Argos

On the one hand, Argos is good for getting relatively good deals, such as the laptop I am writing on.
On the other hand, they use a despicably poor delivery company for online transactions and some pretty dreadful customer service techniques.
Here’s the deal: I ordered a laptop online — and paid the extra £3 to get it delivered next day. My old laptop had died a few weeks previously, and I desperately needed to get online to start jobhunting, as well of course, to Unilocal!
I stayed in all day on the day of delivery (Saturday). We called at one point to ask where it was, as it hadn’t shown up — and were told it could be up to 8 o’clock. So we waited.
We called Argos again, and were told that the delivery had failed, because the delivery company (Yodel) couldn’t find the address. Yodel couldn’t call us because the driver wasn’t equipped with a phone (something my other half, as a van driver himself disputes, as it is H&S regulation to carry a phone in case of emergency) to call us.
We were recommended to change our address so we could get it delivered on Monday, seeing as we were in a Catch 22 situation regarding our own location (if the delivery company isn’t going to bother to ask how to get to our place, how will we ever get our deliveries?). So we changed it to my parents address, a technically more accessible location. I was PROMISED that this would make a Monday delivery possible. I also placed a complaint regarding the way my order had been treated and was advised I would expect a call (a call I unfortunately missed at the time).
Monday came round, my parents stayed in all day. No delivery. I call, and am told by Argos in a ‘why on earth did you do that’ tone, that because I changed my address, I was being penalised by an additional day, so I’ll have to get my parents to wait in on Tuesday instead. If I hadn’t changed my address, I could have had it on Monday (blithely ignoring the part where Yodel is too lazy to look up an address or call a customer).
The customer service rep then suggested I should ask one of my parent’s neighbours to take the parcel if my parents were not available. I don’t know my parents neighbours, so randomly knocking on people’s doors to find someone who was willing
to be around to take in a parcel that at that point had a relatively low chance of actually turning up.
It was at that point I blew my top. At no point did either company bother to contact me to tell me that my deliveries were not showing up when I was expecting them. Given that I had paid for a service, I expected Argos as the seller of the goods, to at least treat me like a customer and talk to me and keep me updated of the delivery. Simply waiting for me to call in order to tell me, oh yeah you wasted your time, and then your parents wasted their time.
To make matters worse, I cancelled the order and was informed that as I had cancelled my order, I can’t put in a complaint, because I no longer had an order. Thanks for holding me to ransom! So I took matters into my own hands, and found contact details online in order to make my complaint.
I did complain, and I did get a voucher from Argos as an apology, which went to reordering the laptop (and collecting in store) — but not after having to go to some extreme lengths to make my complaint. I was absolutely shocked and stunned by the behaviour of staff at Argos, and the written apology I received did help calm me down somewhat, but given the effort I had to make to get it, it is entirely unlikely that I will ever try to order from Argos again, especially as long as they use such a terrible delivery company.