You have recently ordered an item through the Internet, but you are not happy with the product. Write to the company. In your letter: - describe what you purchased - explain why you are not happy with the product - tell them what you would like them to do about it
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to express my dissatisfactionwriting this letter to let you know that I am not exactly very happy with the product fromof your company which I purchased from your onlineeCommerce store about a week ago. I hope you will either replace it or issue a refundrefund the money. The product, I am talking about, is a travel bag. I paid $270 for this product, but unfortunately,product but unfortunately, this bag differs fromdoes not look like the one I saw on your website in terms of its colour and designas far as its colour and design is concerned. In fact, the bag I ordered onlinethe bag, I ordered online, was light yellow while the bag I have received is dark yellow. Besides, the fabric, used as the bag's liningwhich has been used inside the bag as an inner layer, appearslooks to be of very poor quality. Finally, the design is not exactly the same and I wonder how this could have happened.I wonder how could this happen! Anyway, I do not like to sound like a complaining person, trying to find faults in the bag I have purchased. So, I would highly appreciate it if you wouldplease replace this bag with a bag of better quality as well as with the colour and design that I had initially orderedordered for. HoweverBut, if you do not have the requested replacementwhat I have been looking for, please issue me a full refundmake a full refund to me as soon as possibleas soon as you can. Thank you in advance. Yours faithfully, Kelly Megan
Why this response received Band 7.0
The complaint fully covers the purchase, the product defects, and the requested replacement or refund, with a consistently appropriate formal tone. The main limitation is the dense one-paragraph presentation, compounded by a few awkward grammatical patterns and repeated wording. The highest priority is to organise the complaint into clear sections and make the requested remedy more concise and grammatically controlled.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter clearly explains the purchase, specifies several discrepancies, and gives an appropriately conditional request for replacement or refund.
Make the desired replacement specifications slightly more concise so the company can identify the exact remedy immediately.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information follows a logical sequence and cohesive links are generally effective, but the lack of paragraph breaks makes the letter unnecessarily dense.
Separate the opening purpose, product problems, and requested resolution into distinct paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is sufficiently varied and precise for a formal complaint, although product and bag are repeated and a few phrases sound cumbersome.
Use more economical wording and natural complaint vocabulary, such as item, lining, mismatch, and full refund.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a wide range of mostly accurate sentence structures, with occasional errors in punctuation, indirect-question order, and request phrasing.
Revise forms such as how this could happen and I would appreciate it if you could replace the bag.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have recently ordered an item through the Internet, but you are not happy with the product. Write to the company. In your letter:
- describe what you purchased
- explain why you are not happy with the product
- tell them what you would like them to do about it
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.