Maternity Direct - A WARNING

In October I purchased 3 items from this company, as I had found one of the items reviewed in OhBaby magazine. I would like to give a review of the poor experience that I had to warn others of their extremely poorly run business and complete unprofessionalism. What has prompted me to do this is having found that a friend of mine has just gone through the same horrendous process with them.

*Order placed online - money taken straight away.
*Only 1 of 3 items available, not specified that stock unavailable on the website.
*First item delivered timely.
*Second item - stock unavailable had to take last choice of colour. No advise on wait time for new stock in selected colour to come in, and option to wait not given.
*Second item delivered - faulty.
*I returned second faulty item within days of recieving it, at my own cost.
*No communication for days regarding my returned item, and when they confirmed that they would replace the faulty item, they only advised that they sent part of it (it was a two piece set, I sent the whole thing back)
*It took over 3 weeks for them to send the appropriate item to me, although they had advised they sent it straight away, date on postage confirmed they had lied.
*Final item arrived, not in the colour that I had chosen, however I have left sleeping dogs lie on this one.

This whole process took over 4 weeks and during this time I called and left 5 voice messages on their phone, none of which were returned.
My emails took a minimum of 3 days to be responded to, and when I expressed that I wanted a refund they did not acknowledge this. I then chose not to go down this path due to reading other forums where people had still been waiting 6 months for a refund from this company.

In addition to all of this, I found that they had been selling the exact item that I DID WANT on trademe. I had been told there was no stock of the colour, but there were trademe items showing that it was in stock. It sounds to me like they were just trying to get rid of stock that was not popular.

Seriously questionable and avoid at all costs. Happy to give more detail if anybody would like.

Yikes, I have heard this on another forum too!

I wish I read this thread before I bought from Maternity direct as I am having the same problems with trying to get a refund for a dress that I returned. This was in november and I am still waiting for a reply for the many emails and phone calls that I have made

Yes they are still in business as I had the unfortunate luck to experience their bad business practice. Ordered three items. They took my money straight away but provided bad service.One was out of stock, another was the wrong color and the last didn't fit. Took them 4 weeks to deliver too! Email to complain, no reply. Emailed again wanting to return items and asked for refund, no reply too. Very disappointed and annoyed with them. The clothes are just sitting on my dresser in their original package still.

Edited by RebeccaLim95908 - 29 January 2013 at 4:00pm

I too have had a terrible experience with them. Two weeks after ordering a maternity bra (despite their website stating they aim to deliver in 5 days or would send customers an email if it was going to be longer) it showed up, but in the wrong colour. Despite numerous phone messages left and emails sent, I did not hear anything back from them, so eventually decided to send the bra back. They did refund my credit card but deducted their shipping charge. This annoyed me because I was left out of pocket not only for the original shipping charge but the cost of shipping the item back to them, when it was their error in the beginning. Another gripe is that they charged me $6.50 for shipping, then sent the item in a $4 prepaid NZ post bag.

They don't seem to care about bad reviews or feedback either. Grrr.