sleep depot administration - still owed £200...

BigJonnyB

My parents-in-law purchased a bed from 'The Sleep Depot' on the 31st March, 2008. They paid £200 in cash, and made a debit card payment for £229.95.

The next day, the company went into administration - obviously before they receieved the bed. They contacted their bank to try and stop the card payment, but were told it had already left their account.

The adminstrators for 'The Sleep Depot' advised my inlaws that the card payment did not clear into the company bank account, and that;

'the company who processed card transactions on behalf of the company are currently holding a number of customer payments. You should, therefore, contact your card issuer to discuss the process for claiming these monies back via the chargeback route.'

The adminstrators refunded the £200 cash payment by cheque, but have insisted that the £229.95 can not be returned as it was never received. The bank have refused to offer any assistance - in the branch they told me they could them that they could not help with this matter. By letter, the bank have insisted that the money left the account and that there is nothing that can be done.

Has anyone got any advice on trying to get any further with this? My inlaws are £230 down, and neither the administrators or the bank will do anything.

Thanks in advance for any help,

JB

dreamypuma

BigJonnyB wrote: »

'the company who processed card transactions on behalf of the company are currently holding a number of customer payments. You should, therefore, contact your card issuer to discuss the process for claiming these monies back via the chargeback route.'

My first port of call would be to get the administrator to reveal the name of "The company" which processed Sleep Depots card transactions.

What Payee details appear against this transaction on your in-laws bank statement. If it is anyone other than the Sleep Depot (Don't quote me on this) I would have thought that your dispute is with them, assuming that they too are not in administration.

VfM4meplse

BigJonnyB wrote: »

They paid £200 in cash, and made a debit card payment for £229.95.

You have my sympathy, but the lesson here is always use a credit card for large purchases because of the dispute resolution service. Unfortunately using a debit facility does not offer the same protection as you have found.

Brooker_Dave

BigJonnyB wrote: »

My parents-in-law purchased a bed from 'The Sleep Depot' on the 31st March, 2008. They paid £200 in cash, and made a debit card payment for £229.95.

The next day, the company went into administration - obviously before they receieved the bed. They contacted their bank to try and stop the card payment, but were told it had already left their account.

The adminstrators for 'The Sleep Depot' advised my inlaws that the card payment did not clear into the company bank account, and that;

'the company who processed card transactions on behalf of the company are currently holding a number of customer payments. You should, therefore, contact your card issuer to discuss the process for claiming these monies back via the chargeback route.'

The adminstrators refunded the £200 cash payment by cheque, but have insisted that the £229.95 can not be returned as it was never received. The bank have refused to offer any assistance - in the branch they told me they could them that they could not help with this matter. By letter, the bank have insisted that the money left the account and that there is nothing that can be done.

Has anyone got any advice on trying to get any further with this? My inlaws are £230 down, and neither the administrators or the bank will do anything.

Thanks in advance for any help,

JB

They were very lucky to get anything back, in the future it's worth using a credit card for this sort of thing.

Optimist

Was this a Visa Debit card ? If so you may be in luck as Visa offer the same protection on their debit cards as they do on their credit cards which is probably what the administrator was referring to when chargeback was mentioned.as far as I am aware this is relevant to all banks who use the Visa system .

Unfortunately a lot most bank staff are not aware of this so I would suggest and you might have to write to someone higher up in the bank concerned enclosing a copy of the letter from the administrators

Obviously if it wasn't a visa debit card I have just wasted 5 minutes of my time writing that, as the other cards don't apply the same rules as visa !!

tinker_1

hi the same thing has happened to us it's now well over a year and we have been several letters to relevant finacial people and still no joy... what did you do???