Hein Gericke Sale - dirty tricks?
Created: 20 July 2010 by Robert Whitehead
I called into the Hein Gericke Leeds store on Monday 12th July to check out the sale, as I was looking for some new gloves. I found a pair that I liked, the HG Pro Sports Extreme Race Carbon gloves in black (the gloves that did so well in last year's Ride tests) reduced from £79 to £49 in the sale. An assistant helped me to find a pair that fit (no choice but to seek help - only the left glove of each pair is on display) and we discussed the glove which we agreed was a very good price (it was a good buy even before the sale). In fact, it was so good a deal that the assistant had put a pair to one side for himself.
We went to the till, he scanned the gloves, put them in a bag which he gave to me and took my bank card. He then saw that the price on the till did not match the sale price on the swing tag - it had not been reduced on the system, so he had to find the printout of the sale reductions to get the code. He could not find it so the manager joined in and they found the missing pages of the list at another pc in the middle of the store and began to look through it. The manager said he was sure that the gloves were definitely on the list. However, after I had been waiting for a good 10 minutes or more he declared that they were not in the sale and that only the blue and red pairs should have been marked down and that it was an error on the part of the shop staff, and so he could not sell them to me at the marked price!
I objected on the basis that they had already been bagged, the assistant and I had discussed the price and I had tendered my bank card as payment, which the assistant had taken ready to swipe. The manager said it did not matter and that it was up to him and he could withdraw the gloves from sale if he wished, and if he sold them for less then the difference would come out of the sales assistant's wage (nonsense). However, he said that he could knock off £10 as a gesture of goodwill. I did not consider that to be "goodwill" after such a lengthy wait so refused his offer. He had already taken back from me the HG bag containing the gloves, and since he would concede no ground, I left.
To say that I was hacked off is an understatement. I have spent many hundreds of pounds in that shop over the last 12 months or so, having bought a new Arai lid, full leathers, gloves, boots, Optimate, bike cover and other accessories. Had the previous manager Roger been there, I am sure that he would have dealt with it differently!
I do not now intend to buy from HG again. I had liked their products, but do not like the attitude I experienced on Monday so will now go elsewhere with my hard earned cash.
Rob