Bensons For Beds - a total shambles!

LondonChimp

Forgive me for making only my second contribution on MSE, and for the length of this post, but I could use your collective advice...

I bought a mattress from Sleepmasters, at their retail park site in Swindon, about 12 months ago. By about Sep 11, it was showing signs of poor manufacturing quality (the inner frame was starting to deform and push through the outer cover). I called Sleepmasters, who have been taken over by Bensons For Beds, and was told I'd need to send photos. This I did, and then B4B sent a 'technician' to assess the fault. He told me I had a genuine fault, and that he would report back as such.

That was in Dec 11. In that time, B4B have had to be positively stalked by me in order to get any headway made over a replacement. As I have moved RAF bases, they have cited that as a partial reason as to why they have been slow to react. However, they have had my new address for some months, and have done nothing in the last 5 1/2 months to honour their commitment to replace my mattress. Until recently...

They have offered me some unspecified level of compenstion with the replacement mattress, but have subsequently failed to deliver on the agreed date. Now, as I have spent 5 months sleeping on a faulty mattress, making calls and taking some time off work to wait for a non-existent delivery, I decided enough was enough and issued B4B a letter of pre-action for the Small Claims Court, outlying how I would like my money back plus a level of compensation (£65) to cover the costs of my calls and the inconvenience.

A customer service agent then e-mailed to say my replacement mattress would arrive in 2 days - totally oblivious to the fact I had sent a letter threatening legal action if they did not refund my money; I consider it too late to make amends now.

Now, they have acknowledged this letter and have agreed to come and take the mattress away for a full refund, but no compensation! Do I:

A. trust their poor admin, let them take the mattress and then trust they'll refund me?

B. Hold out for compensation that I asked for? Why should they get away with 5 months of me chasing them, scot-free?!

somethingcorporate

What costs can you actually prove you have incurred? If it went to court this would likely be all you are entitled to.

If it is £10-20 on phone calls then hardly worth the effort of rejecting a reasonable offer of a full refund. You have had a few months use out of it so offering a full refund is actually more than they have to do under the SOGA as they can make a deduction for the use that you have had from it (which granted is not exactly much but probably covers the level of compensation you are looking to extract).

I'd chalk it up to experience and take your full refund elsewhere.

dinkydunk1

i Purchased a Mattress from Benson for Beds in 2010
and it has started to dip in the sleeping positions i myself weigh 13 stone and my wife is 8stone this is a miracoil from Silent Night i paid over £600 pounds for the mattress alone and they sent out there Muppets from Eco Master and firstly they didn't arrive at the agreed time and left me a message saying they were terminating the call out today 46 mins after the 3 Hours i had to wait in for them i then called there customer services and they re arranged the appointment and i had to take more time off work i then called Bensons For Beds 2 days after to find out the results of the report and they said the mattress had not been used in conjunction of there terms and conditions and there for they would not take any further action so i am writing this to make people aware of there services and bare this in mind before purchasing from them i would not recommend or reuse them even if they were £200 cheaper thanks Bensons For Beds

LondonChimp

Just to let you know, I got a full refund in the end, including shipping costs.