Warning: Baby Time (Welling) potentially fraudulent trader

jarthurs

Babytime or Baby Time also trading as Babytime Ltd Company No. 03101564 (although the company registration appears to have been dissolved since 1998).

This company is selling baby related equipment, buggies, car seats, etc, but is currently failing to deliver on orders. There are some long standing threads on various other sites as well as a group on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_127846697284325

We ordered, £140 worth of child car seats from them on the 27th January and have been unable to contact the company by email or phone. I have subsequently found these threads on the Baby and Bump website:

http://www.babyandbump.com/reviews/517664-warning-don-t-buy-babytime-london-aka-baby-time-london-aka-babytime-welling.html

http://www.babyandbump.com/reviews/517664-warning-don-t-buy-babytime-london-aka-baby-time-london-aka-babytime-welling.html

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?294962-BabyTime-Welling-online-order-problem

These go back to September 2010 and the company appears to have a long history of not delivering goods. By all accounts they appear to have taken money from many many people and failed to deliver any items. They have a retail shop in Bellegrove Road, Welling but this is rarely open.

Their website developer has been approached as the site is currently still accepting orders, but they have declined to pull the site as the owner has added a message regarding a 'leak' at their warehouse delaying deliveries.

I've logged a call with Consumer Direct, who have passed the details back to Bexley Trading Standards. I'm going to visit the store in the next couple of days but failing that I'll be getting a chargeback from my card company.

Just through I'd post a warning here, as this is usually the first site I check before placing an online order.

Regards,
Jason.

barbiedoll

That shop has been in Welling for years and I remember when I was pregnant, one of my friends told me not to buy anything from there because she had to take her faulty buggy back and the guy wouldn't give her a refund. He insisted on getting sending it back to the manufacturer to be repaired (Maclaren, I think) but she thought that he had probably just taken it home and had a go at it himself. The thing was never repaired properly and in the end, she had to send her husband (a police officer ) into the shop to get a refund. She thinks that the buggy was second-hand or a return, the box had been opened and resealed and the wheels were completely loose from the minute she first used it. I'm surprised that he's managed to keep this business going for so long!