Almost as soon as this new fridge freezer arrived from Ikea, things started to get weird

Almost as soon as Lucy’s new undercounter fridge freezer arrived from Ikea at the start of October, things started to get weird.

The folk who delivered the item refused to take away the old fridge freezer which, Lucy says, was a like-for-like exchange.

They said “it hadn’t been booked in for removal and that I needed to contact Ikea directly to arrange this”, Lucy tells us.

No bother, she thought. She rang customer service that same day, thinking it would be “quite straightforward to arrange . . . as it’s a legal obligation for companies”. Lucy adds: “I’ve bought many appliances over the years and it goes without question that they remove the old one as long as it’s ready to go. Boy was I wrong!”

The first person she spoke to said the service had been suspended. “When I challenged this and said they have to provide it, I was told I was wrong,” she says. “They got quite irate.”

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The call was disconnected but Lucy rang back. “[I thought] I’d just been unlucky and would get someone more knowledgeable,” she says. “They gave a slightly different version of events but said I’d have to go out to the store to arrange for the appliance to be collected. I couldn’t do this online or by phone.”

Lucy felt this was “bonkers” and told them as much. She says she had been in the Ikea store a week previous, and had been told she needed to order the fridge freezer online. There was “no mention” that she would need to make an in-person request for her old appliance to be taken away, she says.

She wants to know why she couldn’t arrange the collection while making her purchase or, “at the very least, afterwards by phone or online”.

“It seems to me to be a very deliberate way for Ikea not to have to collect old appliances,” Lucy says.

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She also highlights the rules as they are carried on the Ireland Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE Ireland) website, which make it clear that electrical retailers and wholesalers are legally obliged to accept WEEE back free of charge if a customer is making a similar purchase. The take-back service covers any “household-like” appliance with a battery or plug and, in the case of home deliveries, electrical retailers and their subcontractors are obliged to offer a free WEEE collection on a like-for-like basis.

Lucy points out that the Ikea website makes clear their obligations. “In line with the WEEE Regulations, we offer free collection of your old appliances on a like-for-like, one-for-one basis,” the website reads. “If you’d like to take advantage of this option, simply inform us when placing your order in-store or when arranging home delivery. For online orders, please complete your order, then contact us [on the phone] or through the webchat service on our Contact Us pages, with your order number. We can arrange for your appliances to be collected.”

The Ikea website also says that “every effort will be made to collect your old appliance(s) at the same visit as the delivery of your new IKEA appliance(s). However, in some circumstances it may be necessary for the collection of old appliance(s) to take place separately from the delivery.”

That seems fair enough to Pricewatch. The delivery people probably have a truck full of stock and would not always have the capacity to take the old appliances as well.

Lucy says she had been willing to wait for the collection to be arranged in a “reasonable time frame”. However, “Ikea’s position as stated to me is that the only way to arrange this is to go to the store”, she says.

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“My nearest store is Ballymun, Dublin, which is approximately a 45-minute drive. To require an individual to travel to the store to arrange this is deliberately making it very difficult for someone . . . and is not in line with the above statement.”

For what it’s worth, Pricewatch bought a fridge freezer from Ikea just over a year ago and it was delivered, and the old one collected, without undue difficulty. They were able to arrange the collection over the phone which is at odds with Lucy’s experience.

The Irish Times contacted Ikea and a spokeswoman said: “We apologise to this customer for the confusion and inconvenience caused. When they contacted us they received conflicting advice and were directed back to the store.”

We heard back from Lucy and, not long after we got in touch with the retailer, the fridge freezer that was clogging up her hallway was removed.