Mis-sold bath

saverbot

Greetings fellow money savers

My wife and I saw a bathroom 3 pc suite that we liked in B&Q. It was the Barcelona suite at a special price of £399. The signs stated that the price applied to the 'Displayed Suite' when purchased as a complete set. The bath on display was fitted with whirlpool spa jets. Nowhere on the sign stated that the jets were not included in the price. In fact there was one optional extra listed, the end panel. The jets were NOT flagged up as being optional extras. We decided to purchase there and then. Not once did the sales person draw to our attention that the spa jets were an optional extra. The bathroom was delivered yesterday, and everything was fine except the bath itself, which was a normal bath, and not a spa bath as we had been expecting. We had booked the plumber 2 months ago, and work is due to start on 04/01/2006. We do not want to cancel the plumber at this late stage as the reason we are updating bathroom is to move house in order to obtain a bigger garden for our autistic daughter by next summer. I phoned up B&Q to complain, and then went down in person. For interest, when I got there, there were new signs on display relating to a half price deal on whirlpool spa's that was NOT on display on 02/12/2005. I spoke to three different managers who all agreed that the sign advertising the specific bathroom were vague, but who also told me that 'i should have known' that spa jets would never be sold at that price. i asked them why the sign listed an end panel as an optional extra, but not the spa jets. In the end they offered me a full refund, but as I explained, it is too late in the day to cancel the plumber now with less than one weeks notice. I feel that I have been mis-sold this bathroom and now have no choice in the matter. I feel very hard done and would appreciate any thoughts or advice on this.

moneysavingplumber

It's a difficult one and the signs should obviously been much clearer, but I have had some recent experience with B & Q that was not too good, although not directly comparable to your experience. I have an ex-colleague that works in B & Q as an in-store trade expert, he sells quite a few boilers and heating systems on their behalf and has recommended me to his customers on occasion, it's not really the market I look for but I always go out and have a look for goodwill. I priced the fitting of the system and did not actually expect to get the job, but I did. We fixed a date and the customer arranged delivery of the Combi and 7 rads. I get there Monday morning and walk in and all I see is one box. I say

'Where's the rest of it?'

She says,

'That's it.'

Now I'm partly irritated with the customer for not realising that you are not going to fit a combi and seven radiators into a 4' X 2' boiler box! As it turned out it was the boiler and one rad, no valves, filling loop or anything. I decided to go to another job for a couple of days while they got it sorted. I went back it all appeared to be there, I open up the boiler and the case is very badly damaged, like it's been dropped, too bad to replace the door. This is the best bit, the lady calls them and they tell her

'well you signed for it, call the manufacturer'

You only call the manufacturer if it's being commissioned and doesn't work, not when some idiot in their warehouse has dropped it on its head and decided not to tell anybody. Then they tried to duck responsibility by telling the lady that as their distribution company had delivered it it wasn't the branch's responsibility and they couldn't take one out of their stock to replace it. All complete nonsense and eventually they conceded and sent a new one up.

Now if this were one of my suppliers, like PTS or Grahams, then a mess-up of this proportion would be most unlikely, and they would get such a rocket for it from me that it would be sorted pronto without any argument whatsoever.

I always tell my customers not to go to B & Q for bathrooms or heating because the follow-up service is almost non-existent. Not all plumbers' merchants are brilliant but as far as bathrooms are concerned I have a specific person that I point them to that is superb and usually alot cheaper too. I know several people that have got stuff from B & Q without any problems but when there are problems it is much more difficult to sort out because of their format and structure.

quatro

In my experience [a saga concerning warped new doors] B+Q will wriggle out of resonsibility for anything, by referring customers to the manufacturers. If this is how they keep the prices down they can keep it.
There are no 'experts' in my local store, they know no more about products than are written on the packaging.

bruce2110

i would have to agree with MSP totally, i have on several occassions done work for people who have sourced there materials from B+Q and have found on every job that there has been bits missing, or damaged parts, mis-sold products not suitable for the bathroom ect, the list goes on...

i would advise anybody to engage the advise of there installing plumber before purchasing any products from B+Q, wickes, hombase ect as these people are only intrested in getting the sale and very rarley have any real experaince in fitting the end product.

like MSP, i use my local plumb centre/merchants and expect certain levels of service and i can say i have never had any bad experiance in returning goods that been damaged at the warehouse or in transit ect, but try getting back up service from the major diy retailers... good luck - you'll need it! :mad:

bruce2110

Katrina-trying_to_save!?!

i work in B&Q and i deal with such complaints like this..... why dont u write to head office and explain that to them the way they are guna see it is that...... its your word against theres-nobody mentioned the jets etc....

my advise would be 2 contact head office OR write a formal letter of complaint to the store manager threatening legal action bla bla bla