Poor quality finish, late delivery and ignored
We are extremely disappointed with our experience of purchasing a Dudley Safes safe and the aftercare provided. Despite spending £2,500 on a custom-painted safe and being advised to buy via SafeSafe.co.uk (Collins & Sons, Preston), the delivery was 2 days late leaving us £240 out of pocket and the quality of the safe has not met the most basic of expectations considering safes are finished to order. We have reached out to Marie at Dudley Safes and Charles at SafeSafe.co.uk but have been completely ignored.
Firstly, the safe arrived two days after the agreed delivery date as confirmed by both Paul at Dudley Safes and Charles at SafeSafe.co.uk in email and on the phone. We triple checked this delivery date to ensure our fitters were booked to take delivery. This missed delivery date caused significant disruption and left us out of pocket by £240 due to the cost of rescheduling a crew to move the safe indoors on Christmas Eve.
To make matters worse, when we eventually unwrapped the safe, the quality of the safe was unacceptable: it has uneven and patchy paintwork; visible dirt under the paint; scratched shelves; and improperly installed components; including a handle that appears to be upside down and a missing bolt cap that is referenced in their fitting instructions. We reached out via email twice to Marie at Dudley Safes and to Charles at SafeSafe.co.uk with detailed photos, most recently on the 9th Jan 2025 and have been completely ignored for over 4 weeks. We were assured we would be contacted in the New Year, but Marie nor Neelam (Dudley Safes) or Charles (SafeSafe.co.uk) ever followed up with us. The lack of communication and accountability has been disappointing given how swift their support was prior to purchase.
Photos clearly show the poor quality of the finish.
Our experience is not reflective of Dudley Safes commitment to ISO 9001:2015 which covers customer confidence, quality control and effective complaint resolution – none of which has been adhered to.
The safe comes with a 5-year manufacturer warranty and a 12-month lock warranty, but we have lost all confidence in both due to the numerous quality issues and the lack of response from both Dudley Safes and SafeSafe.co.uk.
Sadly, despite our efforts to reach out in good faith to both Dudley Safes and SafeSafe.co.uk to resolve our concerns over quality and the late delivery in an amicable way, we would not recommend either Dudley Safes or SafeSafe.co.uk based on their attitude to after sales care.
If you value reliability and customer support after a purchase when you raise a legitimate concern, we recommend you look elsewhere.
December 23, 2024
Unprompted review