Free Harman Kardon Speaker Dispute

[Sumguyrulz]

Hello,

I upgraded my phone contract on November 15th 2020 to a Samsung A51, which was promoted with a free Harman Kardon Citation One speaker on the EE website for those contract specifications, which was an influencing incentive towards my purchase.

When my new phone was delivered 2 days later, the speaker was not included, nor any instructions as to how to claim the free speaker. I contacted EE the next day, who advised that the speaker will be delivered after a 1 month cooling off period.

Over 3 months later today, I contacted EE to enquire the whereabouts of my free speaker, to which they stated that there was no record that I should be receiving a free speaker. I explained the situation, and upon taking advisement to locate my purchase email receipt, there was no mention of the free speaker on the receipt. Further to this, EE apparently only keep telephone records for 3 months, so could now not prove my telephone conversation of me enquiring about my speaker after the delivery either.

Due to this, EE have claimed that they cannot honor my legitimate purchase because there is no record on the receipt, a fault which lies with EE's administration, not with me, and the best they can offer is £30 compensation for my troubles, for a £200 speaker that was a big deciding impactor in my purchase.

Frustrated, I explained that surely they could check with their promotions department, or surely they must have some archive record somewhere of the deals they were offering at the time of my purchase to confirm that my purchase should have come with the free speaker, and that this is just an error in their administration, right?... They offered the same £30 and said there is nothing more that they can do.

I have read other similar issues in the EE community and elsewhere and am now concerned that this is a concurrent problem that EE are not addressing, at the expense of their customers. I have been a loyal customer with EE for about 20 years now, whether with my own account or through family members when I was not old enough, way back when they were named Orange, so I am disappointed that I am now effectively being accused of lying about my purchase by them, because of their mistake, which they are currently not rectifying.

I have filed an official complaint and am awaiting further feedback from EE on this matter. Updates to follow...

[Northerner]

Hi @Sumguyrulz 

As with all these offers if you had read the terms and conditions on the sales page then you would see that you needed make a claim for this gift via Samsung promotional page.. 

See here: 

https://20203.samsungpromotions.claims/harmankardon/en-GB

However the claim period is now closed as you needed to claim within 30 days. 

Samsung Galaxy A51 Promotion: Purchase between 07.10.2020 - 17.11.2020 from a participating retailer. Claim on the Samsung Members App or website within 30 days of purchase. UK/ROI, 18+ only. For full T&Cs, seehttps://20203.samsungpromotions.claims/harmankardon/en-GB/terms.

Thanks

[Sumguyrulz]

Thank you for your response @Northerner.

Whilst I appreciate those terms and conditions, I never received a claim reference or anything at all from EE within which to make my claim in the first place, because their poor administration did not process my free item when I made my phone purchase on their website, as it should have. That aside, none of this information was provided to me when I queried where my item was after my phone was delivered without it; I was merely told my free item would be delivered after the 1 month cooling down period. No mention of claiming anything, which would have been infinitely helpful as I would have then mentioned that I did not receive a claim reference and could have cleared all of this up in the beginning (although I suspect they still would have argued the point that it was not on my email receipt therefore there is nothing that they can do, even though it is entirely their fault that it was not on the email receipt...).

Additionally, if EE claim that they are not at fault, why are they trying to offer me £30 compensation (Which actually started out at just £10 before I refused the first time)?

[Sumguyrulz]

Thank you for the link though @Northerner - this is proof that there was a promotion on the date I purchased one of the required products (Samsung A51), and my email that does NOT contain my free item/claim reference number is proof that they did not supply me with one when they should have.

[James_B]

Hi @Sumguyrulz,

Welcome to the EE Community. 🙂

I'm sorry to hear you weren't given the correct information on how to claim your free gift from Samsung.

Our complaints team will be in touch as soon as they have looked into this issue for you.

James

[Sumguyrulz · Accepted solution]

UPDATE:

I was informed that I would receive a callback from a manager within 72 hours of placing my initial complaint. After a week and a half I had received no contact and then suddenly received a text message from EE stating that my complaint had been closed, with no further information or explanation as to why.

I then contacted EE who re-opened my initial complaint, and then created a new complaint, complaining about the status of the first complaint...

However, I am pleased to say that my complaint was escalated to a Team Leader, Davina, who understood my situation entirely and even knew of the promotion in question. Davina sympathised with me and not only arranged for a new speaker to be sent out for next day delivery (the Harman Kardan speaker was no longer in stock, however an equally good Sonos speaker was sent out), but also gave me the £30 credit originally offered, for all the inconvenience.

This issue has now been resolved and I am satisfied with the outcome. All complaints have now been closed.

[Leanne_T]

Morning @Sumguyrulz

Thanks for coming back to the community and letting us know. 

Glad to hear Davina has helped get your complaint resolved. 

Thanks 🙂

Leanne.