Appeal Home Shading - www.appealshading.com

The ineptness of manufacturing & lack of customer service is astounding; made many times wrong, every time they put you to the back of the order pile, never apologise other than a begrudgingly said ‘we want to fix this for you’!

Please don’t use this company, I’ve learnt the hard way how poor they are.

Useless, worst company I’ve ever used!

Do not use - make good wrong - repeatedly!!

9 months on I’ve still got blinds missing!

Don’t ever use!!!!!!!

Doesn’t matter how good their sales pitch is - or how cheap the quote is …. If it’s never fitted & you have paid you have lost a lot of money!

We ordered blinds from Appeal Blinds in June 2021. It’s nearly December and nothing. No contract, no information. We assumed it was a fake company that just took off with out deposit We tried reaching out a few times but they never respond. But then, out of the blue, when they want payments from you, they just sit on redial constantly. They don’t care that I’m in back to back meetings and can’t just answer their call whenever they’re ready. The sales contract I have says the full balance is due on delivery. They have emailed me when the blinds are already 4 months late and told me that my order is on hold until I make an unplanned, erroneous payment that is not stipulated on the sales contract. They are trying to change the payment terms after the sales agreement has been issued. I have zero confidence they can make these blinds and I’m not paying a random sum of money to them that is not drawn up in our sales agreement.

Order a haus Mf2600 and you get a sausage or a weinor awning with no recourse to the order at all. Then they try to fob you off with a tall story about they deal with weinor to make their haus awnings. They then install it and cannot get it to work because the staff don't know how to operate it at all. Their customer service is non existent. At the end they were just plain rude.

Avoid this company, Please read warranty Terms (Immediately below)before purchase and read until the end as you will learn the pitfalls.

PERIOD OF GUARANTEE

The guarantee period for parts is 5 years and labour is 1 year, both from the date of installation. If during the first year after installation the blind(s) or insect screen(s) (including the control system) proves to be ineffective by reason of faulty workmanship or defective materials we undertake to repair or replace at our option, free of charge, the defective

parts of the blind(s) or insect screen(s). For the remainder of the five years, if the blind(s) or insect screen(s) (including the control system) proves to be ineffective by reason of faulty workmanship or defective materials we undertake to repair or replace at our option, free of charge, the defective parts of the blind(s) or insect screen(s). During this period any visits will be subject to a standard labour call out charge, currently £130 incl. VAT per hour for the whole or part of the first hour and, currently £60 incl. VAT for the whole or part of each subsequent hour.

First of all had a very pleasant conversation with sales line to book and appointment who was equally great to deal with a person who was absolutely brilliant to be fair. After our initial home visit we were happy to pay £3700 for bespoke remote blinds and confirmed this at the appointment and paid the relevant deposit (£740). A few days later we received the order confirmation with full Terms and Conditions and this is where it all started t unravel. I am in the retail trade so always keen to check warranty term, and well to say I was surprised is an understatement. The Blind and remote fittings etc. come with a 5 year warranty, however, the 1st year is covered for parts and labour, but after the 1st year, labour cost is not covered even on replacing or fitting the faulty parts and you will charged £130 for the first hour and then £60 per hour should you have a warranty issue for the remainder of the 5 year warranty. I was not happy with the terms and wanted to let them know this, and refund the deposit if these were indeed their terms. My next step was to contact them and let them know that the warranty terms were not acceptable from our point of view (Just to be clear these terms were not pointed out or mentioned during our home visit). I tried to call relevant number given in paper work to call directly the Project Coordinator. No one answers and you can leave a voice mail, but no one comes back to you either if you do. I also tried to contact via email yet again still no response. I had to eventually go through sales line and request to be put through to the project coordinator, but they said this could not be done and would pass on a message which would take up to 5 working days. During this 5 days I also sent another email to the Project Coordinate, but again 3-5 working days response time and again no response, so phoned again sales line and asked to be put through and this time they did, to the same person and sent the email again and he confirmed he had this, requested also to speak to a manger and informed someone would call me back and yet again absolutely nothing. I eventually called the Home Visit Agent (The Only positive I have about the whole company), who said this was “completely unacceptable” and would phone his manager, and get someone to call me, again no response or call back, so called him again who the called hi manager and sorted the refund out. At no point did anyone in the whole company call me back in all events apart from the Home Visit Agent. Customer service after initial sales call is no existent, and had it not of been for the Home Visit Agent, I would possibly be still waiting for a call and refund.

After my initial installation the finish, quality and even the sizes were all over the place! Shutters hanging over frames, filled with decorators chalk, poor finishes on the top of the frames.. poorly measured and even worse installation.. avoid at all costs.: use Hilarys instead.. 

We are looking for a very large black-out roller blind and Appeal said 'yes' to every requirement and question we had. Similarly when a fitting specialist turned up to make exact measurements, his computer software had no problem processing the data and confirming an Ultra blind of 'Hampstead' material (2750 x 2200mm) could be delivered.

On the day of installation, I removed our existing venetian blind and filled all the fixing holes to make good the wall. Sadly, when the blind was brought into our room, it was obvious that the 'Hampstead' material could not property roll in and out of the containing cassette; clearly there had been no testing before the blind was released from the factory. So the fitter departed leaving us without any solution for our south-facing room, i.e. in a worse state than when Appeal got involved.

Despite sending an email of complaint, the next contact from Appeal was 2 days later. However it was the Project Coordinator simply organising a new installation date before she went on holiday - no word of apology, no care that we now have bed sheets taped over our windows, and plenty of excuses for what may have gone wrong.

A week later (9 days after installation), the Operations Manager called to say that our promised blind could not in fact be manufactured. He offered a couple of lower quality solutions but none were the type of blind we originally asked for so I asked for my money back. As with the previous call, there was no concern for our room being without any blind; instead I was treated to a long technical explanation of why the blind didn't work.

Appeal have a big disconnect with what products that say they can offer versus what they are actually able to manufacture. It also looks like quality control during manufacture is missing. Finally, they have absolutely no customer service and no concern for when things go wrong. I recommend you avoid this company.

I have paid my initial deposit for a set of tier-on-tier shutters 28/02/17, several weeks later 24/03/17 a second Surveyor visited and said the original order isn't possible and suggested an alternative he appeared to be unsure about.

I confirm this as no payment was taken, although he said he would get the office to contact me with a further update and to take payment. I heard nothing for 5 weeks and started chasing and still ano closer to them completing the order let alone corresponding with me.

My deposit was good enough at the point of sale 28/02/17, however, you cannot provide what you have sold.

I am getting increasingly frustrated with chasing around for answers. I find myself repeating the ongoing issues with several members of customer services. I have queried the possibility of compensation for the delay in the manufacturing of the shutters and no contact. I also queried a refund and (Customers Services Manager) has ruled both out and stated I would lose approximately 8% of my deposit which is just over £1100 if I take a refund.

No-one should fall victim to mis-selling and daylight robbery; losing a percentage of a deposit.

When I called the original sales Surveyor, he informed me he resigned the company.

Customer Services have a lacklustre approach to consumer needs and clearly don't understand the importance of listening.

Stay way clear unless you feel charitable giving away money and being weighed down by stress.

Strongly advise you avoid Appeal Group at all cost!

We had our shutters fitted by an appeal fitter,the same fitter that came to measure the widow reveals.

We live in a 17th century cottage,so nothing square.he fitted the 5 shutters,4 of the doors closed by themselves,the main bedroom shutter could not be closed on one side because it hit the window frame.He came back with his manager and spent 3 hours tweaking to allow the shutters to remain open,when opened.The frame was level horizontally,but not level vertically,hence the reason the doors closed by themselves when left open.When I asked him reason,he said it's an old building nothing's level,I said these are bespoke shutters and you did the measurements,No comment.They did replace the main bedroom shutters with a 2 door instead of a 4 door.The finishing around the frame leaves a lot to be desired.

The customer service I couldn't fault,but the fitting was awfull

I tried to get a price estimate , was based from person to person . Every sale person refused to give even the most basic estimate. The only information was that all orders began at 500 GBP and then tried to get me to book an appointments. When I explained that I did not want to waste time unless I knew a rough estimate, sales person told me she would not help unless I booked an appointment . What a joke, when there are so many companies with a similar product.