Appalling Philips products and Customer Service. The Coffee Machine Saga.

The Coffee Machine Saga. After having done research on bean to cup automatic coffee machines and read numerous independent reviews I decide to buy a Philips/Saeco PicoBaristo coffee machine for Christmas. I ordered the machine from an online supplier Branded Lifestyles (BL) based in Rustenburg on the 12th of December it arrived by Courier on the 15th December. What a mistake that turned out to be. I am extremely angry at the way this whole purchase has been handled, we have been pushed from pillar to post, **** to and messed around. We bought a “NEW” coffee machine which was expensive only to find that it was faulty, Philips “fixed” it which is against the law and now we are left with an inferior repaired/2nd hand machine. It seems as though it is Philips business policy to “fleece” customers and ignore the law. Our experience is detailed below. Having received the machine I read all the instructions and unpacked the machine and went through the setup process. I then decided to make the first coffee, an espresso, that is when the trouble started. The machine sounded like a jack hammer accompanied by a loud rattling sound loud enough to wake up a whole household. Now having friends with automatic bean to cup coffee machines I was aware that this loud racket was not normal. The machine also continually aborted making any type of coffee part way through the process. I contacted the supplier and explained the problem and they said they would collect the machine check it out and replace it if necessary. As BL are in Rustenburg we decided to take a drive to take the machine back in the hopes of getting an immediate replacement, unfortunately BL did not have a replacement and they contacted Philips whilst we were still there. Philips told them and us via speaker phone that “they could not replace the machine until it had been inspected as this was the protocol”. Although not happy with this we agreed that as we live in Sandton and Philips are based in Johannesburg that we would take the machine back with us and the retailer would arrange for Philips to collect the machine from us saving them additional travelling costs and time. In the meantime I also contacted Philips Customer Services via their website regarding the faulty machine and received a response stating that as the machine was new it should be replaced by the retailer in accordance with the Consumer Protection Laws. On the 23rd December an unmarked vehicle arrived from Skymark Electronics to collect the machine, no communication from Philips was received regarding this collection. I contacted BL to check that the guys from Skymark Electronics were bona fides agents for Philips and was reassured that they were. I also contacted Philips by email to also check this. We made the Skymark driver sign a hand written receipt for the machine as no paperwork was provided, so the machine was taken away, to be inspected as “per the Philips protocol”. At no time did Philips or Skymark contact us to let us know what was happening, we regularly contacted BL to find out what was happening and was told by them that they would chase it up, we were of the impression that after inspection a brand new replacement machine would be supp**** from Philips when it was confirmed by Skymark that the machine was faulty. After lots of chasing we are told by BL that a replacement was on its way to us from Skymark. Finally on the 14th January a courier delivers a machine, which turns out to be the original machine that was picked up by Skymark. We contacted BL the retailer and they were surprised that we were not supp**** with a completely brand NEW machine. Which I think in terms of the Consumer Protection Laws was what should have happened. The coffee machine still sounds like a jack hammer although the loud rattling sound has gone and it does make drinks now however it is not a brand new replacement. We feel totally cheated and let down by Philips. The whole experience has been disgusting. These coffee machines are not cheap and Philips total lack of communication is a disgrace for such a large international organisation, customer service is obviously a foreign concept to them. We seem to have been **** to throughout this whole experience which has taken over a month now. It seems that it is fine to take your money and then mess you around in the hope that you will go away or so that some time period expires so that the obligation under the consumer laws to replace a faulty goods with a brand new replacement is no longer valid. Our whole experience reflects very poorly on Philips as a manufacturer/supplier we are very angry that we are left with an inferior 2nd hand/repaired coffee machine when it should have been replaced with a brand new one after it had been “inspected”. We will never buy any of Philips products in the future and warn anyone thinking of buying Philips products to consider carefully their purchasing decision in the light of our appalling customer service experience.