Andy M.

I'm normally very good when buying things online and I carry out my research of a retailer before making payment. Sadly on the one occasion I don't do this because I was rushing to find a present for someone I got burned!

I was looking for an item that appeared to be sold out at every stockist who had previously sold it all over the country. Imagine how happy I was when I found it in stock at THEDAFT4ARTNCRAFTSUK.CO.UK. Sadly this was the end of my happiness in relation to this site because no matter what I thought at the time of ordering this item I wasn't ever going to be receiving it!

The item was showing in stock and it wasn't a bad price either so I went ahead and ordered it. I then made the mistake of telling the child the item was on the way and we watched for the postal worker every day. Several days on and with an ever more disappointed child sat waiting for the delivery to arrive I decided to contact the company.

In reply to my email I was told that sadly the item I had ordered wasn't actually in stock! This was despite their site showing it in stock when I ordered it and despite the fact that they had ALREADY CHARGED MY CARD and taken the money from my bank account for it! I wasn't happy. To make things worse they stated they were having problems sourcing the item and that I would have to wait for it.

Having now disappointed the child I decided to cancel the item. I'd lost all trust in THEDAFT4ARTNCRAFTSUK.CO.UK because of this poor way of doing business. I then received an apology via email and I was told that the refund would be passed to the 'accounts department'. I remember thinking at the time that it didn't exactly seem like such a big operation that it would have an accounts department as it feels more like a one man band or small store with an online presence due to the poorly designed cheap looking website, but I decided I could wait for my money back.

A month went by and of course as you've guessed by now there was NO REFUND made to my account. They shouldn't have even taken the money in the first place because they didn't have the product to sell and couldn't source it but now to make things worse they weren't sending my money back to me. I had no communication from them apologising for the delay so I did a Google search. To my horror I read quite a few stories about others having less than happy experiences with this company, so based on this I contacted my bank. Thankfully I placed my order with my Visa card and as such I have protection against such cowboys.

My bank was very understanding and immediately sorted my money out for me with the most minimum of fuss. At last, things were looking up. I won't leave my money in their account for another day earning them interest when they shouldn't have taken it in the first place.

So what have I learnt from this? To always stick to my routine, check out these small retailers prior to buying as I used to do and further more, I will NEVER BUY FROM THEDAFT4ARTNCRAFTSUK.CO.UK EVER AGAIN! This site is a joke and there is no customer service and a good chance I'll not get my money back or the product if I order again.