Howdens Alloa

Unhelpfull, ill mannered staff member.
Jan 14th, 2023

Sep 19th, 2022

Aug 29th, 2022

Jul 12th, 2021

The short review is. CHECK the order confirmation that this store gives your kitchen installer VERY CAREFULLY because Howdens will include items you havent ask for, unless you specifically tell them not to, and they wont ask first! Full review. I recently refurbished a rental property I own and, as part of the refurbishment, the kitchen units and worktops needed replacing. Everything else in the kitchen was fine; it just needed painting and new units and worktops. My installer suggested Howdens as he had an account there. So my wife and I went into Howdens Alloa and chose the cabinets, door fronts, handles and worktop. Nothing else was mentioned. Unless you have an account Howdens wont discuss prices but I confirmed that the items we had chosen were at the lower end of their range. I have used the installer many times so I knew roughly how much he would charge for the of the refurbishment but when he gave me the price for the full refurbishment I was shocked at how high it was. It turned out that element from Howdens was around three times the price I had expected to pay, given the research I had done with other suppliers, who publish their prices. So I asked the installer to break down the quote. It turned out that he had been charged for a sink, splash back for the hob (but not a hob), cooker hood, unit end covers and worktop upstands none of which had been ordered, or even discussed. The installer and I agreed that he would return these items. This would reduce the cost by about a third. This still made the units/worktops very expensive in comparison to the competition but at least it was a significant reduction in the original quote. But when he tried to return the cooker hood he was told that the kitchen had been designed around the hood and the current one may not fit. After discussing it with me we reluctantly agreed to replace the, perfectly good, hood with the one supplied. I should have checked this before but when the job was finished I discovered that the old and new hoods were exactly the same width, and therefore the new units would have fitted fine around the existing hood. I felt that my installer and I had been seriously misled and contacted Howdens to complain. After a somewhat heated conversation with the salesman it was agreed that a manager would ring me back. When the manager rang me he said that the unasked for items had been added to ensure that the price did not go up when any items that I had forgotten about, but actually needed, were included. When I pointed out that, if this was the case, why a hob had not been included, the manager had no answer. He refused to offer any compensation for the fact that I had to throw away a perfectly good cooker hood. He stated that it was up to my installer and I to go through the order and return any unordered items. In my opinion what Howdens are doing is to rely on inertia on the part of the installer and/or end customer to increase their sales. The installer tells me that he has now cancelled his account with Howdens as he feels that this incident made him look bad in my eyes. It hasnt, because he has done other jobs for me, but if this was my first job with him, I fear it would have. I will be complaining to Howdens head office to see if this practice at Howdens Alloa is company policy and will update this review with their response, if I can.
Aug 19th, 2021