I wonder if any one can help me. I have a serious complaint again DIY store, Wickes. I won't bore you with the entire story, but in summary (and the spiel below is not even the half of it)... We made an order from Wickes in May for about £500 worth of sand, ballast and other building products, as we were laying a patio. We made the booking online with Wickes on the Wednesday for the following Saturday. As we had had problems with Wickes deliveries previously - a driver getting stuck on our driveway (we have a long driveway) due to his error - and we were hiring two friends, who worked as labourers for the weekend at a cost of about £500 to lay the patio, we wanted to make sure that the products would turn up. We phoned Wickes on the Wednesday who assured us that delivery would be made in a 3 hour slot on the Saturday. Come the Saturday, we received a call midway through when delivery was due from the driver, saying that he was refusing to deliver, due to him previously getting stuck - he hadn't even attempted to make delivery. To cut a long story short, he and his manager were adamant that he wouldn't deliver on health and safety grounds, despite the fact we had been assured that delivery would be made. They could not answer why we were not told this before (the order was made 4 days previously), why we were assured verbally the delivery would be made, why a more competent driver or different vehicle could have been used, or why other Wickes drivers had made identicial deliveries previousaly without problem. We even said that the driver could drop the items at the end of our driveway (i.e. next to the road) and we could transport them ourselves using the excavator we had hired, but they wouldn't even entertain this. So, the delivery was cancelled by Wickes, our patio wasn't laid and we still had to shell out for the excavator and labour hire. Our complaint was compounded by the fact that it took two further calls for Wickes to actually cancel the order and refund our monies. We were informed that Wickes had a dedicated complaints team and we should make a complaint to them, which we did. The result was after various communications, Wickes' method of dealing with complaints is that the dedicated complaints team just gets the store responsible for the delivery to deal with the complaint (which is hardly indpendant). Unsurprsinsingly, they did not uphold our complaint, and as well as ignoring many of the questions and complaints I raised, they also lied to me in their response by stating facts that simply weren't true. Despite my efforts, any response from Wickes' complaints' team was a regurgitation of the same party line that was provided to them by the store (i.e. those complained of) - this was all to apparent as the fonts in the emailed response from the complaints team differed, so it is quite clear that they topped and tailed their response and just copy and pasted the crux of the response, presumably from the manager of the store responsible for the delivery. I emailed Wickes two weeks ago to raise further points, and they have simply just decided to ignore my compaint now and not respond at all. Has any one got any ideas how I can take this further? Are there any Trade or Consumer Bodies that I could contact? By the way, I sent a letter to the CEO's office too, and that was also completely ignored, despite being recorded as delivered. I would like some sort of compensation for what has happened, but more than anything, I want to expose Wickes' terrible customer service, and sham of a complaints scheme, that culminates in those complained of simply responsding to complaints and lying and ignoring questions in the process. Thanks in advance.

Sorry, I am new to the forum, what would be a more appropriate area?

Hello, My local Council has recently published a set of my personal confidential information online as part of a planning application process (i.e. data of birth, telephone number, signature, photos etc) in error. They have accepted it was incorrect and removed the offending material. I complained requesting that they take this matter seriously and raise an official complaint and a DPA breach. They responded to say that basically their resolution was removal of the information and an apology. I approaced the Information Commissioner about this and they said that there was potential for this matter to be a DPA breach, but there was no scope for a compensation payment as I had not suffered any financial loss. My question is that the Council showed extreme neglect by publishing this information and putting me at risk of ID fraud (I am still at risk as the information may still be available as cached info or somebody may have printed it off). Is there any scope to sue them on those grounds? I am considering taking legal advice, but cannot afford to do so unless there are grounds for me to actually do so. I will probably complain to the Commissoner anyway as the Council certainly deserves the bad publicity, though I realise that this will not directly bring me compensation in itself. Thanks