El Andalous - Returning Items

El Andalous Rooftop Pool - Work in Progress

Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but with all my coffee machine traumas, I ended up having to return the malfunctioning one back to souq.com.

Returning anything anywhere is always a bit of a faff. Anyway, I decided to get on with it since the quicker I did it, the sooner I could be released from the long-winded way of making my coffee.

I looked on the website to learn about the procedure for returns; it said I had to email them for details, so I did that and received a reply fairly quickly. So far, so good.

They said I had to pack the item up (already done! I was proud to be so efficient!), print out the shipping labels using the link they provided, phone the delivery company for a pick up date and then they would refund on receipt of goods. I printed out the labels (I am so glad I have a printer!), but procrastinated when it came to having to phone the delivery company. I could sense that this was where the trouble would lie. And also, of course, I don’t like phones.

After a day and a half, I decided I needed to get it over and done with. When I finally got round to it, I was surprised to find I could understand pretty much every word the woman said on the phone. What had I been worrying about? Why did I delay? She said they’d phone back soon to let me know the pick-up date and time. It all sounded good.

But after I put the phone down, I started to think. I can’t seem to be on the phone and think at the same time. What exactly did “soon” mean? Would they phone me back in 10 minutes, two hours, two days, two weeks? I wanted to go out and swim, but were they about to call me? Hmmm.

In the end, I decided to take my mobile to the beach and if it rang while I was swimming, well, they could just try again. Luckily, they phoned just as I was about to leave my sunbed for my swim. Unfortunately, this time I couldn’t understand a single word that the person was saying to me.

In the end I tried asking questions that required one word answers in the hope that this would make it easier. Unfortunately, my question of “Which date, today or tomorrow?” resulted in a sentence I couldn’t understand. I wasn’t entirely convinced he was speaking English.

I tried again, this time giving something that required only “yes” or “no” as an answer. I asked “You will pick it up tomorrow?” and followed it with the word for “tomorrow” in Arabic. Suddenly, I got a sentence of which I could get the gist. It was: “Ah, in that case I will cancel it”. With that, he hung up.

I stood there on the beach, having no clue what had happened there. Was it cancelled altogether, was it cancelled and reordered for tomorrow, was he going to call back? I now remembered why I had procrastinated on this phoning lark.

I hummed and hawed the next day, not really wanting to phone, but also not desiring to stay in all day for a pick up that may never happen. I needed to know where I stood. Now, however, the conversation I wished to have was more complicated than before. If I couldn’t get the basic one completed successfully, what chance did I have of making myself understood this time? Don’t get me wrong. I’m completely aware that I’m in Egypt and I should be able to speak Arabic well enough to deal with these situations. And I am trying to learn, it’s just that I still have to cope with life in the mean time!

Anyway, I ended up picking up the phone and trying again. The first time, the woman wanted an order number, which I didn’t have. I suggested giving her my phone number like last time so that she could look me up on their system. This went quite well until she asked me to wait for a moment and then hung up the phone three minutes later.

After deliberating, I decided to try again. This time, half-way through the conversation with someone else, it appeared that the woman on the other end could no longer hear what I was saying, so she just ended the call in mid-conversation, saying “Thank you for calling Aramex”.

Finally, I tried going to the Aramex website. After multiple attempts to create an account (I will spare you the details), I left an email to ask if they could pick the machine up tomorrow.

Nevertheless, the primary question still wasn’t resolved, which was whether the guy from the day before had reordered the pick up for today. I wasn’t even entirely sure if I had to pay for the pick up. In the end, I gave the package and some money to our guys on reception and tried to explain that Aramex may or may not collect it, and they may or may not require money, but if they did, here it all was. Fortunately, this request appeared to be understood without too much problem.

To my complete surprise, when I returned from swimming, the parcel had been picked up and I hadn’t needed to pay. Now, of course, I was left with this out-of-date request for a pick up the following day and no means of contacting them to let them know (it was one of those online forms rather than an email address that I used). Still, I hoped that maybe it would be clear from their system.

Another question was whether they would do as I requested and just send me a replacement, or whether I needed to get the refund and re-order it. I tell you, life can be so confusing!

Finally, I noticed that the money had been refunded to my credit card, so I ordered the item again, and I'm now back to making coffees fairly easily (fingers crossed!). All this hassle wasn't in my original picture of paradise!