I just have to vent here about a recent experience that has me a bit angry and saddened.

Last Saturday was a holiday in the Communidad de Madrid…didn’t realize it and needed food for a party on Sunday.

So what to do…drive all the way to Guadalajara, about an hour and 20 minute drive where the stores are open.  Go to the Corte Ingles for my shopping….while I’m there I buy 2 boxes of cocktail glasses.  Woo!  We will be drinking in style!

When I get home I see that one box has three glasses that are chipped…small chips but nonetheless they are defective.  No problem I think, I’ll just go to the Corte Ingles in Madrid and exchange them…easy peasy!

Not so fast…the saleswoman I speak to in the store tells me that the Corte Ingles “would never sell defective glasses” and “this is not possible!!” and that it was my responsibility to check them before I bought them…..

She goes off to speak to her manager (who never bothered to speak to me directly) and confirms that there will be no exchange of the glasses.  And that I would have to go back to Guadalajara but there was no guarantee that they would exchange them either.

I was somewhat embarrassed, disappointed and angry….so I shuffled off.

I met back up with my wife who was somewhere else in the store at the time, and told her.  She was shocked…took the box and said “stay here”  10 minutes later she returned with exchanged glasses but she had to argue with the manager.  He chastised us for not “...inspecting the merchandise before we bought it”

Why is this a shock…never…never in my 9 years here has the Corte Ingles ever questioned a return…ever….and on some occasions I didnt even have a receipt!  I feel betrayed, and angry.  Was the reason I was blown off because I was not Spanish?  Part of me thinks so.

So the Corte Ingles is now like everywhere else…Carrefour, Euroski, Dia…all of the bargain places that treat you like a criminal if you want to bring something back….Nice marketing move during a depression….

Sorry for the rant but….it seems like the end of an era here for sure….

This is not a ‘oneupmanship’ post, but one of the good things about the UK right now that we as consumers take for granted is consumer protection. In England we have consumer rights. Any trouble and we’ve got the infrastructure and processes in place to have matters looked into. We’ve got local government offices for Trading Standards, Environmental Health, Housing, etc. Then we’ve also got Consumers Direct.

However, I have noticed that more and more high street stores are making it more difficult to return items, e.g. clothes. Times are a changing I’m afraid. I just hope that we as consumers don’t have short memories from when we were let down - remember how the high street retailer treated you badly and never do custom with them again.

I’m shortly to be leaving the UK for good anyway, but there are many things I still love about my country. One of them being the rights we have as consumers.

It might be a bit random in Spain, but I think you get pretty good service in stores.  Trouble is you have to shout and complain vigorously or they won’t take you seriously, because that’s what the Spanish do.  British reserve doesn’t work.  I took a defective product back to Eroski once and they gave me not just my money back, but 50 euros compensation for my trouble.  Never seen anything like that in UK.  And traditional fereterias, food stores, things like that are much better than Britain.  On the other hand I have always found El Corte Ingles staff rather patronising and stiff; they don’t have enough competition as they’re the only national department store chain, I think.

😊 In response to the above posts I have felt exactly the same here aswell.
My husband and I now prefer to shop on line instead of using the majority of shops here in Spain.
That’s not to say that we haven’t had good experiences as well. But we’ve been her for 8 years now
and all in all it’s a lot safer, a better service, politer staff, good value for money, better quality and
just every thing that you want when your spending money as a customer.
For the last few years we’ve had everything from patio furniture to DVD players sent directly to our door from the U.K.
British quality of goods is so much better and comes with guarantees! We’ve paid a few euros more to have it delivered but in the long run it’s been worth it as we’re still using all the things now, years on. We hadn’t got a computer at first but we found out that
here in Spain there was a shop that you could order from over 150 Uk highstreet shops. It was great to pick up an Argos catalogue again! I just wanted to share the experience with you because it’s so disheartening when you try to have a pleasant shopping experience and you just can’t! The shop is online at http://www.ukshoppinginspain.com If any one has tried it recently please let me know. This year we’ve got caught up in the crisis! But I’d be interested to know if they’re still offering the same service. 😊