In late September Mansukh Varu (Mini Store, Sutton, Surrey) rang to say that in June he bought two Wall’s freezers from the rep. He thought it was a good deal (£580 + Vat) but says two engineers have been called out so far and cannot seem to cure the icing up problem. Not good for selling ice creams! And he felt that, because he had bought the freezers outright, nobody cared whether they were working properly or not.

I contacted Wall’s public relations company, who responded: “We are sorry to hear that Mr Varu has expressed a concern with his freezers. We strive to provide all our customers with the best possible service and support and we are working with Mr Varu to answer his enquiry.

“Mr Varu contacted our Wall’s Refrigeration Solutions team on 31 July and 28 August and on both occasions our refrigeration engineers attended his store within 24 hours of the query.

“During both visits to Mr Varu’s store our engineers found that the build-up of ice he is experiencing is not abnormal and is mostly caused by the combination of the fridge lids being left open and a high ambient temperature within the store. We also advise all our customers not to use the cabinets to freeze ice pops as this also creates a build-up of ice, which may have contributed to Mr Varu’s findings.

“Both of Mr Varu’s Wall’s freezers have been tested by our engineers with no faults found and, in line with our customer service regulations, our technical manager has replaced the two freezer lids to see if this provides a solution to Mr Varu’s enquiry and will return in a couple of weeks to see how he is getting on.

“The cabinets in Mr Varu’s store are one of our most popular freezer lines and, so far, we have not experienced any technical issues with the system. Over the coming weeks we will monitor the progress of the freezers and work closely with Mr Varu to come to a solution.”

A little later there was an update. “In addition, we have sent an engineer to investigate and been in touch with the manufacturer of the unit. We have concluded that the unit is working as it should. We believe that the issues have been caused by the lid being left opened for protracted periods and infrequent defrosting of the unit.”

I spoke to Mansukh several times to update him, but he was still unhappy, saying the units still weren’t right and that he only ever puts frozen goods in them.

When I told him that the story was going in the next issue he said that the problem was still there. He also said he had last rung Wall’s on November 19, and the person he spoke to told him that, because he had spoken to C-Store, it was now with Wall’s legal department and she could therefore no longer discuss the issue with him.

And it was all going so well.