Returning faulty soundbar to Poland - no commercial invoice.

  • 9 December 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 170 views
T

Morning all,

I am trying to send a broken playbar back to Poland for a 30% discount code on a replacement.

I printed out the forms sent to me by Ivytech. These were a shipping label and 3 waybills.

DHL refused to collect as there were no commercial invoices.

I spoke to Valerian, a member of the Sonos escalation team, who promised me the invoices would be sent to me.

No communication or invoices have been sent since.

Has anyone else had this problem? Valerian told me it was the first time he had ever heard that commercial invoices were required.

Philip

7 replies

Jamie A
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Hi @the bouscy, welcome to the Sonos Community!

I've had a look in the system and can see your case has been escalated by Valerian to our returns team, as they'll be the ones to generate new return information such as the label and invoices.

It can take up to 48 hours to hear back. It is a busy period with the recent sales, there are likely many cases for our returns team look into and investigate. Rest assured that your case is in the right hands, and that Valerian will reach back out as soon as the invoices are generated for you to use.

T

Thanks @Jamie A 

It might be a good idea to amend your returns instructions to include the commercial invoices from the beginning rather than waste my and DHL’s time. Nothing can be sent to Poland without a commercial invoice, so from now on, everyone will have the same problem.

I understand you are busy but I am not dealing with the sales team. I am dealing with a return of a broken unit to Poland. If they are busy, something is going wrong at Sonos.

O
Badge

I find quite bizarre having to send a product from UK to Poland… not eco friendly, and end of the day we bought the product in UK and came from UK warehouse. 
for a brand like Sonos, this is quite terrible, as it takes ages for return to go ahead, it’s complicated (is that the goal?) and very time consuming. 
sonos please review this, UK sales - UK returns then if you wanna send them to Poland fine, but this isn’t right for us consumers. 
based on so many threads your returns process is very broken as it takes forever for the whole process to be done. 
I got a Sonos Arc delivered Monday and retuned Thursday. I’m nervous based on how long people say it takes to get the money back. 
my experience was okay with the online process, got the label and booked collection same day with UPS, this was yesterday and today already in Germany. 
The expected delivery to Poland is due Tuesday, and then 15 Days for my money back… if this was UK returns the warehouse would’ve had the returns today and don’t say it’s a bank issue with 15 days… it’s a Sonos issue. 
I’m atheist and just starts praying 😂 

buzz

I understand you are busy but I am not dealing with the sales team. I am dealing with a return of a broken unit to Poland. If they are busy, something is going wrong at Sonos.

 

Maybe, but in my opinion the consumers’ “buy it and try it” mentality has gone off the rails. Companies are flooded with returns as customers purchase multiple products as an in-home demo or clothes fitting, then keep one and return the remainder. I realize that this is a convenience and incentive (“I have nothing to lose”) for the potential customer, but it is increasing the cost of goods for everyone because the returns must be trashed or refurbished and sold at a discount -- someone must pay for this convenience.

Anyway, SONOS returns may be flooded with these “try it” purchases. Brexit has created special issues for the UK crowd. 

O
Badge

100% brexit made it all a nightmare. 
I respect your opinion and actually agree with most of it. 
for such a premium device as Sonos Arc, I truly believe it has a lot of hype and for my setup it doesn’t fit the purpose, and it’s something I could only experience having it at home, when tested in store it sounds amazing but not the same experience at home, if worked properly with my setup I would be a happy bunny but had so many issues during the first 2 days that for me was a deal breaker. Don’t get me wrong im thankful we have a cooling off period, my gripe here is having a product bought in UK being returned to Poland… I strongly believe it should go to UK warehouse and from there would be a Sonos decision on what to do next. 
End of the day, they are a premium brand, and premium price deserves premium support… if you get Apple, Sony… and so on, it’s all UK based for sale and returns. I don’t even understand how this is cost effective, and can’t ignore the fact that generates less job roles in UK. 
just my 2 cents 

106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I’m not sure the financial cost of having to open shops where you could try different speakers would not be the same or more - those costs would also be paid by all customers together. And having people drive there themselves in old diesel cars could also have a bigger environmental impact than transporting boxes in large quantities.

A
Userlevel 2
Badge

Jumping on your thread to report the dire experience recently. My Sonos Roam eventually died from a dead unrecoverable battery. After a certain amount of pointless suggestions trying to resolve the problem, it was accepted as dead. Fortunately just within the warranty period and so a return was initiated. 
 

Now in my case a commercial invoice was supplied and I duly printed off 3 copies. But although it said ‘hand them to courier’ there was no collection option. Drop off only. So I attached them to the box with elastic bands and explained to the drop off counter person to tell UPS that these were the invoices required to clear customs.

Package accepted by UPS and made quick progress to Poland via Germany. Then it went nowhere. For 3 weeks the status showed being in a third party location pending resolution. Numerous calls and emails seemed to explain this as awaiting customs clearance. 
 

But it stayed there. No one could tell me why and whether it would be there for another day, week, month or indeed forever. UPS were of no help although this is their day job to ship packages. They just kept telling me ‘it is awaiting customs clearance’. Sonos had no idea as they just saw it as a return that had not been returned. No chance that Sonos might take this up with UPS given it is Sonos who is the UPS customer in all of this. I am just the sucker that had to package it up and drop it off. 
 

No one could tell me anything then after 3 weeks of nothing, the status changed and a day later I got ‘delivered’ 

A few days later and Sonos returns sprung into life and my replacement Roam is on its way back. Let’s hope UK customs don’t take 3 weeks to clear it. 

Interestingly the return went out by UPS but the replacement comes back via DHL. 
 

Overall a lengthy, tiresome and frustrating experience 

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings