outdoormania.co.uk > Reviews (61)

Originally I was going to write this review to tell people how bad this company is, but after the way they handled the situation, I’ll rate them five star positive instead – I mean, I cannot be doing with gross incompetence but everyone is entitled to make a mistake, I suppose.
The whole saga all started two weeks ago when I placed a sizeable order for quite a few Montane items (an order of just over £500). I placed the order at around 8.00pm on the Tuesday evening and the following afternoon I received an automated email telling me that all the items bar one had been sent and that the remaining item (a Featherlite Marathon) would follow the next day (which was okay I suppose as they quoted three day delivery so it was within their quoted timescale, albeit only by a day though).
The Thursday morning came and guess what? Nothing arrived. So they had lied and I was angry. At around lunchtime, I called them to find out where my items were. The customer services representative checked it while I waited and said that it was on Fedex van for delivery sometime that day. I checked their original email and it did say that it was due that day and not in the morning so I waited until five o’clock, but still nothing. I called them only to receive an automated response saying that the customer lines close at 4pm. I was livid about them lying and started to pen my review.
However the next morning, before I had chance to call them, I received a call from them on my mobile apologising for the fact that the package hadn’t arrived despite the fact they said it would. They explained that the Fedex van containing my items had broken down on the previous day. So they had sent my delivery back to the depot for delivery to me that day without asking me. It sounded like a lot of fobbing off to me and I told them so. I was however surprised when the package arrived about ten minutes after I came off the phone. As I was signing for the package my mobile rang again and this time it was another courier (the same one that delivers my daughter’s Next items – that’s another story) to say that they had a delivery for me and would be dropping it off within an hour.
The package was duly delivered (in 45 minutes actually) and it was the remaining Montane item that I had been waiting for. However inside was not a Featherlite Marathon but a Featherlite Velo. I wasn’t at all happy at such incompetence especially as I needed the gear for the following morning. I called them again expecting a lot of bother. However I didn’t get the chance to tell them what I thought of them as the representative couldn’t have been more helpful. She looked into it and traced it to a warehouse packing error (they do look exactly the same I suppose). She told me to return it along with the postage receipt so that they could reimburse me for the postage back and said that they would send me the correct items out once they received the incorrect items back.
I explained that I was deeply unhappy as I desperately needed the item for the following day for a mountain expedition I was doing with my dog in Derbyshire.

The girl said she would need to speak to her manager and put me on hold. I was seething, her making me wait like that and I told her so when she came back on. She said she was sorry and asked me where I was walking in Derbyshire. I told her that it wasn’t Derbyshire but Langsett Reservoir in South Yorkshire. She then made me hold again only to come back on the line after about five seconds to say that one of their warehouse people lived near there and would drop the item off in the car park if I could give them a specific time. It all sounded a bit fishy but because the item was so urgent for my walk I agreed, although I have to say, I wasn’t sure if they would be there or not.
However, the following morning at 10.00am as we drove into the car park I was met by the man from Outdoormania with the correct Montane top that he exchanged for my incorrect item. He was also very pleasant probably as it was such a nice day. The irony was, because it was such a nice day I didn’t need the top anyway so I wasn’t very happy about that.