Full or partial refund

somethingcorporate

What a complete shambles.

The company should be bending over backwards to fix this for you.

Letter before action giving them 14 days and then small claims. There is absolutely nothing the company could use to defend their behaviour.

rustyboy21

In the same business as some posters may know.

What a complete B*s***d ! So you are saying he came out, measured up and sold you something that was supposed to fit?

If it was me, I would be apologising profusely, and getting the fire back to the manufacturer and offering you a discount back for the inconvenience.

A lot of manufacturers are taking a long time to get stock through , due mainly to them keeping their stock levels down, so I can appreciate the delay, but if he has come out and measured, he should take into account any measuremants to make sure it fitted correctly. Was it a fireplace( surround, back and hearth) or was it a wallmounted fire? With the first, it looks like he hasn't ordered up the correct size, the second, he hasn't measured properly for the required depth.

I would really name and shame him on here , so others don't buy from him. Google will pick up his name from the post you make.

If he can prove that he ordered correctly to the manufacturer, then they will not charge him a penny for restocking, as it would be their fault

moneybunny123

The owner of the company (the same man that came out to measure up) has replied to our letter today and his letter is littered with lies! However, it's all totally subjective and will, I'm sure, boil down to his word against mine.

He's refusing to offer a full refund on the grounds of his T&Cs (which he doesn't include with the letter, quelle surprise) and says he wants to resolve the matter amicably. Haha, he wasn't saying that when calling my husband every expletive in the dictionary last week!!

As others have already advised, we now intend to send him a letter entitled "letter before action". The thing is, do we refer to the letter received from him today and contradict his points? Or do we just restate the facts as we know them and go from there? I can't begin to tell you how many untruths there are in his letter! But like I said, would a judge say it was conjecture - because nothing can be proven - my word Vs his word.

moneybunny123

In addition, just so you know, he states in his letter that he advised me (when he came out to measure) that he didn't think the fire would fit (he didn't) but I was adamant that I wanted that fire and that fire only.

Who in their right mind would pay so much money for a fire they were told wouldn't fit?!!! Surely a court wouldn't believe him. Would they?

moneybunny123

A further update on the situation above. If anyone can offer any advice or information, I'd really appreciate it...

We replied to the merchant's letter the day after his letter arrived (so, on 22nd Dec). We highlighted all the inacuracies within his letter and told him that our next course of action, if he wasn't prepared to solve the situation amicably and to our satisfaction based on the Sales of Goods and Services Act, would be a "letter before action". We also wrote to our banks to enter a Visa Dispute (we didn't pay on credit cards - only debit cards, so we had to send off what evidence we had that the money should be refunded).

The first week of the New Year, the banks refunded our money and told us that the merchant would have 45 days in which to appeal against the refund. Those 45 days expired on Saturday, and at 4pm on Friday, the bank told us that they'd heard nothing from him.

However, there's more... towards the end of January (a month after our last correspondence to him), the merchant sent us a reply (via email). In it, he offered a compromise: Either a full refund (less a collection fee for collecting the fire surround that he'd left at our premises that I begged him to take away with him on the day it all happened), or a partial refund (the difference in cost) if we wanted to pick a different gas fireplace to the original one, but keep the existing surround. He stated that this is merely a good will gesture, and that his T&Cs are still watertight.

We replied asking what this "collection fee" would be and also asked for a copy of his T&Cs (which we've now asked for in writing 3 times and verbally twice - and still never had a copy). Our "argument" is that any collection fee should be in those T&Cs. But to be honest, I don't feel that we should have to pay any collection fee. We asked him to take everything away with him on the day that the fire SHOULD have been fitted. He refused to. Not only that, WE didn't break the terms within those T&Cs. HE DID. By taking money off for us for a product and services that he's not been ably to provide.

Anyway, our reply asking for this info was sent about 3 weeks ago. We still haven't had a reply back. It feels like he dangled a carrot, and then refuses to answer. There was no time limit to his "offer". Admittedly, we didn't reply immediately - but that was because he sent the email to my email address that I rarely access (despite us sending all our correspondence from my husbands email address). We replied, and have heard nothing. We replied AGAIN a few days ago stating that we'd replied to his email and have heard nothing, and could he please furnish us with all the information we'd asked for previously. Still nothing.

Nothing, that is, until yesterday when the Bank told us that the merchant has now appealed against the Visa Dispute and has sent in "a large amount of evidence".

We have no idea what this evidence could be, and have asked for a copy, as is our right. The only thing we can think that he may have done is either forged my signature onto his T&Cs (of which I never saw or was given a copy), OR, on the order form (which I did sign, but again, was never given a copy) we're wondering if he has perhaps added some sort of paragraph that says something like "customer has been advised that the fire may not fit". I wasn't and I didn't. (I would NEVER sign anything that said anything like that. I'm not THAT stupid!) But how would we ever disprove that it wasn't written on at the time I signed, given that we don't have a copy? Having said all that, surely if he DID have any such incriminating "evidence" (fraudulent or otherwise), why wouldn't he have produced it on the day this all kicked off?! Why? Because I never signed any such disclaimer. And that would be my argument if this ever reaches court.

Nearly 3 months on, and we still have no fireplace. Our living room looks like a bombsite and there are gas pipes sticking precariously out of the wall, despite us having one and three old children.

In almost 3 months, the merchant has sent us 2 emails - 1 sent a week after the incident stating he knew the fire wouldn't fit but I'd told him to order it anyway (totally untrue) and another offering us a refund less a collection fee for picking up the surround that he'd left which I'd begged him not to. Nothing else. Not even a breakdown of the figures or an offer of a partial refund. Not a copy of any paperwork, order form or T&Cs.

What would YOU do next?

Leo2020

moneybunny123 wrote: »

Nothing, that is, until yesterday when the Bank told us that the merchant has now appealed against the Visa Dispute and has sent in "a large amount of evidence".

But surely as he has sent it in after the 45 days then he should be tough luck on his part?

It is possible that they have faked evidence but you have the right to look at any evidence the retailer as submitted and dispute it if needed.

My husband went through a Visa Debit card claim himself - they ended up siding with the retailer. In a nutshell the story is booked 2 nights at a Hilton Doubletree through Hotels.com. When we got to the hotel it was overbooked by Hotels.com- the Hilton had told Hotels.com about the overbooking but they hadn't told us. We ended up in the Holiday Inn next door (a cheaper and lower star hotel but not cheaper for us as we were still charged the Doubletree price which I think was double the price of the Holiday Inn).

In the end my husband had to take file a court case, but they offered to settle outside of court. We got a full refund plus a bit extra as compo.

Leo2020

And to add - T&Cs do not override your rights under the SOGA. Making you pay for the collection of unfit goods is a load of rubbish. Fine if they were fit for purpose but you just changed your mind but as that's not the case he can't charge you for collection.

moneybunny123

Leo2020 wrote: »

But surely as he has sent it in after the 45 days then he should be tough luck on his part?

Yes, but I imagine that it will either have a posted date of before the deadline, or it was possibly sat in the banks huge in-tray of post and when we telephoned on Friday they just hadn't got around to opening it.

I would certainly dispute any signatures - to produce something now, but to have refused up until now to share anything with us just looks, to me, very fishy. Hopefully a court would agree.


We're talking about almost two thousand pounds here, so I'm keeping everything crossed that things go in our favour, but you just never know. When we're £2k down, we don't have the funds to seek the advice of a lawyer. Hence me being on here!

moneybunny123

Leo2020 wrote: »

And to add - T&Cs do not override your rights under the SOGA. Making you pay for the collection of unfit goods is a load of rubbish. Fine if they were fit for purpose but you just changed your mind but as that's not the case he can't charge you for collection.

Could he argue that the fire surround IS fit for purpose though? It was only the gas fire that was unfit for purpose as it didn't fit. On the day it all happened, I asked him to take the surround away as I explained to him that when we eventually picked a new gas fire, we might not want that particular surround.

Still his error though. If he'd measured correctly, none of this would have happened.

Leo2020

You don't need a lawyer to take someone to small claims. My husband filed the claim online, costs about £30 or so to do.

Best thing to do is not worry until you see his evidence - just because he has sent a lot doesn't mean any of it is relevant or backs up his side of the story.

I'll give you an example a bit different from what your going through but it might make you worry less, I used to work for PC World Customer Service (boo, hiss - I know). We would ask for engineers reports if a customer made a claim under the SOGA to back up what they were saying. I have seen customers' claim that their PC is inherently fault only to send in a report which states that it has been damaged by the customer. You would think that customers would read the report before sending it - either that or they thought we wouldn't??? I have seen all sorts of "evidence" to back up customers' claims and a lot of it just didn't even come close to cutting it. Another example was an engineer's report which just said "It is inherently faulty" - nothing about what was actually wrong with it or even the details of the PC. It didn't even say, for example, "This Packard Bell Imedia 1546 is inherently faulty". For all I new the sheet of paper the report was written on could have been inherently faulty.