I’ve thought about this post for a while now.

I thought about creating one detailed post but it’d be very long!

I thought about how I could create a series of posts and make it easy to follow; describing the whole experience that we had in stages, rather than, one long post.

I’ve now decided to express my opinion and give you the option to find out more if you so wish to.

You see, I think I’ve spent far too much negative energy on this company already. So rather than spend more time creating posts & explain why I wouldn’t recommend Ruislip Movers; I’ve decided to just say that I wouldn’t use them again if someone paid me! It’s a shame that I feel this way but there you go…

If you want to know more get in touch and if not, it’s fine.

Take care

Heena

So we got married as you can see from the photos below. After that I had NO idea what was going to happen!

So we got married and then we moved in together over the 23rd and 24th of December. On Christmas Day we spent time with my gran, mum, two aunts, an uncle and my cousin. Following this treat we went to Suraj’s aunt’s place and hung out with most of Suraj’s mum’s family. It was a big affair so I won’t list them all.

Suraj told me we were going somewhere hot on Boxing Day. He told me to pack some dressy clothes as well as beach clothes. That was all I knew.

So we drove to Gatwick the next day and we got on a plane. At Gatwick the screen said St. Lucia but I didn’t know if we were going there or somewhere other place after landing there so I maintained an ‘I don’t know where I’m going’ mindset.

We got to St. Lucia airport and it was amazing! I am referring to the heat! It was so nice! Anyway, Suraj was then stalling. He wanted to go and enquire about something but he didn’t want me to see so I had to face the other way. It all added to the suspense. After that we were asked to stand in a particular place but I still wasn’t sure what was happening. I then found out that we were going in a helicopter! The road to the hotel would be quite long and bumpy so to ensure that the very beginning of our honeymoon was ‘wow’ and pleasant; Suraj booked a helicopter to take us there. It was SO cool!

So we got to the hotel and were greeted with champagne. The staff were so helpful and friendly. They made everything easy so that we could be and remain carefree. We stayed at the Rendezvous. I would recommend it to everyone!

So one of the concerns we had was that we both followed a vegan diet. The Head Chef, his team & the serving staff were so amazing! They thought about what was being offered to the ‘non vegan’ guests and if we couldn’t eat it, they would put a lot of thought & effort into what they made for us. The presentation was never a let down either. It wasn’t the same food every day either! We were truly spoilt!

This dish below was so yummy; I had to take a picture of it! Unfortunately we didn’t take pictures of what we ate during one sitting i.e. the starter, main and dessert.

During our stay we chilled out completely. We bathed in the sun, played life-size checkers, read a little and we walked to the Castries. At the Castries we shopped! They had so much jewellery! The coolest ‘sets’ which would include earrings, a necklace and a bracelet. Beautiful!

Also, within the hotel itself they have a restaurant called Trysting place which is their smarter à la carte dining room. The Trysting Place is open only for dinner. It is a treat to eat there. It is calm, quiet, romantic and includes a musician who plays music whilst you dine. You have to make a reservation. However, there’s no limit to how many times you can dine there.

We also went on the sunset cruise. It was gorgeous! There was entertainment on board which was fun, inclusive for those who wanted to take part and the view was breathtaking.

Last but not least, we enjoyed New Year’s Eve at the hotel and it was so much fun! The staff presented the Lion King. You could see that the production was well thought through. They wore great costumes and it came across as a planned, professional show. The guests were given some headwear as you can see below. The tables were all ‘dressed up’ too. As usual, there was nothing to complain about in terms of the meal that was served! A great experience

We recently got the flat we live in valued. What a learning curve!

We met our first estate agent, saw some new homes with them and then got our place valued. After their valuation, all I can say is WOW! I was SO chuffed! If I could sell for the price they quoted, I’d have made £100, 000 on my flat in 4 years. This means we’d have more of a budget in terms of buying! I was so tempted to sign on the dotted line and instruct them to sell the flat but I didn’t. Thanks goodness! I’ll explain why later.

After seeing a few places with them we fell for one place in particular. The person who valued our home said that the person selling would accept £50 000 less than the asking price because ‘he’s done it backwards’. It’s not his fault but he’s fallen for a place and is now desperate to sell to ensure he gets it! He said he didn’t want us to get in the same situation but he thinks it’d be worth our while to see it. We saw it and got in the same situation. We LOVED it! Now the thing is; we put an offer in at the amount he suggested and he said they won’t budge at anything more than £20 000 less than the asking price. Thus £30 000 more than what we expected to get it for. So we’ll have to let that go. No probs. We can live with that.

However, re our home; the estate agent said we NEED to put our home on the market so that we are classed as an ‘aggressive’ buyer. If we want to buy a place and he puts an offer in on our behalf; the seller will want to know that we’re serious about it all. By our home not being on the market, we haven’t had details published, we’ve not had viewers. Thus we’re not anywhere near selling. If us buying a new home is dependent on us selling; the seller will probably tell us to ‘get real’ & get a firm offer first. Now this can work both ways. If the estate agent’s SURE that we’ll sell quickly, we could wait, find a place and then put ours on the market. (This was suggested by a HIP surveyor). However, many estate agents don’t put all the properties on their books. If they know that they can sell it ASAP and they know who to go to i.e. there’s someone who’s chain free and ready to buy or someone who has a firm offer on their place and can buy quickly because of that; the property won’t need to be advertised. Why? Because it will sold straight away without the agent putting any effort in! If ours isn’t on the market, they won’t bother showing us all their stock.

Also, in some ways, the process of selling is longer. Each sale has to start with a HIP now. This all takes time and money. Also the HIP is valid for one year so you wouldn’t want to get that done if there’s nothing that you can afford or there aren’t many properties for sale, because you may well have to pay for another HIP if it’s not valid when you finally buy & sell.

Please take caution when deciding WHO to instruct to sell your property! Here are some things to ask: -

1. What’s the fee that they have for selling your home?
2. Is there a tie in? If so, how long are you tied in for?
3. What’s the fee if you sell your home via many agencies i.e. multiple agencies & does this affect how long you’re tied in for?
4. Do you they have someone in-house who can carry out the HIP for you? Can they suggest anyone else who can do it cheaper? (If they only ‘flog’ the company they suggest; don’t accept it!)
5. How quickly will they advertise your property and how?

Things to look out for: -

1. Do they try and get you to sign them up straight away and push that you sign their T’s & C’s (terms and conditions)?
2. Did they look at your home properly? Did they seem attentive? Did they ask questions about how long your lease is if you’re a leaseholder? Did they ask about the service charge if that applies? These are things that will be important to the people viewing your property.
3. Do they justify what they’re basing the value of your property on? Do they show you ‘comparables’? These are properties similar to yours that are in the same location which sold recently. Thus if a property similar to yours sold for £200 000 last month, it won’t be worth £250 000 now, for example.
4. If they tell you they CAN get £50 000 extra for your property because they have people on their books looking for a place ‘just like yours’ don’t believe them! Even if they find a mug who’ll spend over the odds for your property; when it comes to being surveyed by the lender; it’ll be compared to those near you (as mentioned above) and it’ll be devalued. Thus you’ll have wasted time, money, got your hopes up and you may even be tied in to firm with incompetent employees who overvalued your property.
5. Try and keep your cards close to your chest. The more you can tell an agent the better. They’ll get a feel for what you like and dislike and show you appropriate properties. Contradiction to keep your cards close to your chest right? Well…if you fall for a place, try not to let on. Some estate agents play on your emotions to ensure they get you to spend more so they get a fatter pocket through commission. Thus keep calm & try not to show how interested you are.
6. Some agents don’t share your offer with the person you want to buy from. They come back to you after a week and say that someone’s offered more than you and then encourage you to outbid them. You get into a bidding war with an ‘invisible buyer’. The seller benefits as does the agent. However, you are then out of pocket.
7. If you instruct an agent to sell your home, beware of agents who get their ‘friends’ to come and view your property within a few days/a week. These potential buyers relay lots of positive feedback but then you hear no more. Thus you chase the agent and are ‘drawn in’. This is when they may suggest you drop your price because the buyer said ‘they’re still looking’ because the price isn’t right for example.

Something you can do yourself: -

• Use a site called Zoopla to find out how much your property is worth. This site does the whole comparable thing for you. You’ll see how much it was last sold for and that should be how much you paid for it! It will also show you how much it’s worth now.
• Another site that does the same is called NetHousePrices
• Look online for cheaper HIPs
• Keep CALM. Also try and keep your cards close to your chest. I’ve explained why this is important above.

Some must knows: –

Any contract that’s signed in your home comes with a 14 day cool off period regardless of work done because of it e.g. viewings etc.

If you have any other advice or tips please leave a comment below this post.

I was prompted to write a post about Carphone Warehouse because I had many problems with them and then someone I know were miss-sold a product too! They went to upgrade their phone and were told that the deal included unlimited internet access.

When he rang T Mobile for something else he was told that he’d been charged and it was NOT free at all!

When Carphone called me about the blog post I wrote before, I told them about my friend so that they could contact him about this case of mis – selling as well.

Since then my phone’s been playing up. I don’t get replies to texts so I check the details and it says it’s been delivered but the recipients have NOT received it.

I rang T Mobile, received an update by sms, acted on it and the phone was slower.

T Mobile did something else and I was then getting message saying ‘NOT delivered’ when they obviously had been because I received replies.

We then re-set the phone to factory settings. It was even slower. Messages were received twice when they were only sent once. The sent items didn’t show the messages that had been sent and so on.

So I called Carphone as T Mobile said the phone was faulty.

I was advised that the store would have a loan phone. There are 2 types; free ones and those that one gives a £50 deposit for but it is given back. I asked him to put notes on my file about the call as I now expect trouble with Carphone.

I got to the branch. No loan phones of any sort.
Free ones do not exist either.
They cannot get a loan phone sent from another branch via internal delivery.
No options, but to go without a phone until it’s repaired!
The staff at the branch said it could take 1 1/2 to 2 weeks.

I called them back and was told that the gent hadn’t put notes on my account and he had mis-advised me re loan phones as all branches do not have them. I was told that he could have checked before sending me to the nearest branch and that it could actually take up to 28 days for the phone to be repaired.

They offered to put a voucher on my account so that I could buy a cheap phone to use whilst this one is being repaired. They said £10 would cover it but they’ve given me £20 just in case.

I got to the branch and the £4:95 phone had been sold out. The next one up was £10. That was gone too! So the next available was £20 PLUS £10 top up!

I had been given a £15 voucher as a good will gesture for the hassle I blogged about in the first post I wrote so I used that to get myself a phone!

Again, I’m not impressed!
Would you be?

My contract was coming to an end so I thought I’d explore the idea of leaving 3 but only if I could get a better deal. Why? I had 1100 mins mix and match with 3 for less that £25 a month but I needed a new phone as I’d dropped mine too often for it to function for much longer. Also the tariff didn’t suit my usage so it would have been better for me to change it.

So I rang some network providers and Carphone Warehouse too. I didn’t bother with Orange because the reception for Orange is naff in Pinner!

So I went for an O2 contract BUT then realised that although I was due for an upgrade that was ONLY within 3 because I still had some months left on my existing contract. I haven’t gone for an upgrade offer in a while so I didn’t know that some companies now allow you to upgrade 3 months before your contract ends!

So anyway, I didn’t need to panic because I had a 14 days ‘grace’ period to change my mind and return the phone without incurring any costs. I hadn’t opened the box let alone anything else so there shoud not be a problem.

I called Carphone who told me to contact 02 and let them know that Carphone had received the phone and terminated the contract. A member of staff at 02 confirmed that the contract was terminated within the grace period so there would be no charge. However, there was a direct debit attached to the account. I thought this was strange because I had not given any account details to 02 or Carphone! When I asked 02 about it I realised that Carphone had used OLD account details that they had for a previous TalkTalk account which has since been closed! Would the Direct Debit have bounced if I’d kept the phone?

I was now really near the end of the contract so I called Carphone again, wanting to go for the same deal. I spoke to Mr. Moore. who convinced me that the cashback offer was not as good as the free laptop offer. With this phone, I could get a free mini or ‘normal’ sized laptop and if it was too heavy for me to carry around I could ‘play with it’, see how it goes and send it back within 14 days.

I spoke with his colleague within one day of placing the order because I couldn’t get hold of Mr. Moore. I asked him if I could change the laptop to the mini one or if he could send both, I could see how they are and send one back. The reason this is so important is, to put it very simply, I have a whiplash injury and cannot lift heavy things. There’s more to it than that but that’s enough info for this post.

So I got it on Friday, turned it on, restarted it, walked around with it a little and turn it off. It was too heavy. I went away for the weekend and then called Carphone to ask if I could return it to them. The member of staff told me to return it to my local store as that would be easier. When I returned the phone that I ordered ‘too early’ I went to a local store and was told that I had to send it back via a special envelope that the sales department would send me OR via a courier which they would arrange. They handled the return reluctantly when I told them that the sales department told me that I could return it in store.

When I called to arrange returning the laptop I told him about this problem with returning items to stores and he said that they say no because they’re not getting any commission. If this branch did the same thing he advised me to tell them ‘we’ said they have to return it and if they really give me any trouble, I should call them from the store and they will sort them out. So I went to my local store on Monday and guess what they said? They can’t take returns as I’ve ordered it on the phone.

Does a memo need to be sent to all stores telling them they HAVE to process returns regardless of whether the item was purchased in store, on line or on the phone?

Anyway getting back to this return, they also said I’d broken the seal of the laptop therefore it would not be returned. I was horrified! To be stuck with a laptop that was too heavy for me to use! How pointless!

If you recall, Mr. Moore had told me to open it, play with and decide whether I wanted it or not. Do you think meant for me to keep it in the box? In order to check if that the weight was OK I’d need to unpack it, remove manuals etc and THEN see if it was too heavy for me. Right?

NO! The man in the store said that even if they could take returns from orders purchased on the line or on the phone, he could not return the laptop because I’d opened the box and broken the seal! He called the sales team and explained the problem. The call was escalated to a manager and I was told that I’d be called back in 48 hours. I asked them to keep the items in store and give me a receipt for it. They obliged.

They explained that they can trace any calls to or from the sales department as long as they have the number that the call was made from or to. Thus they will trace the calls made to or from me and find out what Mr. Moore said. If the recordings verify what I said they would accept the return.

I then got told I’d be called in 72 hours.

I called many times I finally got through to someone who told me his name was Glen. He was very supportive. He said ‘I know what ‘we say on the phone and we all say that customers have 14 days grace period with laptops‘. He said he’d arrange for the return straight away and he did! He called the store, it was collected, the return was confirmed and I was back to square one i.e. needing a phone.

I was so happy! I thought that the mistake was on the part of Mr. Moore. Glen helped me, he knows about all what happened and he’s promised to help me get an upgrade once the return is processed, so let me stick with him and get the deal I need.

I ordered a phone through him WITHOUT any laptop. I collected it in store and I met the same man who would not process the return for the laptop. He told me that the person who sold the laptop to me in the first place without explaining that I couldn’t take it out of the box was the same person who processed this new order! His name was on the receipt and the notes on my account! So Glen was actually Mr. Moore!

So he lied to me about his name but he did fix the mess with the laptop which was caused by him anyway. When I was placing the order he said he’d just read a memo that said the offer had changed from £150 to £200 cashback, which you get within 60 days without doing anything. He said he’d cut and paste the notes in this sale so that I’d get £200 instead of the £150.

I have since spoken to Darren, Gareth, someone else, Kit and others. They have all escalated the complaint! What complaint? It was never £200. There’s no such memo!

They advised a call back within 24 hours, then 48 hours and then 72.

I was told that they would listen to the calls and if they found a recording proving that he said I could get £200 cashback, they would honour it.

Although the laptop was returned, I’ve still not had a call from anyone to tell me what happened, why it happened and that it wont happen again because they’ll put x, y and z in place!

I am really disappointed with Carphone and the sales tactics used by their employees!

Amanda, Kelly and Tony were later involved re escalating the complaint but I’ve heard nothing.

I have received the extra £50 of cashback that was promised by Mr. Moore AKA Glen and am now waiting for the emailing £150.

So is it worth it?

Was this just my bad luck or this typical of Carphone Warehouse?

Let me know what experiences you’ve had with Carphone….

The text below shows what I wrote to Ocado after receiving my first delivery. They were sooooo cool!  

Hi ya,

I just wanted to tell you about my first experience with Ocado. 

Points for you to note: - 

The sms reminding me about the delivery & when i could make changes to my account was excellent

The sms on the day of delivery was fab 

The delivery man was lovely, polite, forthcoming with information and showed that he had read the message that i posted with my order asking if the items could be put on my kitchen table etc.  

The colour coding of the bags was an excellent way to organise the food, as well as, helping the customer when he/she unpacks the delivery

Excellent service 

The only thing i’d say is that i found ordering quite difficult. I’m not sure if it’s because i’m used to the Asda website or if it’s because their website is organised better, but i found it easier to order with the structure they have. 

 

Anyway thanks 

I WILL use Ocado again! 

Heena Modi

Suraj and I went to Cafe Rouge today to have breakfast with some friends.

I’ve never been keen on Cafe Rouge. My friend used to work there and we always used to say that they charged too much for what they were selling. Also, there wasn’t much on the menu for vegetarians but this was a long time ago. 

Meeting up with these friends was important to Suraj and I thought that they may have progressed over the last ten years and started catering for a larger clientele. Thus I thought that it was worth giving it a shot. 

What a let down! 

The company was lovely by the way. It was rest which I was disappointed with!

The food

We looked at the breakfast menu and there was nothing vegetarian, let alone vegan! The waiter brought the lunch menu to us but it was very similar. Suraj asked if the chef could prepare something for us but the waiter said no. He said we could have what was on the menu and that was it. 

Suraj then asked if we could have a baguette with mushrooms, onions & salad because there seemed little else! It filled a hole but wasn’t very enjoyable. 

The service

Well, if I’m being kind I would say it was slow! 

It took ages for them to bring one of the 4 hot drinks to our table. When it came there was no milk. The milk finally arrived after we asked 2/3 times and then the tea was cold so we asked for it to be heated up again. However, they didn’t bring a new cup. The initial cup had cold tea in it, which wasn’t taken away when she took the pot of tea to reheat. I didn’t think that it could be so difficult. 

I asked for a filter coffee. What a mistake! It took ages. 

On a positive note, the bill came quickly and some hot water, to dilute the coffee came quickly too. 

Have you had a better experience there?