Another Freemans problem - threatened with court action

hula-hoops

This is a long story but I'll try and keep it brief.

I have been a Freemans customer since June 1999 and always made my monthly payments on time.

Over the years we have ordered all sorts of appliances, clothing, furniture, etc from Freemans without any great problems.

Until July 2005 when we ordered a new mattress. After it had been delivered we dragged it upstairs and unwrapped it. We lifted it onto the bed and found it was the wrong size. It was 12 cm too short and 10 cm too narrow. We measured it and found that it was not the size we had ordered and not the size that was on the packaging label.

I called Freemans immediately in order to arrange a return or replacement. I was bluntly told that mattresses cannot be returned for 'hygiene reasons' and 'how would you like to sleep on a mattress that someone else had slept on?' (which is what you do every time you stay in a hotel but I'll leave that be...). Eventually I asked to speak to a supervisor and informed her that since the item was not the one ordered - wrong size - I was within my legal rights to return it. We had not used it. It was eventually agreed that it could be returned and the carrier would contact me shortly to arrange a collection date and time.

The mattress was stored in the spare room awaiting collection and we shopped elsewhere for one that fitted the bed.

Soon after I received a letter from Freemans confirming in writing what had been arranged over the phone. I waited for the carrier to call.

And waited.

And waited.

I made numerous calls to Freemans to chase the carrier up and was repeatedly told that the carrier would contact me 'within the next 5 days'.

Each time I was called I was told that my details would be passed 'to the relevant department' but never was I put through to the relevant department.

Eventually in May 2006 (10 months later!) I demanded to speak to 'the relevant department'. I was put through to someone who finally seemed to understand what was going on and promised to take action immediately.

Indeed she did.

Within days the carrier called and arranged an appointment. The caller from the carrier company said that this was the first they had heard about it (when I asked why it had taken so long).

The mattress was ordered on a 'Buy Now Pay May 2006' offer. That's why I really started to get demanding on the phone in May 2006 as I knew that pretty soon I would be billed for the useless mattress that should have been collected 10 months earlier.

The mattress was finally collected on June 10.

I had since been charged for the mattress on the May statement so I wrote to Freemans and said I would not be paying for it as I had arranged a return in July 2005 but the item had only been collected on June 10 which is hardly my fault.

No reply to my letter.

I was then charged in June and July for the mattress despite writing to Freemans on an almost daily basis via e-mail disputing the charge and advising that the item had been collected.

Freemans repeatedly claimed that they had no record of the item being returned. How can they lose a £400 double mattress? How can that suddenly go missing from their stock records?

Eventually I decided to post a copy of the letter from last summer advising that the item would be collected 'within 14 days' along with a copy of the collection document that the carrier provided when he took the mattress away along with print-outs of all the e-mails where Freemans had repeatedly denied any knowledge of the mattress being returned.

After a week I had heard nothing so e-mailed again to enquire about the situation only to be told that my letter had not arrived. This continued for another 2 weeks with the letter mysteriously not having arrived.

Finally I logged onto my account yesterday and saw that the mattress was marked as returned. I had not been informed of this and have received no reply from Freemans to my letter. I e-mailed again to ask why I had not been informed and was told that they cannot inform every customer of when a return is made because they have 'thousands of returns each day' (as if that's my problem).

The e-mail was closed with 'Apologies for the inconvenience of the mattress situation.' which is not even a properly formed sentence!

Today I have received a letter threatening me with court action for not paying for an item I did not order, need or even have in my possession beyond 10 June.

I have paid the amount requested as I refuse to have a black mark on my credit record because of their inefficiency. I have actually paid the whole lot off with my credit card because I would rather owe the money to MasterCard and pay interest on it than owe it to Freemans and be treated like this any longer. That's how strongly I feel about the situation.

I will be taking the matter further but where?

Any ideas?

Kangol_Rat

Shocked noone has posted any help on this....

right hun, you need to contact Citizens Advice, and, a Consumer Help company. I contacted BBC Three Counties, as this has a Consumer programme on every day at 10 to 1pm. They helped fight my corner, and I won. You may have a programme like this on your local radio, or maybe able to still contact them

You need to act on it.

The courier that Freemans use is Parclenet, so it might be worth contacting them on 01274 625625, to see if they EVER received a request, and contact Freemans to see if they have ever have a record of you requesting it. or calling that day.

What addresses have you been sending your letter to?

If you have read my thread, you will see i have ALOT of info on them, and I might be abke to help!

ts_aly2000

Small Claims Court.

This is what happens when you stick idiots in front of computers. This is also what would happen if I stuck my 6y.o. in front of a network of computers with his friends.

Plain and outright disorganisation. Serve papers.

ps. just thought of something.

If you have the money... You could take them to county court, seeing as you have proof etc.

There's the cost of the mattress you don't have. Storing THEIR mattress for 10-months. Agro. Costs.

Knowing that they'd ignore you they'd end up with a CCJ, and that's baaaad for a company.

The other thing is that once the ball is rolling and costs have been incurred, they can't simply brush this aside by offering you the £400 alone. Once it's in the court system, they have incurred further charges, so unless they want it to go up and up, and risk having an order made against them, it would very much be in their interests to give you about £600-£800 right now.

I truly don't know how people can go into work everyday and make other people's lives a misery. I just don't understand it.