glasswells.co.uk

First and last time using Glasswells!

I spent just short of £3,000 on double roller blinds for my lounge bay window, dining room and 3 bedrooms. The front blinds were voils and the back ones were all blackout blinds. We also paid to have them fitted. Once up I was horrified to see that from the outside the voil blind had a large gap at the top that could clearly be seen. It basically looks like they were too short as you could still see a good 10cm at the top of the window with no blind covering.There is a 3.5cm gap each side of the blinds and this allows so much light in, it's hardly 'blackout' so we have had the extra expense of purchasing blackout blind strips to try to darken the room more acceptably.I contacted customer service straight away as I was never at any point advised that there would be a visible gap, if I had I would never have bought double rollers. The supervisor and the lady that measured up came to see them and said that's how they should be. It now is clear to me why Glasswells make you pay half the balance at the time of ordering and the other half BEFORE they are fitted, other companies we have used don't ask for the second payment until the work is complete, because they know people wouldn't pay up. So we talked about options to put things right and I was told it would be down to the Ipswich store manager to decide.A couple of days later I was told that he had decided they were what I ordered, functional and fitted correctly and I should have done my research on it!!!!!! What sort of customer service is that supposed to be? Absolutely disgusting!! and show me ONE company that shows what blinds look like from the outside! I SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE AWARE OF THIS FROM THE START!I was told the blinds would not be replaced and I would get a discount if I purchased curtains!!!! So now I had the choice of putting up with it or fork out hundreds of pounds more!!!!! Yes, I could have taken this to the ombudsman, but I can't be bothered with this dragging out for months, I just don't need more hassle to be dealing with.We have had to stick plastic on some of the sills as the blind doesn't hang straight, one side needs to be pushed out to make them level.I asked for some of the voil fabric to see if I could somehow cover the gap, but it didn't work. So the only solution I could find is to swap the blinds over so the top one is voil, so now it looks hideous inside rather than outside, but at least it's only us that sees how awful they look.I now have learnt you do not always get what you pay for and I do not recommend this company to anyone. Everyone who I've shown photos to agreed that they looked too short and now I wish I'd just kept my old wooden venetian bling as I've just wasted almost 3k on something that looks MUCH worse!! I wish I could post photos to share but no option to do so, then everyone would understand where I'm coming from!**** Update*****In response to your reply let me put this straight - I did NOT have an intensive consultation as you suggested, I did NOT have everything explained, I booked a fitting then I went to the store to choose colours and that was it! I was NOT advised of any 3.5cm gaps either side of the blinds, I'm not stupid, I know some light still gets through, I've had blackout blinds before and the rooms were MUCH darker than they are now, nor was I advised of a 10.5cm gaping gap at the top of my window. If they are fitted correctly why are we having to put pieces of plastic on the sill to make them hang straight? We also noticed yesterday that in one of the bedrooms the bracket is 1.5cm away from the side, how is that fitted/measured correctly?I was also NOT offered different brackets that would work, the fitter brought single brackets and the window recess is not wide enough to have them next to each other, so they would still have to be on top of each other, hence the same issue, the only other thing that was discussed about the brackets were the removal of a part that made operating the blinds difficult.Yes, I was offered curtains with a discount, when I asked how much discount would that be and was told it's up to the manager, so how am I supposed to make a decision on that?How dare you suggest I was fully informed and everything done to rectify the situation, its completely not true! I said a solution would be to have the voil on a single roller in the recess so the window was fully covered and a wider blind made for the outside of the frame and this would have also helped with darkening the rooms, the reply was no, only a discount on curtains that could have been a tiny sum and leave me even more out of pocket!I will not be contacting the address you suggested, instead I have now decided to contact the Ombudsman out of principle.

Date of experience: Jun 17, 2025