JULY 2007 NEWS from www.kitchenhell.co.uk (AUGUST NEWS BELOW)

Falling Apart!

4 July 2007 Today I noticed that the hot tap in the kitchen was falling apart. I've virtually no plumbing skills but I did manage to fix it. If I'd not done this then I'd probably have a flooded house. I suppose I could have called Moben out as the kitchen is still in its two year warranty period. But I didn't want to wait several days (weeks?) for Moben to send out a possibly incompetent subcontractor at a date and time to suit them. Slow installation, messy subcontractors, unfinished cabinets, poor plastering, poor tiling, poor grouting, Tecnik appliances, poor Customer Care, messy workers, faulty electrics, faulty tap, ineffective arbitration etc service - I wonder what'll go wrong next - and all for a high price.

6 July 2007 Published a few updates to site including a page re the Furniture Ombudsman (See also 31 July)

£20m improvements - to the shops and computing but not the kitchens!

10 July 2007 A Manchester Evening News article reported that 'KITCHENS, bathrooms and fitted bedrooms group HomeForm today unveiled a £20m-plus investment programme as it seeks a return to the black. HomeForm's new private equity owners have approved a spending spree to upgrade the firm's 163 showrooms across the country as well as improvements to its IT systems in a bid to boost customer service.........' See MEN article for more. Nothing meaty on how they are going to improve things for customers.
See also this News Release which suggests to me that the spending is more about improving the showroom experience and the back-office efficiency etc rather than about providing an improved installation service. If Homeform intend improving their profits then some will come from efficiencies but the rest will come from your pocket if you buy a Moben Kitchen.

14 July Thanks to a reader (name wthheld by request) for pointing out that two reports by Kroll, the Administrator for MKD Holdings Ltd, have appeared on the UK Data website at http://www.ukdata.com/creditreports/viewCompanyDetails.do?companyId=02340362
The two documents are :
Statement of administrators proposals - 44 page(s)
Notice of statement of affairs - 20 page(s)
Unfortunately each costs £18 and this is for a downloaded pdf, expensive virtual paper. I'm waiting to see if Kroll provides free copies to those of us who have claimed to be creditors.
There's lots of other documents about MKD available but some cost £18 even if they're only one page.

17 July Some information was received from a reader about another innovative way that Moben gives its customers less. Sorry but I can't reveal the details yet.
A year to fit a kitchen!

19 July See this press article Sunday Mail 8 July 2007 re a Moben Kitchen which has taken a year (or more?) to fit!

20 July As I've not had a response from Kroll, the Administrators, to my letter of 13 June I've written to them to try to get some more information on what is happening See 14 July).

Are you protected?

20 July I've also contacted the Office of Fair Trading to suggest that they study the 'Unfair Contracts' in the Fitted Kitchen, Bathroom and Bedroom etc industry. The contracts which are unfair are those that require customers to pay the whole cost before the start of installation rather than at the end eg as used by Moben, Dolphin, Sharps and many others. The contracts are unfair because they put customers in a weak bargaining position when things go wrong. Currently companies can avoid the 'unfair' tag by offering the services of an arbitration, conciliation and adjudication service such as 'The Furniture Ombudsman' (formerly Qualitas). However, it's quite clear that many customers believe that 'The Furniture Ombudsman' is not independent and does not provide adequate protection.

26 July Hardly a week goes by when I don't receive an email telling me of another Moben customer's woes. Sure enough, today I received a detailed email from Mr X who prefers to remain anonymous. He's having trouble with one of the appliances provided as part of the kitchen. There's a long tale of buck passing between Moben, their subcontractors and the appliance supplier. The supplier is one of the (new) Homeform Group. The net effect of all this is that the weeks are drifting by, the kitchen's not finished and Mr X is having the hassle of lots of appointments which make no progress. Nothing new there then!
I've just realised that when Moben say your kitchen will be fitted within 14 to 28 days of the survey, they don't mean that 14 to 28 days after the survey you'll have a finished kitchen, they mean that there will be 14 to 28 days of fitting involved. Add in a few days between visits and you're soon into months.


27 July I've received a copy of a report about MKD Holdings Ltd from Kroll (See 14 July). I'll give you some edited highlights soon when I've time. (I do have a life besides Moben stuff)

31 July Today I received an email from the Furniture Ombudsman disagreeing with some of the information on the Furniture Ombudsman page on this site. I have reproduced the email on the page here.



AUGUST 2007 NEWS from www.kitchenhell.co.uk
13 August I've recently received emails from Moben customers still suffering from problems. So the new owners don't seem to be improving matters.

Here's an unhappy customer on Dooyoo :

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/home-furniture/moben-kitchens/1055106/

I've also heard from a Moben subcontractor who confirms that he agrees with much of what is on this site even though he says he does a good job of fitting lots of Moben kitchens. A topic that keeps cropping up is Tecnik appliances so I've set up a new page just for them. Tecnik is the name used by Moben for their own brand appliances.

14 August A good news kitchen story in the Manchester Evening News. Clearly nothing to do with Moben then!



Please contact me at mw@kitchenhell.co.uk if you have any news on Moben etc or if you have experience of their 'service'. I'm particularly interested to know how customers of 'new' Moben (ie since 5 April 2007) are getting on.