On November 12th 2020 I ordered and paid for about $3,000 worth of ezy-slat screening. It is now Jan 1st 2021and I still haven't received the ezy-slats. The story of the missing slats is lengthy so I'll just cover the absolute highlights. The original delivery date was December 14th (quite a while after the purchase date) but I was working and would not have time to put the slats up until my holidays anyway, so December 14th was OK. Unfortunately, December 14th came but the ezy-slats didn't. A phone call to Stratco reassured me that the slats would be delivered on the 17th. I wondered aloud to the very polite person on the phone if I was actually going to receive the slats before Christmas. 'Oh, there won't be a problem," I was reassured.

The slats didn't come on the 17th and I had to phone again. This time I was told that the slats had been wrecked and were re-ordered. I wondered how this wasn't known on the 14th but I was reassured that the slats were being tracked from Queensland and were already on their way.

They didn't arrive on the 18th. They also didn't arrive on the 21st, despite the fact that I was reassured that they would. It was at this point that the sympathetic employee at the other end of the phone detailed how the replacement slats had become lost between the transport company's depot in the city and the Gawler Stratco outlet. But the problem would soon be rectified. The slats didn't arrive on the 22nd or the 23rd and on the 24th I was told that that I wouldn't get them before Christmas.

After Christmas, on the 29th of December, when the slats again didn't arrive, I foolishly phoned Stratco again (maybe my tenth call) and was informed that they didn't know when the courier who had the slats would be back at work. My wait for the slats had been extended from an initial, rather lengthy, 5 weeks to an indeterminate date that looks like stretching forever towards the horizon. They simply couldn't promise me a delivery date (apart from the 14th,17th,18th,21st,22nd,23rd,24th,29th of December which had all been previously promised as delivery dates). I didn't like 2020 much anyway.

I hope I may get my slats (I say my slats because I paid for them on November 12th) some time before they are beyond their use-by date.

Every Stratco person I have spoken to has been polite. They have emotionally moved through the process with me, from confused, to irate, to frustrated and finally reaching a point of acceptance. I wish there was something they could do about the problem but, as I was finally told, 'there is nothing we can do. It is out of our hands.' Unfortunately my money continues to be in their hands.

I look forward to having the screening up by next summer, or perhaps the summer after that. Who knows?