Hamilton business faces wrath of online shoppers

May 16 2008 By Chris Clements

ANGRY online shoppers have red-carded a Hamilton business amid claims they failed to receive the football strips ordered through a website.

Internet firm UK Soccer Shop, run by Simon Pretswell (23) from his base at Mote Hill, sells a wide international range of replica strips.

But some customers have been left fuming after complaining that orders have failed to arrive and the company is difficult to contact.

Disgruntled customer Enda Griffin said: "Back in October, I placed an order for four items, checking that they were in stock before I purchased, and made my payment through PayPal.

"Two weeks later I received only one item, so I emailed them to find out what was going on."

Enda states that he then changed his order, due to the company claims that they were "at the mercy of the brands", but still never received one part of his order.

"On March 3, I received an email that the third item would be sent to me, but I have yet to receive it, and the company has refused to answer any of my emails – when I began to get really angry with them, the replies stopped.

"I have also tried calling the number on their website, yet each time they don’t answer the phone."

Several more customers have made similar complaints on internet forums, noting that getting in touch with the company is extremely difficult and some questioning the standard of the printing and numbering on kits.

There was no answer when Hamilton Advertiser Online made repeated efforts to call UK Soccer Shop’s advertised phone number – but Mr Pretswell said via email that his company is currently working to improve its customer service and that Mr Griffin will soon be reimbursed for his missing order.

He said: "I have been contacted by the customer and am in the process of organising a refund.

"We are aware of the problems we’ve had in the past and have been working very closely with Trading Standards to make great strides in our processes, and they have recently praised us for the improvements we have made.

"We view one complaint as too many but to put it into perspective, we have shipped around 15,000 orders since the summer so it is only a small minority that go bad, and this is what we are working with trading standards to improve.

"As the internet is such a fickle and easy place to complain, we are constantly having to battle to keep customers happy.

"The main problem we have faced is people pointing to existing reviews and overreacting when there is absolutely no need to, which escalates situations into ones that are difficult to control."