"First class"

From start to finish Grantham have been amazing. We looked at several printers and we was guided and looked after very well. A special thanks to Kirsty fir all her help. Jamie came and installed the machine, he was first class and the training was fantastic. Made it so easy.

"Really great guys"

Jamie is always super helpful fixing our machines on site. Sales staff are always extremely helpful and knowledgeable. 10/10 always :)

"Quick to take your money, but won't listen afterwards."

I spent over £50,000 with this company and had a problem with the technology they provided (a very high-tech printer) as it would not do as they said it would.

They did not know how to fix it and after many months we managed to find a fix to the problem ourselves.

The original failure of the products meant that our company lost a major client. We also spent several £1000s trying to resolve the problem.

The original software and specification was unable to do the job and it took a letter to the manufacturer in Japan to get them to implement a software update that would allow us to alter settings of the hardware that would allow us to print as expected.

Overall our company lost a figure approaching £10,000 due to refunds for faults because the printer wouldn't actually do what they said it would originally and inks and materials trying to fix the issue. The fault took over several months to remedy.

They didn't even offer to extend or service contract by the time it took for the fault to be resolved.

We trusted that Granthams fully understood the technology they where providing. They are not interested listening to the issues we've had as they've now had full payment and unfortunately they are the sole provider for the very specialist inks for the machine - and too put it not so politely - they kind of have us by the balls and over a barrel!

They claim that all responsibility of purchases and whether the product actually does what they say it will, is actually our own responsibility and that we should have checked their claims where in fact true ourselves before believing them.

In a world of openness and transparency I am a little flabbergasted that companies with these kind of business ethics still exist today. I wish I hadn't lost so much money dealing with them as I'd probably use it to sue them but I refuse to throw good money after bad.

I would strongly suggest that you don't deal with this company unless it's truly the only company in the 'World' that can supply your equipment or merchandise.

I hope you find this review insightful.

=== Begin Notice ===
I am posting a reply to the companies initial reply here in my original review because TrustPilot doesn't yet allow me to send reply below their response. For synchronisity you may wish to read their reply first then return to here to read my response to their reply.
=== End Notice ===

Dear Kirsty,

Are you not “Kirsty Reader”? The managing director, I simply ask, because I've have been in recent correspondence with Kirsty Reader over trying to resolve this issue over the past 7 days since, yet you said this is the first contact you've had with me since 2014?!

Please be aware that I have an email from Kirsty Reader dated just yesterday. The result of that conversation was that she failed to acknowledge any responsibility for the problems we encountered or provide any offer of compensation. Hence I thought it would be valuable to people to make them aware of my own experience of you and your company.

If you are Kirsty Reader, please don't try and pull the wool over the eyes of my fellow Trust Pilot users by attempting to make out that this is the first contact you have had from me. You have just demonstrated how you can systematically twist the facts to suite your own version of the truth to match you own desired outcome.

It's an awful experience to be on the reciprocal end of having to deal with you continuously doing this during our dealings, whilst it's also very tiring.

In your reply to my review you have said we took the “samples away for testing”; Firstly, that is simply not true – we never took samples for testing. Secondly, the only point at which I have been told that we would need to have the products tested ourselves and that we shouldn't trust your statements/websites that the printer would work on our substrate was afterwards when we have tried to discuss some compensation for the issues we've had – and to paraphrase and summarise your response you said “You should have tested the samples yourself – regardless of whether we said the machine would do what it wanted – you shouldn't have took our word for it and it's your own fault for not having them tested.” … which you have basically just repeated again... and to be honest I would have gladly had some samples tested had I been made aware that it was my responsibility to do so before I purchased the machine from you.

You said we didn't “mention a concern to ensure flexible inks would be suitable for use in extreme cold temperatures”; Which is surprisingly “TRUE” – we don't have a problem with extreme temperatures – we had a problem with the printing system during “Normal Temperatures”! Unless of course you are once again trying to twist the facts to suite your needs and are now categorising 6-degrees Celsius as “Extreme Temperatures”.

You said you had problems emulating the issue; I do understand that your staff had problems emulating the same problem on their system, but if you recall correctly you don't (or didn't) have the same system as us – at the time we where the only people in the country with this specific set-up – or at least that's what you told us. When your staff came to do the tests on our kit at our premises - the error was repeatable.

After those tests you claimed that the solution was a temperature issue and you'd solved it; Yes, I agree to a point. You did tell us that the room being at 6-degrees was too cold – and you would not accept any responsibility for the problem until that issue was solved. So we had a dual temperature controlled central heating / air conditioning system installed so as to meet your demands and to hopefully find a resolution to the issue. We haven't actually allotted for those costs in our loss calculations – if we do then the costs we've incurred enter 5-figures! The problem we have that even though we jumped through that hoop for you it still didn't solve the issue! The slightly 'cool' temperature in the print room was clearly not the problem – as it still existed afterwards when the room temperature was perfectly controlled 24-7. I am really surprised that at this point you are still not fully aware of what actually solved the problem!

You said the printer was shipped with RasterLink 5 + 6; Once again this is a lie. The machine was shipped and was installed with RasterLink 6 only. Rasterlink 5 was not supplied and nor would it install alongside Rasterlink 6 on our machine, when Jamie tried, due to a some technical issue that was never resolved – we've never had Rasterlink 5 installed, nor do we have a copy. After tackling the temperature issue we where actually investigating a special piece of kit that would bolt-on to the printer to control the UV temperature of the curing light as the machine wouldn't allow that functionality as standard. It was only after I submitted a bug report to printer manufacturer myself (as your team weren't prepared to do this on my behalf) then the fix was speedily rectified by the brilliant team in Japan who manufacture the system and who are very knowledgable and released a bug fix within around 14 days once they where aware of the problem.

Kirsty, I am not doubting that you have managed to accrue a good number of happy customers in the 120 years you have been trading. The team that work for you on the whole are excellent and helpful. We where especially impressed with Jamie and Sue and the delivery of inks afterwards has been faultless, except for a couple of very short 'use by' dates, which was resolved easily.

I am simply stating that you allowed your team to sell a very expensive piece of kit without truly knowing what it was capable of – on promises that it could do what we wanted, but without actually knowing for sure – and that you hadn't actually tested yourselves – but where declared in the manufacturers documentation on your website and by your sales and technical team.

When issues came about your team tried to solve the issues with us, but had little success, either due to the lack of knowledge of our exact set-up (which is partially excusable) or the general inexperience of troubleshooting these machines (which I feel isn't so excusable) and then once the issue was solved – mostly by ourselves because your own solutions where costing time and significant chunks of money (such as the needless installation of temperature control systems) and afterwards when we asked for some of the responsibility of this issue to burdened by yourselves then you have simply washed your hands of it. You have still never acknowledged even to this day ANY responsibility for ANY of the issues we've experienced (which is very frustrating from a customer point of view) nor have you offered any compensation package to cover the huge costs and losses that we've incurred.

I am sure you are sorry that we are not happy with the final results of this issue, not surprisingly, nor are we! Try looking at this experience from our side of events and you may find it easier to understand why we are completely dissatisfied with the way you have handled this particular issue and why we feel the only voice we have left for us is to simply warn others by telling them about our experiences via review website online.

You said I have not made you aware of these issues in “writing”, but I have written to you in email about these issues many times and now I am not sure what you personally would constitute as 'in writing' in this modern digital world we live in, but in my world email is a form of 'writing' albeit not with a pen, it is accountable correspondence and is admissible in court should the need arise – what more did you want? We have jumped through enough hoops – this claim that you have not been made aware 'in writing' feels like just another ploy to negate any responsibility you may have.

Anyhow I opened the issue again with you this month – with the result of you concluding you are not responsible and you will not compensate us – it's seemed clear from your email yesterday that there was no possible way forward in dealing with this issue directly and that is why I have now posted an account of my experience here.

Regards, Keith

PS You may not be aware but my emails are sent to you in “Strictest Confidence” as it declares in my email footer and republishing them on public forum is not allowed. Although I am happy agree I did send that email a year ago, you should still not republish them without my permission – but if you are claiming that is the last time you have heard from me regarding this issue then once again you are trying to distort the truth.