If we have got it wrong, tell us properly.

A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction that you want us to treat formally — whether or not we agree with it, and whether or not it turns out to be justified. You do not have to use the word.

In practice, these are what reach us:

• An order that arrived late, incomplete or damaged, and was not put right when you first told us.
• A refund that hasn't appeared, or an amount you think is wrong.
• A warranty claim we turned down, or a repair you are not happy with.
• The way somebody here spoke to you.
• Something we said on this site that turned out not to be true.
• How we have handled your personal data.

A question is not a complaint, and neither is a first report of a problem — those are simply support, and they are usually quicker. But if you tell us something and it isn't fixed, it becomes a complaint the moment you say you want it treated as one. We log it as such without argument, and we don't ask you to justify the word.

Two honest limits, so you don't spend a week waiting on the wrong door.

• A pen bought somewhere else. If you bought from a stockist or a marketplace seller, your contract is with them and their complaints procedure applies. Tell us anyway: if it's a fault, the warranty often still helps, and if a stockist is behaving badly we want to know about it.
• Things genuinely outside our hands. A customs charge set by your country, a courier's own delivery window, a bank's clearing time. We will chase them on your behalf and pass on whatever we are told, but we cannot promise an outcome we do not control.

Everything else is ours to answer for, including the parts we subcontract. If a courier we chose lost your parcel, that is our problem and not yours.

Come to us first. The form below is the quickest route: it reaches the same inbox as everything else, and it arrives already marked as a complaint, so it is logged the moment it lands.

You can also:

• email [Email] with Complaint in the subject line;
• call [Phone] during [Opening hours] — we write down what you tell us and confirm it back to you in writing, so there is a record either way;
• post a letter to [Company name], [Registered office].

There is no form to buy, no fee, and no requirement to have exhausted anything else first. Complaining costs you nothing at any stage, and it will never affect a return you have open, a warranty you are relying on, or the service you get the next time you order.

If you would rather somebody complained on your behalf — a relative, a friend, a consumer adviser — that is fine. We will only need a line from you saying so, since we cannot discuss an order with someone who isn't on it.

The more of this you can give us, the better the chance that our first answer is also the last message you have to read.

• Your order number, or the name and the rough date if it has gone. If it isn't about an order, say so.
• What happened, in the order it happened. Dates help more than adjectives.
• What has already been said — who you spoke to, when, and what you were told. Forwarding the email thread is the single most useful thing you can do.
• What you want us to do about it. A refund, a replacement, a repair, or simply an explanation. Telling us saves a round trip.
• Evidence, where there is any. A photograph of a damaged parcel, a screenshot of a tracking page, the line on a statement where a refund should be.

If something is missing we ask once, clearly, and the clock on our timescales pauses only for as long as we are waiting on that one thing. We will not use a missing detail as a reason to let a complaint go quiet.

These are commitments rather than aspirations. Working days run Monday to Friday, public holidays aside, and the clock starts when your complaint reaches us.

1. Acknowledgement within one working day. A real reply from a real person confirming we have it, telling you who is handling it, and giving you a reference to quote.
2. A reasoned answer within five working days. Not a holding message: what we found, what we think, what we are going to do — and if the answer is no, why, in words rather than clauses.
3. Resolution within fourteen days. Refunds sent, replacements dispatched, repairs booked in, apologies made.

Some things genuinely take longer: a courier investigation, a part that has to be made, a claim that waits on a supplier. When that happens we tell you before the deadline passes rather than after, explain what we are waiting on, and give you a new date. Then we write at least once a week until it is closed. Silence is the one thing we will not do to you.

Say so, and the complaint is reviewed a second time by somebody who was not involved in the first answer. In a workshop this size that is usually one of the founders, and they are allowed to overturn a decision — the point of a review is that it can go the other way.

Reply to the same thread within one month of our answer and tell us what we got wrong. You don't need to write it out again from scratch; a line will do, and we still have the file.

The review takes five working days and ends with a final written answer: our position, the reasons for it, and the routes still open to you. If the answer is still no, we say so plainly rather than letting the thread trail off, and we tell you where to go next rather than leaving you to find out.

If our final answer doesn't settle it, you can take the dispute to an independent consumer mediator. Mediation is an alternative to court: free for you, confidential, and a great deal faster than a hearing.

Our approved body is [Mediation body], online at [Mediation body website]. You may refer the matter to them within one year of your first written complaint to us, and only once you have given us a fair chance to answer it. That condition is the law's rather than ours.

We will cooperate: the file goes to the mediator in full, and we answer within the deadlines they set. Neither side is bound to accept the outcome, though in practice we take a mediator's view seriously — if an independent body reads the same facts and disagrees with us, that is usually a sign we were wrong.

Consumers in the United Kingdom have their own alternative dispute resolution schemes, and consumers elsewhere should use the body approved by the consumer authority in their own country. Ask us and we will point you at the right one for where you live.

For years, every shop selling into the European Union had to publish a link to the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform, and you will still find that link on a great many sites.

The platform stopped taking new complaints in July 2025 and has been wound down. Following an old link will not put your dispute in front of anybody. We would rather say that here than leave you filling in a form that goes nowhere.

The route that works is the approved body listed by the consumer authority in your own country — [Mediation body] in our case, at [Mediation body website]. If you are buying from a different country from ours, your national European Consumer Centre can help you find the right one and will deal with the trader on your behalf.

Nothing on this page takes the courts away from you, and you never have to use our procedure or a mediator first. Small claims are designed for disputes of exactly this size and, in most countries, are inexpensive and can be run without a solicitor.

Our terms are governed by the law of [Governing law], and disputes go before the courts of [Courts]. If you are a consumer in the European Union or the United Kingdom, that does not remove the protection of your own law: you keep the mandatory rights of the country you live in, and you may bring proceedings before the courts there.

Time limits apply and they vary from country to country. If you are close to one, don't let our procedure run the clock down — start the claim and tell us. We will carry on trying to settle it in parallel, and we would still rather settle it than argue it.

Every complaint is written into a register on the day it arrives: a reference, the date, what it is about, who is handling it, what was decided and when it closed. Nothing is handled from memory, and nothing depends on one person still working here.

• Tracked to a close. An open complaint sits on a list that is read every week until it is finished.
• Reviewed together once a month. We go through what came in, look for the same thing appearing twice, and change whatever caused it — a photograph that flattered, a courier that keeps failing on one route, a line in a description that promised more than the object delivers.
• Kept for three years from the day the complaint is closed, so a pattern stays visible and so we can answer a mediator or a court if it comes to that. After that the file is deleted.

The register holds your name, your contact details, your order and what was said. It is used for handling the complaint and for improving what we sell, and for nothing else — never for marketing. Your rights over that data, and how to exercise them, are set out in the privacy policy.

Where a complaint shows we misled people, we correct the page as well as the order. That has happened, and we would far rather it kept happening than that it stopped because nobody bothered to tell us.