Ciara plays waiting game after paying €220 for books
However, after hearing about problems with the company’s deliveries a few days later, she and husband David began a three-week effort to reach the company by phone and email.
“I eventually got an email and a phonecall back late last week, to assure me the books would get to us on Monday. But the kids went back to school this morning without them,” said Ciara.
With about 150 calls from parents fielded by the National Consumer Agency over the issue, it contacted the company with its concerns again in recent days. Despite assurances from schoolbooks.ie last week that no child would return to school without their books, there was embarrassment for hundreds of children starting classes in recent days.
Among them were Ciara’s three children — senior infants pupil Tom, Molly in second class, and Liadhbeth in third — who returned to Scoil Mháirtín in Kilworth, Co Cork, yesterday.
“I’m sure there are others in the same boat and the staff understood, but our eldest is a perfectionist and she didn’t sleep on Tuesday night, it was playing on her mind so much,” said Ciara.
The family will add themselves to a long list of people to have cancelled their orders with schoolbooks.ie and buy the books from a shop if they do not arrive today.
“We checked our order online and they hadn’t even gone to the warehouse for collection by the distribution company yet. We understand if there were technical problems, but we’re just sick of getting the wrong information and we feel there’s been so many lies told,” she said.
“The worst thing is that if we cancel our order, we’ll be spending the money again before it is credited back to us.”
Schoolbooks.ie said it never intended to mislead customers and apologised to those whose books were delayed, promising that everything possible was being done to resolve the issue.
“The updates which we have provided have been in good faith based on the information systems which we use in our warehouse. However we accept that we have made errors in those updates,” said a statement issued through a public relations company.
The company said earlier this week it had delivered 5,800 orders in eight days since early last week.
However, Denise Murphy, whose Facebook page campaigning for action by the company has more than 640 members, said there were still many more waiting.
“Others have just decided they’ve had enough, after waiting for their order since the middle of July,” she said.
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