears that he has not even read my message. We went back into the store on Sunday the 10th of August to get an update, and we were told by Person A about them having had trouble with measurements that weren’t being done correctly so one of their team members was checking through all recent measurements taken, which had resulted in a delay with processing new inquiries. Just to note that at no point had we been contacted to ask if a 2nd set of measurements could be taken, so not quite sure how they were deciding which measurements would be redone and which wouldn’t. He apologised profusely for the delay and assured us that he would get hold of the Manager in the relevant team as a matter of urgency to see where our info was sitting … at the same time adding our name to their project board in RED, with comment ‘URGENT’.

Person A then called my husband on Tuesday 12 August to ask if anyone had been in contact with us, to which my husband rep**** that they hadn’t and we had in fact been expecting a call from Person A himself. He advised that he was actually on leave but would escalate this as urgent to the relevant team/Manager. We appreciated the fact that he reached out despite being on leave. By Friday the 15th we still had no news so my husband called again and was advised that they had received our measurements the day before (14th) and Person A was personally working on the basic design for us and would have something ready by the next day (Saturday the 16th). At this point my husband voiced his extreme dissatisfaction with the whole process, delays and lack of communication and advised that we would be coming into the store the next day and all those involved, Managers etc. should be there to explain what was going on as it was 2 weeks down the line and we had absolutely nothing. My husband then reached out to the contractor to check when everything had been sent through to LM, he advised that the measurements had been sent in on the Monday after he saw us but that there had been an issue with the info sent through and he had only sent the pictures that he had taken through the day before (Thursday 14th). We went into the store on the Saturday morning, only to meet with another staff member, 'Person B' who seemed less than enthusiastic to see us, and were advised that Person A was on his weekend off ! ARE YOU JOKING ?! Person B advised that he had been given a copy of the basic design that Person A had worked on for us … well, unsurprisingly the design looked NOTHING like what we had asked for and would not even have fit into the space that we are working with. It honestly just looked like a standard kitchen template with no special ‘design’ done at all.

When we explained this and showed him the pencil drawing and measurements that WE had taken, along with a photo of the space and a picture of the design we are looking at (which had all been shown to the contractor), he said that he unfortunately did not have any details of the measurements but would get them from Person A … by this point we were extremely unhappy but remained calm and civil, trusting that this person would now assist us …. Wrong again ! He took a picture of OUR drawing and measurements, I asked if I could send him a picture of the design that we are looking at so that he has a better idea of what we want … he asked if we had been put onto the whatsapp group, um no we hadn’t … he took my number and said that he would create the whatsapp group that afternoon, at which point I could then send him the picture, and then assured us that he would have the first draft ready for us by Monday the 18th … well today is Friday 22 August and we have heard ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FROM ANYONE AT LEROY MERLIN. We have purposely not followed up again … not only are we now tired of having to chase a company to give them business, but we also wanted to see just how long it would take them to get back to us this time … well we are still waiting, a total of 3 weeks now.

Leroy Merlin, we do not want to work with you, we will most certainly not trust you with our project and we will not spend another cent at any of your stores … BUT we want our R700 call-out fee back. We have received nothing for the money paid, so for you to keep it would simply amount to *****. You were very quick to take this money from us, now we are hoping that you will be just as quick to refund it.

An extremely disappointing and frustrating experience that we will certainly never repeat with you.