Silentnight Under Warranty - Delivery Charge

19lottie82

Bit of a long one but I'll try to keep to the point.

I had a silentnight memory foam mattress, at just over a year old it started to sag. I contacted Silentnight who said they would deliver a replacement at a delivery cost of £40. I got the replacement but decided I didn't want another memory foam mattress so sold it to a friend.

I bought another SN mattress, a sprung one this time. I got it from an Archers Sleepcentre for £299.
It is now 15 months old and is sagging really badly (I'm not overweight or anything so I'm guessing SN mattresses are just [EMAIL="!!!!"]!!!![/EMAIL]!). I contacted SN who told me to contact Archers. I did and someone came to inspect it and agreed that yes, it was faulty and should be replaced under the SN 5 year warranty.

A few days later, Archers call me and say that they have spoken to SN who said that they will replace my mattress for a fee of £129! I go straight on to the SN website that states, if a matress is under 24 months old, they will replace it for free although there will be a charge towards delivery.

I email SN pointing this out and they get back to me saying they won't correspond with me and I can only go through Archers. So thats what I do and today I recieved a call from them telling me "Yes you're right they will replace your mattress for free but there is a SEVENTY POUND delivery charge! And this isn't to me directly, SN will deliver the mattress to Archers, who will then call me when it's in store. You'd expect this to take a few days, right? Nope, 2-3 weeks!

I find this ridiculous as £70 seems excessive to deliver a mattress to store, as Im sure they will be making deliveries there anyway, and how can they charge me £40 18 months ago for a home delivery and now want to charge me almost double for a retail one?

I phoned SN to dispute this excessive charge, and again was told they couldn't discuss this with me and I have to speak to Archers. Archers tell me that is the figure SN have given them and they have no power to reduce it.

This mattress is only 15 months old and I am angry that they want me to pay over 25% of the cost price for a replacement. Surely they will be making deliveries to Archers in the 2-3 week period anyway?

Basically my point is, is there anyway of disputing this charge? Could Silentnight tell me that the delivery charge is whatever they like, and unless I agree to pay it, I'm stuck with a 15 month old faulty matress?

I'm pretty mad!

Thanks x

19lottie82

PS I paid for the mattress with a C Card, although as I have said, it was over a year ago, and the card is now cancelled.

bris

You can take it up with the retailer as a SOGA issue and not a warranty issue, there is a difference. With a warranty the manufacturer can impose a delivery charge and there is not a lot you can do about that. As you are dealing with the retailer anyway, remind them that under SOGA the customer can not be out of pocket for having faulty goods replaced, this makes it illegal for them to charge for delivery. They can't dispute this now because they have admitted it's faulty so make them address the issue under the sale of goods act.
The downside is that under SOGA the retailer can decide to repair, replace or refund, a remedy to suit them, not you. If they decide to refund instead they can deduct a fair percentage for the use you have had. This may be as much as 50% but who knows whats fair.

19lottie82

I might take the chance and give this a try, thanks a lot for that.

19lottie82

Arrrrrgh I don't know if I should chase the SOGA option, or just pay the £70? TBH it's a lot of money to me, but I know it's going to be a lot of bother............

Part of me says just let it go and pay them what they want but the MSE side of me says "no way!"

What do you guys think?

Pinkypants

Bear in mind that a warranty and a guarantee are usually different things.

With a warranty the customer usually pays a % towards a new product on a sliding scale. The longer a customer has it the more they would pay. But it's all down to the wording of said warranty.

Under SOGA, if product is over 6 months old, you would have to prove the product is faulty. Usually by an independent inspection.

shaun_from_Africa

Pinkypants wrote: »

Under SOGA, if product is over 6 months old, you would have to prove the product is faulty. Usually by an independent inspection.

This shouldn't present a problem to the OP as the matress has already been inspected by the retailer and they have agreed that it is faulty.

I contacted SN who told me to contact Archers. I did and someone came to inspect it and agreed that yes, it was faulty and should be replaced under the SN 5 year warranty.

Provided that you have some proof of this 19lottie82, it certainly wouldn't do any harm to write to Archers again, and point out their obligations under the SOGA, and mention that as the matress fault has already been confirmed, they have a legal obligation to provide a remedy.

19lottie82

Thanks guys. So what is the general explanation for how long an item should last under the SOGA? And how it works once an item is out of the original 12 month warranty (SN will replace and deliver for free durinh this period)

I've done some reading online and it talks about "six months"?

shaun_from_Africa

The SOGA 6 month time means that if a fault occurs within the first 6 months after buying goods, that fault is considered to have been there at the time of purchase (an inherrent fault), and it is up to the retailer to prove otherwise if for example they think that the consumer caused the damed through something such as misuse.

After 6 months, the onus is then on the consumer to prove that the fault wasn't caused by them but was down to a manufacturing defect or faulty materials.

As to how long an item should last.
This isn't stated in the SOGA as it all depends on the type of item, its intended use, price paid etc, but seeing as SN give a 5 year warranty, you would have a good argument to state that this is the time that the mattress is expected to last.


One further point to remember (which has already been mentioned), is that if Archers admit that they are liable and offer a refund, this refund can have a deduction to cover the use that you have already had from the mattress.
If they try this, you could try stating that as you have had approx 1 years use out of the estimated 5 year life of the mattress, a 20% deduction is fair.

arcon5

Another thing to add, if you exhaust their complaints procedure and give them ample opportunity to offer a remedy, you could then have a case of paying SL directly then pursuing Archers for a refund.

Make sure you get everything in writing and records names, time and date of any phone calls.

I certainly don't think you should pay this money.

19lottie82

UPDATE.......

So, I ended up just paying the delivery charge for a new mattress as I just didn't have the energy to dispute it (unlike me, but anyway....).

The new one got delivered 6 weeks ago and the same problem has started happening again!

I called archers who sent someone to look at the mattress. He agreed that the mattress was again, faulty.

He said he would contact Silentnight and contact me in a few days. I asked what the outcome would be as one, I didn't want an identical replacement as I'm sure the same thing would happen again and two, I was unhappy as I had just paid circa £70 for the delivery cost of this mattress which was faulty. He just said he would contact Sn in the first instance and then we could take it from there.

Tbh I don't even want another SN mattress because, as described in my OP I also previously had another of their mattresses that also started sagging after a short period of time.

If Archers gave me a credit note that I could use in their store then I would be happy. But I'm guessing that they won't offer me this.

Can anyone let me know what my rights are in this situation regarding both the mattress and also the high delivery charge that I had to pay for another faulty item?

TIA