Ikea reimbursed travel expenses

magentalady

I agree with derrick. Even if £20 is the right amount for them to reimburse you, I don't think that a gift voucher for their own store is an acceptable way for them to do it. As derrick says, this isn't £20 of their own money - it's just £20 off a future purchase which you may or may not have been planning to make, and the actual value of the voucher to them is going to be much less than £20. It's actually an incentive for you to go back to IKEA, when you otherwise might not have done, and since it's unlikely that there's something you need there which costs exactly £20, you're either going to have to get something which costs less, or buy something which costs more and pay the difference with your own money.

As for whether or not £20 (in cash, as opposed to a voucher) is the right amount, I'm afraid I think others are right in saying that since you don't have a hard and fast number to give them regarding how much the trip cost you, you don't really have a lot to go on. You've left it up to them to name a figure, so that's what they've done.

I'm not sure why you went to the trouble of borrowing a van from a friend of a friend, rather than hiring one as they suggested - were you expecting that you'd still get reimbursed the cost of hiring one and therefore make a little profit for your trouble? Unfortunately I think you might have been better off hiring one, so that you could them have presented them with a receipt for the cost. Telling them 'I gave my mate a tenner...' isn't really going to hold the same weight. SoI think you may have to settle for the £20 but you could perhaps try to argue that you don't want it as a voucher.

Katiehound

All this arguing over the cost of the travel I just want to re iterate something that was mentioned near the beginning.......the cost of the mileage isn't solely the cost of the fuel. If you are legal then you need to have road tax and insurance (and in my case a valid MOT) and for this year that little lot costs me £500 near enough!!- before the car has moved any distance at all or so 19 pence per mile is not realistic. My local council pays something over 50 pence per mile because there was a hue & cry over it and the cost of council tax.
How much would a van have cost to hire?
How much would it have cost to return the faulty door by courier service?
and just out of curiosity (though it would not have been possible with a piece of kitchen to carry!!) how much would public transport have cost you?
I also have a sneaking feeling that you might have claimed for annoyance, aggravation, lack of goodwill etc in having bought something that turned out to be faulty and which was not handled adequately by customer services.... and then had to be returned in your time.

wealdroam

Katiehound wrote: »

All this arguing over the cost of the travel I just want to re iterate something that was mentioned near the beginning.......the cost of the mileage isn't solely the cost of the fuel. If you are legal then you need to have road tax and insurance (and in my case a valid MOT) and for this year that little lot costs me £500 near enough!!- before the car has moved any distance at all or so 19 pence per mile is not realistic. My local council pays something over 50 pence per mile because there was a hue & cry over it and the cost of council tax.
How much would a van have cost to hire?
How much would it have cost to return the faulty door by courier service?
and just out of curiosity (though it would not have been possible with a piece of kitchen to carry!!) how much would public transport have cost you?
I also have a sneaking feeling that you might have claimed for annoyance, aggravation, lack of goodwill etc in having bought something that turned out to be faulty and which was not handled adequately by customer services.... and then had to be returned in your time.

All very good stuff.

But how much did it actually cost the OP?
You can only claim actual costs.

Remember, he borrowed a van.

magentalady

wealdroam wrote: »

All very good stuff.

But how much did it actually cost the OP?
You can only claim actual costs.

Remember, he borrowed a van.

Exactly.

Most companies will refund the postage if you send something faulty back to them. That doesn't mean you can send it by second-class post and then claim the amount it would have cost you to send it by special delivery.

It doesn't matter how much it would have cost to hire a van/send it by courier/go on public transport, because you didn't do any of those things. Unless you can actually give them a figure for how much you think you deserve back, then of course they are going to name their own price. And if you were hoping to get back the costs of hiring a van anyway and pocket the difference, then I don't blame you for trying but I'm afraid it just wouldn't work like that - they aren't going to give you £100 if you clearly didn't spend that much.