J and J Bags - Redhill market, Surrey

Oh, I almost forgot to mention (and this is a cautionary tale), on Saturday we had the pleasure of returning to the undisputed masters of customer service at "J&J Bags" in Redhill market, Surrey (to be found under the leaky green awnings just next to the entrance to Lloyds bank in the Warwick Quadrant on a Saturday)...I haven't got this far yet with my "holiday updates" but when we picked up the luggage at Gatwick the nice purple suitcase we had bought there a few weeks ago had burst it's zip...not too badly, but it had run a little way and was in danger of spreading and loosing it's contents...not good for a brand new suitcase on it's 2nd ever flight... >:(

The Saturday after we got back we popped back to the stall, their hype and slimy chumminess while trying to sell the blooming thing - "Yeah, lifetime guarantee on those and them wheels are indestructable, any problems just bring it back", turned into ambivalent indifference - "Oh, well, give it 'ere and we'll 'ave a chat to the suppliers and see what they can do..." (Hang on? Who was our (albeit verbal) contract with?), he only gave me a receipt when I asked (giving a very generous benefit of the doubt) "Can I at least have *something* on paper?" (in exchange for our "unfit for purpose for which they were sold" goods)...so when we turned up again this week (I think they had thought we had given up) two faces like thunder greeted us once again...Our pie-loving friend was on his mobile phone, lurking behind the "quality" leather goods on his stall, so I greeted the old lady (of the curiously coloured hair) with a sunny "Hello, my dear, any news?", she obviously recognised me, and shrugging, pointed to Mr Smiler saying "E'll 'ave to tell you about it"...which didn't sound good...

When he got off the phone, still seated he said "'fraid you'll 'ave to wait a week for a replacement", to which Flyingpops (fairly) said "Well, I'm not really happy with that, I've kind of lost faith in the product now", he took a deep breath, steeled his jaw and then stood up to his full height (which was about an inch shorter than me), gave a slight nervous flicker of the eyes towards my unimpressed gaze and sank a little...(it's nice being tall... ;)

Suffice it to say a refund was *still* (and "I'm 'fraid") "aginst' the rools" (quite what rules I couldn't be arsed to query, but I imagine him even saying so was against the law) but rather than argue the point with a monkey we settled for picking some other goods from the stall...and we took our own sweet time, checking very carefully for quality this time and settled on a reasonably nice leather season ticket holder for Flyingpops and I found an excellent Jap import laptop bag that had a better look and feel than anything I have seen worth ten times what he was charging(!) (how this guy got hold of something of that calibre I'll never know) and, amazingly, he relented in the end and even agreed to refund the odd £2 in cash (I'll bet that doesn't happen very often)... ;)

Just to put the cherry on the cake, as we walked back to the car park we saw the old dear taking her small dog to shit in the car park behind the fish and chip shop...nice...a real class act...

Still, our fortunate ending aside (no idea what would have happened if we hadn't found things we *were* happy with in exchange), if I were you I would steer well clear of them (especially as the minute we had finished carefully picking our compensatory items *another* couple turned up attempting to return a duff umbrella and rucksack, the poor fellow looked most put out as he had only just managed to slump back into his chair but was definitely assuming a "nuffink wrong with that" stance), not very impressive, service least of all, it's just embarrasing to deal with such a pair of muppets (who obviously know they are breaking the law but are so thick they think their bullish, toilet-brained spiel will fool anyone, it's almost common assault - threaten people into silence...great business model)...I'm in half a mind to report them to trading standards/write to the local paper/(or) something...

Anyway, it's just another good reason to keep "You get what you pay for" firmly in mind when shopping...especially at Redhill market...where the biggest, fattest monkey makes up the rules...

There's just no such thing as a bargain at J & J's Bags...the arse end of market trading, courtesy of Redhill, Surrey...oh the shame...