Ikea reimbursed travel expenses

wilsons

I purchased bedroom furniture from Ikea (over £1000) end of last year and unfortunately one of the doors had a manufacturing defect.

I telephoned customer services and was informed that the door would be replaced. When I asked about the distance I would have to travel over something that I was not responsible, I was duly informed that I would also be reimbursed for my travel expenses or van hire if deemed necessary. Regrettably this did not happen upon my arrival at the store, but instead asked to contact, by letter, the customer relations manager. Thankfully I did not need the services of a hire van.

I sent my letter in January to which I received no reply. After several failed attempts to contact both the customer relations manager and store manager from the store via telephone, with the promise that someone would call me back, I was given the contact details of the customer relations address in Peterbourgh and email address of same. Miraculously, I received a letter in the post not long after. They say my initial letter was never received; however I was never contacted as promised nor consulted but instead palmed off with an apology and £20 gift voucher. This amounts to 19p a mile. I wrote an email this time saying I thought it was insulting based on the current price of fuel, the wear and tear of the vehicle and my actual time lost due to transit to which they replied that based on their compensation guide lines the £20 gift voucher would be the advised amount.

I’m still a bit annoyed about this and I now wish I had hired a van at the cost of about £100 ha! Am I being a !!!!! here, or is 19p a mile reasonable for something that wasn’t my fault?

Thanks in advance for your help…

gordikin

Would/did 19p/mile cover your expenses? What are you after?

pendulum

Sounds reasonable to me. Most people who return faulty items get nothing!

sirmarcus

I don't !

OP...Try escalating and complaning to the IKEA country manager via email. His email contact details can be found at http://www.!!!!!!/.

Good luck and HTHs.

wealdroam

OP, how much did you claim for your extra expense?

If you left the figure up to them, then of course they try and pay as little as possible.

baza52

so you asked for a replacement plus mileage costs and they agreed to both.
What more are you after? the kitchen for free?

Hintza

sirmarcus wrote: »

I don't !

OP...Try escalating and complaning to the IKEA country manager via email. His email contact details can be found at http://www.!!!!!!/.

Good luck and HTHs.

Direct spamming link now Marcus?

Money_User

wilsons wrote: »

This amounts to 19p a mile. I wrote an email this time saying I thought it was insulting based on the current price of fuel

How? At the current price of fuel mines 14p a mile.

crazyguy

Why not ask them to buy you a new car, I think they will be ok with this !

wilsons

OK, looks to be that the consensus is that I should shut up ha!

I guess I was a little aggrieved because my car is small and I went out of my way not to have to hire another van (borrowed a friend of a friends van) to return the faulty goods, which they said if I needed they would cover the cost of, and £20 wouldn’t have covered that cost.

crazyguy

wilsons wrote: »

OK, looks to be that the consensus is that I should shut up ha!

I guess I was a little aggrieved because my car is small and I went out of my way not to have to hire another van (borrowed a friend of a friends van) to return the faulty goods, which they said if I needed they would cover the cost of, and £20 wouldn’t have covered that cost.

I would say so as it purely is a geture of goodwill on ikeas behalf so be gratefull you got something as a lot of people get nothing for there troubles upon returning stuff !

Dave101t

err...my car does 12p/mile so thats fine, a van would be 19p/mile.
plus wear and tear of the vehicle! where is this ikea, john o groats?

George_Michael

err...my car does 12p/mile

How did you work that figure out?

Petrol is approximately £6.20 per gallon, and taking an average of 40 MPG gives a pence per mile of about 15p. (your MPG figure may be better than my car).
But even taking the figure of 12p per mile, that is only for fuel.

What would the actual pence per mile figure be once you have included vehicle tax, insurance, MOT and servicing costs, depreciation etc?
This is why the Governments own official figure is 45p per mile.

According to the AA website, the cost of running an average car with a new cost of between £16,000 and £20,000 in 2010/2011 is 53 pence-per-mile for a petrol and 54 pence-per-mile for a diesel, based on an average mileage of 10,000 miles per year.

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/budget-2011/budget-2011-news-stories/calls-for-expenses-mileage-to-be-reviewed-in-budget-2011/

Fair enough, that is refering to a new car which will have a fair bit of depreciation, but even a vehicle that is a few years old would probably be more than 19p a mile to cover all running costs.

System

wilsons wrote: »

OK, looks to be that the consensus is that I should shut up ha!

I guess I was a little aggrieved because my car is small and I went out of my way not to have to hire another van (borrowed a friend of a friends van) to return the faulty goods, which they said if I needed they would cover the cost of, and £20 wouldn’t have covered that cost.

Borrowed a van - Nil cost
Wear & Tear - Nil unless you agreed to pay your friend of a friend something
Fuel Cost - 19p per mile should cover a van

You have been re-imbursed as per your original phone call to them.


Do you now feel that you should have made a profit?

wilsons

!!!!!! wrote: »

Borrowed a van - Nil cost
Wear & Tear - Nil unless you agreed to pay your friend of a friend something
Fuel Cost - 19p per mile should cover a van

You have been re-imbursed as per your original phone call to them.


Do you now feel that you should have made a profit?

Left a tenner on the dash as a 'thank you'; hope it was spotted and not buried under all the rubbish ha!

Out of interest, if 19p a mile is ok, why do companies, including the one I work for pay at least double this?

Raksha

George_Michael wrote: »

As to the 19p per mile. That is far lower than most companies now pay, and the governments own figure for claiming for use of a car is 45p per mile.

IIRC the figure of 45p is the amount you get 'tax free' if you have to use your own car for travel purposes for work - it's not what the government believes it costs to travel per mile.

dmg24

wilsons wrote: »

Left a tenner on the dash as a 'thank you'; hope it was spotted and not buried under all the rubbish ha!

Out of interest, if 19p a mile is ok, why do companies, including the one I work for pay at least double this?

Travel expenses for work assume that the car is being used regularly for business purposes, hence taking into account additional factors.

Out of interest, how much do you think that wear and tear for one journey should amount to?

halibut2209

I'd have asked for the £20 in cash, not a gift voucher

hcb42

wilsons wrote: »

OK, looks to be that the consensus is that I should shut up ha!

I guess I was a little aggrieved because my car is small and I went out of my way not to have to hire another van (borrowed a friend of a friends van) to return the faulty goods, which they said if I needed they would cover the cost of, and £20 wouldn’t have covered that cost.

If you had hired a van, then your costs would have been higher. 19p a mile is reasonable enough, it's not overly generous, but your costs should have been covered, this is not linked to HMRC tax free allowances.

System

Problem with a £20 gift voucher is you'll have to drive back to Ikea to spend it!

derrick

OP has not been reimbursed for travel expenses, they have been given a shop voucher, they cannot buy petrol with this but only something from the store, the voucher will probably cost the store a monetary value of about £5. Ask them to replace the voucher with cash, as per the SoGA mentioned in post #12.


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