Tears in France

Have been having trouble with an online chocolate company who say they have world class expertise & worldwide deliveries.
Decided to make an extravagant gift to daughter for her birthday, in Africa !!!
I spent 2 hours deciding on which to choose, should it be the wooden box , large small, chocolates or bars ?
I finally settle on the bars of 74% Cacao, from all over the world, in nice pyramid wooden box, choose a photo & upload it onto the site for personalised gift card.
I get the total & a promise of 3 days delivery. Perfect with a day to spare before birthday.

Then proceed to checkout, choosing to pay in GBP with my credit card. All done & I am feeling rather pleased with my work.
Later that day an email to say my order was, not as I had chosen £64, but 90 Euros.
I am not happy with this as bank charges & exchange rates would be involved.

Sunday 2nd of April ring darling daughter to say Happy birthday & to find out if chocs were good.
Er, no Mum but we do have a piece of paper telling us to go to customs & collect.!

This is not what I was promised, but then nothing promised on the website had materialised, no promised emails had arrived informing me of the where abouts of the package.

3rd April
It appears it has arrived but held up at customs in Dar .
It is now 5 days & no chocs delivered.

I have sent many emails to the Chocolate company [French] they say this is normal , I remind them of all the promises on the website.
I demand a refund, they say NON ! I ask again, then I get a phone call from a female with American/French accent, who clearly has not done her homework , she has not read all previous emails apertaining to this. She says she had.

We argue I insist their website states, a full refund is promised, if they don't fulfill their promises, she still says , "just get your daughter to go to customs to collect & there will be no problem" I say that is a really time consuming thing in Dar & anyway the promise was delivery to the door.
I ask again for a refund , she says Non ! Then I mention Trading standards, & the legality of her company not following the website statements.
Whilst still arguing the point she drops a line into her statement saying it wasn't a problem for them to refund the delivery costs.!
This was 50% of the total costs I had paid. At this point I decided not to argue any more & ring off.

I receive an email saying they had made this refund.
It then comes to light, fees have to be made in Dar to collect the chocs from the Ministry of food & then clear customs .

8 days on still no chocs , I am really hopping mad & now determined to get the other 50% of my money.
More negative emails, now saying, just get your daughter to fax the form with signature.

This company obviously do not know the country they are dealing with.

I list all the failings of the company & quote again their website promises, that the distances are long, the time it would take, in traffic jams, the heat / rains.
To go through all the necessary beaurocracy in 2 differently located departments.
However this time I informed them , they had 24 hours before being reported to a consumer watchdog.
With 16 minutes to sparethe next day , I get an email saying a refund of 50% had been made to my card & an apology.
Two days later , still no chocs, I check my online statement, there was the refund but nothing to cover the bank charges or exchange rates when the chocolate company changed the currency , without my permission.
This charge of £4 was not covered.

I email again ,[yawn] as expected, no response .

I have just contacted trading standards.

The chocs are still with customs/DHL in a fridge I am told, awaiting clearance from the the Ministry of food Dar es Salaam.

I am being bullied by a firm of builders to whom I refuse to pay money, before they finish building a garden wall satisfactorily.

Wednesday 5th April

Today , the debt collector came

11-10 am. A noisy white car comes down lane at back of house, a fat man sitting inside, is looking at a piece of white paper .
He then reverses back up lane , I am thinking this is it 'the debt collector '.
I was right, the next thing I see the same man is walking down the path at the front of the house, carrying a brief case.
About 5 -10 in height, probable age mid fifties , he introduced himself as an avocat from A debt collecting company. Yeah sure ,I thought.

The very same company which has been sending the threatening letters.

I take him & show him the faults with the disputed wall.
He is not interested in looking at it, & just keeps saying in French of course, 'you cannot retain the full amount that is due', all he wants is half the money owed.

I invited him in to discuss & show him the photos I took throughout the build, showing clearly all the problems, except that of the racial taunts I suffered.
Whilst he scours them I take a close look at him, scruffy, ill fitting [strange greeny coloured ] suit, [ although that is the norm here,you only have to look at prime minister De Villepin to see that , the shoulders of his suit are way down his arms ] , dyed thinning dark brown hair. his battered briefcase fake leather, old & shabby. Cheap gilt jewellery.
His whole appearance rather unsavory.

He tells me, I must pay 1,600 euros [ total owing 3,600] he is getting very aggitated, when i say no, he jumps up threatening me, waving his arms shouting, I would be taken to a tribunal . .
I say OK.
He looks a bit stunned, still sitting I say I would pay for the Monocouche, [ a type of coating on garden side of wall , which in fact has already started to peel away from the block work,] this payment would be a part of his 1,600 euros, but on the condition the builders return & finish the work on the bad side of the wall.

He says yes, there was no problem with that.

I then asked him to put it in writing.

Encouraged by this he began to do a simple sum adding 874 -50 + 50, this took him minutes to do & 3 times before he had the correct figure.

Not a good performance for a debt collector !!!

Would a reputable company send someone without ID to collect money ? was this intimidation ? would anyong give money to this total stranger. ? l Was this man genuine. ?

It occurs to me to ask for ID, he reached into his inside pocket & took out a plain white card with no name other than the company name. No explanation as to what they did or were.
No further ID was offered.

He started to wave a letter he was holding, addressed to the Tribunal St Malo, with the date of 6 / 8 / 05, 8 months earlier.
In it was listed all the reasons they were taking me to court, mostly inaccurate & even the fact I had taken photos throught out the build was fact number 6.
Whilst I read this document, he was getting impatient & tried to hurry me, kept looking at his watch, he demanded yet again , you have to pay the first figure mentioned .
My French is becoming almost fluent in my anger, I repeat that the builder had never tried to talk to me , was only once on site during the build, how silly this was, when all down the line
I had said if the builder just came to discuss the situation, we could come to an agreement of some kind, but it seems he would rather go to court.

This is how things were left when the aggressor departed.
No doubt he will be back. !

Feeling bemused by this meeting I am wondering what their next step will be & why I have encountered this bullying a number of times whilst living here.

Are the French ever going to learn that getting work means responsibility not just money.
They really seem to think the quote [ devis] is only for their protection not for the customer.

I will not be moved. !!!
Does anyone like my wall ?