WARNING: Groupon/Matching Bedrooms taking your money

Kings_guy

Well I got an email from Groupon today confirming a refund is on its way for my non-received mattress. Admittedly it took a while (orderd 22nd Oct 2011) - 21 days for original delivery not to happen, then after a first complaint another couple of weeks to give Matching Bedrooms another chance. I then emailed Groupon 3 weeks ago, they asked for 21 days to pursue with MB. Yesterday was 22nd day - I emailed again, requested a refund and they confirmed. A bit of a delay, but no costs incurred other than the time to write a few short emails. It was paid for an a mastercard anyway, so next route would have been to ask them to refund it. Some of the contributors above may be taking rather a longer route than necessary.
My outstanding issue however, which Groupon have not accepted, is that Matching Bedrooms ONLY accepted paypal for the postage component of the bill. With PayPal you cannot get a refund after 45 days - I believe this could be the main purpose of the scam by MAtching Bedrooms; i.e to keep the £14.95 per customer from Paypal even after refunds of matress vouchers. This could be more than the profit on the mattresses!! Will be careful with Groupon in the future.

jtktb

Has anyone actually had a refund from Groupon for this deal.I, like others above, have been waiting since mid October for my mattress to come, I have been able to get hold of MB a couple of times only to be told there have been delays, system problems etc etc, excuse excuse, they eventually claimed that I was "down for a delivery this week" 4 weeks later, still nothing.
So I went via paypal and claim non reciept on the 14.99 delivery and not as described for the groupon deal, as they did deliver the voucher I felt they coudnt dodge on that. MB immediately acknowledged the paypal disput and I got my 14.99 refund, I guess they are just hapy to have one less to deliver! My problem however is with groupon, I got no where with Paypal as i didnt escalate the claim in time, goupon themselves have sent me an email saying they will process me a full refund but this may take upto 14 days, I emailed them at day 16, only to be told that they had been unable to process my refund but it had been resubmitted and please allow 14 days. I am now at day 21 and still no refund. I have send numerous emails to them, I just dont understand the issue, I get that internally on their systems a refund may well take 14 days but in reality a paypal refund is immediate, why am I being fobbed off?
If it had been MB messing me about for my refund I might have understood it more but surely if I have trusted groupons vetting procedures and have purchased in good faith! What can I do to hurry them up?

al28

Hi Jtktb,

Can you advise how you got your £14.99 delivery charge refunded? I eventually managed to get a refund of £159 from Groupon for the mattress, after numerous telephone calls.

danthemanwho

Here is a copy of the email I sent to Groupon, and their reply. I am also considering legal action against Groupon and MB as I have paid to both. It is easy online via the small claims court (Nottingham). I have already issued the statutory 21 days written notice.

This week, despite having a refund case open for one month, I received an email from Groupon asking me to confirm all sorts of information and my delivery address. I think they too may have fallen for the MB company line about delivery will be coming soon and they just "mislaid a few of their records" or had "supplier problems".

Did anyone else have their delivery fee paid to a separate company 'shoe wholesale'? I found this out as I paid the delivery charge via paypal. 'Shoe Wholesale' claim to be totally a separate company, so why would my delviery charge go to a shoe company? Additionally, it exists "upstairs" (their words) from the matching bedrooms company and they can forward calls between the two.

Does anyone else want to pursue this to get some bad publicity for Groupon and make sure Matching Shoe Bedrooms Wholesale get their just desserts?

Emails follow-
"
Danthemanwho, Dec-29 2011 :
To Groupon,
I am requesting a refund for the item ordered on 24/10/2011 via a Groupon offer. The supplier has failed to deliver, despite multiple verbal assurances.
The details are in the email below. I have contacted the merchant via phone and now by email.
Should a refund not be possible for any reason, with this email I also give 21 days written notice from today 29th December 2011 to Groupon Ltd for delivery of the goods.
Groupon member xxxxx@xxxxxxxx

Best regards,

Danthemanwho

---

Original message

---

From: "Dan themanwho">
To: zakria @ matchingbedrooms.com
Cc: mattress @ matchingbedrooms.com
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011
Subject: Matching Bedrooms mattress order, paypal #XXXXXXXXXXXX

To Zak Mohammed,
Manager, Matching Bedrooms Ltd.

On 24th October 2011 I purchased a king size mattress via a groupon.co.uk offer. The mattress has not been delivered and I request a refund of the purchase price from Groupon of £169.00 and the delivery charge of £14.95 which was paid to zhagum @ shoewholesale.com via paypal. Details are given below.

PAYPAL Delivery charge
Business Name: Matching Bedroom Sets Ltd.
Email: zhagum @ shoewholesale.com
Transaction ID #XXXXXXXXXX
Payment To Matching Bedroom Sets Ltd.
Completed -£14.95 GBP
Item Title: Matching Bedroom sets Limited
Invoice ID: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: 26 Oct 2011
Status: Completed

Customer Service Email: "zhagum @ shoewholesale.com"
Customer Service Phone: +44 1212427384

GROUPON

GROUPON TRANS 24/10/11 UK£ 169.00 paid via Visa debit card
Voucher Code xxxxxxx
My Groupon membership is via username xxxxxxx@xxxxxxx


Please can you acknowledge receipt of this email and authorise a refund so that it can be paid by both Groupon and ShoeWholesale as soon as possible. A full refund is my preference. As a legal requirement, with this email I also hereby give 21 days written notice from today 29th December 2011 to Matching Bedrooms Ltd for delivery of the goods.

Best Regards,

Danthemanwho
"

The REPLY from Groupon
"
Jan-04 10:22 (GMT):
Hi Danthemanwho,

Thank you for getting back to me with the information I requested. I have now escalated this and you should be hearing from someone shortly. Please allow 7-14 working days. Again, I apologise for the late delivery of this item.

If there is anything else I can help you with please don't hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

Peter X
support at groupon.co.uk
"

No further reply from Groupon, as yet.

meandgirls

having ordered 2 king size mattresses in October, and many conversations on telephone and via email, eventually recieved 1 of them last week. While I wouldn't say it was worth £500, at £150 it is value for money, and very comfortable. It does have a strange smell, which is gradually going. The 2nd one was delivered to my address today - it should have gone to a different address, and when arrived was a double, not kingsize - I have sent it back, telephoned the company who have promised to send another this Friday...... we shall see.

pleasurebear

I posted on 04 January that Matching Bedrooms and Groupon had 2 weeks to meet my claim. Groupon refunded the £159 I paid for the voucher but Matching Bedrooms didn't reply. I issued a claim through the small claims track of the County Court. My claim comprised the difference in cost between the voucher cost and the purchase of a comparable mattress, the delivery charge, the cost of writting unanswered emails and letters and the Court fee. Groupon's solicitors intended to defend my claim. However, Matching Bedrooms have paid my claim in full.

nandrews

I have not used this particular offer, but have bought via Groupon (and similar) before with good and bad experiences. Groupon frequently pass on responsibility for a problems to the supplier. But surely as the offer comes from Groupon and the payment is taken by them, then they are the only ones responsible to the buyer?
Could anyone give an idea, or point to some ruling, that confirms this or otherwise.

Thanks
Nigel