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THE PROBLEMS AT Schoolbooks.ie continued today as parents expressed their anger and frustration at not receiving school books for their children that were in some cases ordered over a month ago.
The company has been working to clear a backlog of thousands of orders for school books ahead of the beginning of term this week and next, and claimed earlier today to have cleared its backlog of customer orders.
But frustrated parents have contacted TheJournal.ie to say they are still awaiting delivery of orders that were placed at the end of July.
As a result their children have returned to school this week without the books they need.
This morning Schoolbooks.ie first claimed to have cleared its backlog and said “the 1,400 orders from this backlog were sent to our couriers GLS between last Friday and Saturday” for delivery on Monday and Tuesday of this week.
However in a further statement this afternoon, the company said it had delivered 5,800 customer orders between Monday, 20 August and said it would attempt to deliver 1,820 orders through its courier service GLS today.
The company said that it expected approximately 60 of those orders would encounter problems because customers may not be at home or had given an incorrect address when they ordered.
“Any issues relating to these deliveries will be rectified and delivered tomorrow (Wednesday). Our dates for delivery are based on the most children returning to school on Thursday, 30th August,” the company’s managing director John Cunningham said in a statement.
Cathal Gormley, whose daughter is doing her junior certificate this year, had ordered 12 items from Schoolbooks.ie on 29 July, costing him €54 but they had still not been delivered as of this afternoon.
“The fact of the matter is my daughter is doing her junior cert and she is missing some books,” he said.
Cork-based parent, Deirdre Carey, has been tracking her order online but the only update has been on 24 August when it said the books had been picked.
“They haven’t been sent to the courier yet,” she said adding: “It’s a blatant lie that they’re saying the backlog has been cleared.”
Another parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said she ordered €129 worth of books on 31 July but they had still not arrived.
“My secondary school daughter went back to school today with no books. My primary school sons go back on Thursday. I have been ordering books from schoolbooks.ie since 2009 and never had any difficulty before,” she told TheJournal.ie.
“I’d usually order them in early July and the books would arrive after about 5-7 days.”
Angry parents left comments on TheJournal.ie‘s earlier story and some also contacted RTÉ’s Liveline programme to express their outrage at their children’s books not being delivered.
One woman said she was blockading the company’s offices until she received her order. It was later reported that the woman spoke to staff from Schoolbooks.ie and had received her order.
On the Facebook group ‘Schoolbooks.ie – Maybe they will pay attention to this??‘, one user wrote: “My 8 year old son is in the bathroom at this very moment throwing up because he doesnt (sic) want to go back to school without his books he thinks he will get in trouble, I wish I could run out and buy the books again but we just don’t have the money to do this.”
The company’s managing director John Cunningham said last week that staff were working 24/7 to clear the backlog with an extra 30 people supplementing its 50-strong workforce.
Parents have also complained that the company’s helpline was not ringing or had been disconnected. This was not the case but the sheer volume of calls had meant the helpline has been unreachable at certain times in the last week.
Cunningham, through the PR company hired to handle the issue, declined an interview with TheJournal.ie today.
In his statement, he added: “Again Schoolbooks.ie would like to apologise to any customers who have experienced a delay in receiving their school books.”
Have you been affected by the problems at Schoolbooks.ie? Let us know your story in the comments or email hugh@thejournal.ie
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Sure wasn’t it the same reason they banned those ads when all those people started eating 3 shredded wheat in the morning.
@Tony Gordon: ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! It’s just an add ffs, unfortunately people are still going to jump off cliffs whether this add is aired or not. NONSENSE!!
@paddyirishman: I guess the hope is that one of them might not and that they’ll seek help sooner than throw themselves to their death.
There’s something really ironic about seeing someone like yourself throw a wobbler online about an add being pulled, screaming that it’s nonsense… I mean, calm down, it’s just an add right?
Jeez what a snowflake. Someone please warn him about the add where Nicole Scherzinger walks into the door, don’t have a panic attack cos she makes a full recovery!
Amended ?????
The only way to amend this is to cut out everything before he gets out of the water …… The advertising agency behind this should have been hit with a hefty fine.
@Passing through this life: this kind of nonsense makes me want to jump off a cliff
@Passing through this life: just change the tag line “buy a Kia before you die (low km nearly new models on sale)”
@David Edwards: It might not cause you or for that matter me to do something stupid …… but this world is full of the truly stupid. Last year we had the incident of the guy who died from a fall from the cliff in Co Clare ….. and then there were the idiots during the storms …..
These people should not be encouraged or given ideas …… if only because of the financial cost to the Irish taxpayer ….
@David Edwards: Grow up, that’s not really too clever a thing to say now is it?
@Passing through this life: nice use of 5 ? You must have been really confused
@Passing through this life: Yes, because in the case of a person committing suicide all that matters is the taxpayer!
@Dotty Dunleary: Sorry if you missed my point …. my reference to “cost to the taxpayer” …. was to make a point to the idiots who think that it doesn’t effect them . I don’t begrudge this spending …. I also intended to make the point of the danger they put our rescue service personal in …. but accidently hit post.
@Passing through this life: It’s why the emergency services exist, and the personnel are trained to deal with dangerous situations. Hopefully they are never put in a position where there lives are endangered though!
@Passing through this life: is this not just called natural selection, using your analogy, think of how much money we could save trying not to swaddle the lemmings, But seriously its just an ad.
@Passing through this life: surely it would be cheaper for us not to swaddle every lemming from cradle to grave. But seriously its just an ad
7 year warranty though
Here we go again more PC bull
Snowflakes triggered again…
Fantastic
How does Superman get away with everything?
Some people just have too much time
idiotic ad
have your say