Dreams are a Nightmare!

ic198

I recently ordered a mattress in-store from Dreams. They said it was in stock and could be delivered the following Saturday. That saturday arrived and I heard nothing from them, so phoned their delivery call centre. After a very long wait and being cut off twice I was told that no delivery had been scheduled for me and the mattress was out of stock. They offered me alternative delivery dates but I wasn't around for any of them so I asked for a refund, and this is where it got really bad- they said Dreams didn't give refunds except as credit notes. I said they were in breach of contract and they said that the original delivery date was given "in good faith" and that the delivery was a "seperate and severable" part of the contract. I went into the store to complain and they said that the stores can't give refunds and everything has to be dealt with by phone.

Firstly I write this as a warning, and secondly I'm curious- has anyone had similar troubles, with this or other companies refusing refunds after failed deliveries?

Tim_Deegan

Try threatening them with trading standards.

I bet you wish you had read through some of the threads on MSE about dreams now?

Networkguy

I had dealings with this crowd a couple of years a go and they really have no idea.

After they had missed 3 deliveries they then tried to deliver whilst I was in Los Angeles. When I wasn't in they called my mobile (it was the middle of the night for me) and demanded that I return to my house straight away as I was holding up their driver! When I told the driver to go home I then got a follow up call from the shop an hour later (just after I had got back to sleep) from some silly cow who could not get it into her head that I was thousands of miles away.

This was just the start and we then went through a period of them demanding I pay an extra delivery fee because I was not in when they had chosen to turn up (without notice).

They did seem to think that the sale of goods act did not apply to them when I demanded a refund so I gave them 2 options. Deliver on the following Saturday morning before 10am or small claims court.

My son loves his racing car bed but I would never use this company again.

Colin2511

my parents had similar issues last week, they ordered 2 beds to be delivered on Friday, got rid of old ones as all new carpets were being laid on Thursday (no probs night on settee etc), - They listen to an answerphone message Thursday saying bed out of stock, will contact when back in stock

Mum phoned and asked what they were playing at, said can we pick them up, no, they eventually said you can have 2 different (slightly more expensive) beds for no extra, but the delivery date has been cancelled, so no bed Friday...Mum asked for her money back and was told no, only by head office etc, so after a big of argy bargy, they said would deliver Saturday am, and the manager promised if nothing arrived by 11am they could come to the shop take any 2 and he would get them home himself...

to be fair they did arrive Saturday, but what a fuss, and why order something, book a delivery and then leave a message days later saying out of stock...I really think some of these furniture shops / retailers should keep some stock and not rely on a central warehouse and dodgy inventory systems

if things had gone much worse they might have moved in with me :eek: lol

ic198

Staggering a company this bad is still in business (I think I may have told them so...)

I tried threatening them with trading standards and the small claims court, but they stuck to the party line- "good faith" and "seperate and severable part of contract". Luckily when I went into the store there was an area manager visiting and she managed to arrange for them to deliver the following thursday outside of work hours, and to be fair they did it, though I had to phone up their irritating delivery line for conformation they were doing it.

Alternative route I didn't pursue- I paid for it on credit card and when I phoned them up they said they could get the money back for me under section 75...

Idea: As Tim Deegan said above there have clearly been people complaining about Dreams on this forum before and yet when before I started this thread I searched for Dreams and got a lot of results not connected to the shop in question (unsurprisingly). Could we start a sort of MSE feedback forum- Each thread is the name of a different company and people leave posts of both bad and good experiences?