Hi guys.
I thought I'd let you know my experience with this company. I was looking for somewhere that would deliver to us at BFPO, emailed countless companies and had an email back from them. After much to-ing and fro-ing I eventually managed to convince them that not only did their courier, CityLink, deliver to us, it was actually an official approved courier for BFPO. So after weeks of emails they finally agreed to deliver to us. There were many periods where I was sending emails into thin air and not even getting a "we're looking into it" response, 3 weeks later. But they were the only people to (finally) agree to deliver
I placed my order. I wasn't sure if everything would get through as there are size restrictions on our address so I asked them to please let me know if anything was refused at the gate. I know post takes forever to reach us but 3 weeks later and they hadn't contacted me to say anything had been turned away so I was really looking forward to our parcel arriving.
Eventually I emailed them just to double check that nothing had been returned, assuring them I wasn't being impatient, I just wanted reassurance that my shipment was on its way. I got an email back saying it had indeed been rejected and had been sat in their warehouse for the last 3 weeks. Some excuse about communication between courier/warehouse/office. I didn't care. They told me there would be a 20GBP charge for the refusal, fair enough I would pay.
After making absolutely certain with them that it was only the cotbed and mattress that were oversized and caused the refusal, even saying in my email "If we re-send the remaining items ... I do not want the whole order being refused once more if these are oversized". They assured me that it was definitely just these items and that the shipment would go through this time.
Lo and behold it is rejected again and they send me a cheeky email asking me to cough up another 20 quid. So I reply that they had assured me it would get through, any misunderstanding between them/courier/BFPO is not my fault and I would not be paying the 20GBP.
No reply. A week later I send another email reminding them that I have had no reply. Two days later another. There is just silence. They had my money and my items. I am sitting here feeling like a sucker.
Finally last night, well over a month after finally placing my order, my husband rings them up. He is sent round and round their automated phone system for half an hour before eventually somebody picks up at the other end, only to hang up on him! So he rings back (bearing in mind this is costing us god knows how much from abroad!), and gets hold of their customer services manager. He says that they have indeed received all my emails, they just haven't bothered replying. My husband is very reasonable on the phone (I would have been shouting by this point) but the guy is insisting that I said their customer service was excellent (I said NO such things) and ends up actually arguing with my husband over giving us the refund. He still wants to charge us the extra 20GBP for their own incompetence and half an hour later grudgingly agrees to a refund.
All in all this place, while their prices may be cheap, have given me nothing but stress and hassle. We were wanting to order from the UK for better quality, peace of mind and price. I started looking back in April to make sure I had plenty of time before my EDD in September but now I am going to have to go out over here anyway and buy all the things I thought I could relax over.
This company have treated me like a pest from the very beginning even though we have spent 664 quid with them (not including the extra charges
) and I have felt like I am bothering them rather than being a valued customer. The fact that I have spent two weeks chasing radio silence just secures in my mind that, whatever their flashy website says, they are clearly a mickey-mouse operation who put their fingers in their ears when they encounter even the simplest problem.
While I won't say "don't use them", I would seriously advise considering any and all other options rather than using Kiddies Kingdom. They have caused me a lot of stress over something that is really a simple problem - oversized boxes being returned to sender. That is the crux of it. There was simply no need for all the other stress.
This wasn't intended as a rant, just wanted to share my experience with you all and warn you!!
I thought I'd let you know my experience with this company. I was looking for somewhere that would deliver to us at BFPO, emailed countless companies and had an email back from them. After much to-ing and fro-ing I eventually managed to convince them that not only did their courier, CityLink, deliver to us, it was actually an official approved courier for BFPO. So after weeks of emails they finally agreed to deliver to us. There were many periods where I was sending emails into thin air and not even getting a "we're looking into it" response, 3 weeks later. But they were the only people to (finally) agree to deliver
I placed my order. I wasn't sure if everything would get through as there are size restrictions on our address so I asked them to please let me know if anything was refused at the gate. I know post takes forever to reach us but 3 weeks later and they hadn't contacted me to say anything had been turned away so I was really looking forward to our parcel arriving.
Eventually I emailed them just to double check that nothing had been returned, assuring them I wasn't being impatient, I just wanted reassurance that my shipment was on its way. I got an email back saying it had indeed been rejected and had been sat in their warehouse for the last 3 weeks. Some excuse about communication between courier/warehouse/office. I didn't care. They told me there would be a 20GBP charge for the refusal, fair enough I would pay.
After making absolutely certain with them that it was only the cotbed and mattress that were oversized and caused the refusal, even saying in my email "If we re-send the remaining items ... I do not want the whole order being refused once more if these are oversized". They assured me that it was definitely just these items and that the shipment would go through this time.
Lo and behold it is rejected again and they send me a cheeky email asking me to cough up another 20 quid. So I reply that they had assured me it would get through, any misunderstanding between them/courier/BFPO is not my fault and I would not be paying the 20GBP.
No reply. A week later I send another email reminding them that I have had no reply. Two days later another. There is just silence. They had my money and my items. I am sitting here feeling like a sucker.
Finally last night, well over a month after finally placing my order, my husband rings them up. He is sent round and round their automated phone system for half an hour before eventually somebody picks up at the other end, only to hang up on him! So he rings back (bearing in mind this is costing us god knows how much from abroad!), and gets hold of their customer services manager. He says that they have indeed received all my emails, they just haven't bothered replying. My husband is very reasonable on the phone (I would have been shouting by this point) but the guy is insisting that I said their customer service was excellent (I said NO such things) and ends up actually arguing with my husband over giving us the refund. He still wants to charge us the extra 20GBP for their own incompetence and half an hour later grudgingly agrees to a refund.
All in all this place, while their prices may be cheap, have given me nothing but stress and hassle. We were wanting to order from the UK for better quality, peace of mind and price. I started looking back in April to make sure I had plenty of time before my EDD in September but now I am going to have to go out over here anyway and buy all the things I thought I could relax over.
This company have treated me like a pest from the very beginning even though we have spent 664 quid with them (not including the extra charges
) and I have felt like I am bothering them rather than being a valued customer. The fact that I have spent two weeks chasing radio silence just secures in my mind that, whatever their flashy website says, they are clearly a mickey-mouse operation who put their fingers in their ears when they encounter even the simplest problem.While I won't say "don't use them", I would seriously advise considering any and all other options rather than using Kiddies Kingdom. They have caused me a lot of stress over something that is really a simple problem - oversized boxes being returned to sender. That is the crux of it. There was simply no need for all the other stress.
This wasn't intended as a rant, just wanted to share my experience with you all and warn you!!
