Bathstore Euro Trio Cabinet problem - please help

Euro_Trio_White

I bought £2000 worth of stuff from Bathstore a couple of weeks ago. So much stuff that the boxes filled our front room. When the plumber opened the box to fit the wall cabinet, its mirror was broken. It can only have been like that when the box was delivered. Bathstore say that as it is more than a week since they delivered it, there is nothing they can do. I have to order another one. But that will cost £279, and I can't afford it.

Is that right? Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks for any help.

Update

As suggested in responses here and elsewhere, I wrote to the MD of Bathstore. He sent a nice letter back and has asked one of his senior people to look into the issue. Their public relations manager also phoned me the next day and said that in view of the circumstances, they would replace the damaged item. I picked this up from the local store this morning.

So my own problem is sorted. Many thanks to all who helped.

But: As discussed below and in a parallel thread on the consumer rights board, Bathstore's terms and conditions are borderline in terms of legality. Under the Sale of Goods Act, consumers have a right to refund or replacement of defective items, as long as they notify the supplier within a "reasonable" time. "Reasonable" is not specifically defined but courts have consistently regarded four weeks as a minimum, and could easily interpret it as six months and even as much as five years in Scotland, six years elsewhere. The customer services manager at Bathstore said she was exercising flexibility (I think that was the phrase she used) in regard to their terms and conditions. She seemed to think that these over-ride the Sale of Goods Act and she was being generous to me. They don't and she isn't.

TL,DR: I had to kick up a stink to get my legal rights, and even then Bathstore seemed to think they were doing me a favour, so I can't recommend them.

I will write again to the MD to thank him for his intervention and will make these points. I'll update this further if I hear anything more.

keystone

From their Terms and Conditions:

7. LOSS OR DAMAGE TO GOODS ON DELIVERY 7.1 We recommend that you examine the Goods to check that they are as ordered and undamaged as soon as possible after delivery. Please open each box and check that everything is as ordered and appears in good condition. Bathstore will replace Goods free of charge that have been incorrectly supplied or damaged in transit during our delivery. Please notify your local store within 7 days from the day after the day on which the Goods were received and we will arrange for a replacement item to be delivered and the damaged item to be collected.
7.2 All damaged Goods, wherever possible, should be returned in their original packaging.

Sorry.

Cheers

keystone

Euro_Trio_White wrote: »

Is there anything else I can do?

should have added that perhaps the only thing you can do now is to physically go into the store, find the Manager, be nice and grovel a bit and appeal to his better nature. You never know. Mind you if the purchase didn't go through his books then he/she's probably less likely to be amenable than if they did.

Cheers

andyhop

Buy another, when recieved tell them its damaged. Ask them to collect and refund

keystone

Like they are really going to fall for that so soon after making a noise about it.

Cheers

andyhop

keystone wrote: »

Like they are really going to fall for that so soon after making a noise about it.

Cheers

Get a relative to buy, there CS skills are shocking

Euro_Trio_White

keystone wrote: »

From their Terms and Conditions:

7. LOSS OR DAMAGE TO GOODS ON DELIVERY
7.1 We recommend that you examine the Goods to check that they are as ordered and undamaged as soon as possible after delivery. Please open each box and check that everything is as ordered and appears in good condition. Bathstore will replace Goods free of charge that have been incorrectly supplied or damaged in transit during our delivery. Please notify your local store within 7 days from the day after the day on which the Goods were received and we will arrange for a replacement item to be delivered and the damaged item to be collected.
7.2 All damaged Goods, wherever possible, should be returned in their original packaging.

Sorry.

Cheers

Thanks for this, and the sympathies.

I've been looking hard at those words. They are all "We recommend ..." and "Please notify ...". I don't see how they oblige me to do anything, although it looks like Bathstore has to arrange replacement if told within 7 days.

It's the next condition that covers customers' responsibilities:

8.1 You will be entitled to cancel the Contract with us in the following circumstances:
8.1.1 Where goods have not been installed and you are unhappy with the Goods, for whatever reason, and notify us before the expiry of 7 days from the day after the day on which the Goods were received; or
8.1.2 Where Goods supplied are faulty or not in accordance with the specifications of your order.

Obviously 8.1.1 states some of their responsibilities under the Distance Selling Regulations. 8.1.2 is a half-hearted summary of their responsibilities under the Sale of Goods Act. I don't see how these Terms and Conditions restrict the time a customer has to report a fault. (If they did, folks on the Consumer Rights board here seem to think the Office of Fair Trading would be down on them like a ton of bricks).

It looks like Bathstore's real policy is to refuse to replace faulty goods from seven days after delivery. That seems to be illegal (or unlawful? some sort of wrong anyway), but they have told their junior people to hide it from customers by spouting legal-sounding mumbo-jumbo such as "The Sale of Goods Act does not apply" (they said that to me). You might call it lies or deceit. I just call it an appalling way to treat their customers.

Thanks again. I'll respond to the other messages later when I get time.

Euro_Trio_White

keystone wrote: »

should have added that perhaps the only thing you can do now is to physically go into the store, find the Manager, be nice and grovel a bit and appeal to his better nature. You never know. Mind you if the purchase didn't go through his books then he/she's probably less likely to be amenable than if they did.

Cheers

Thanks again keystone.

You make a very sensible suggestion, but there's one big snag. I already spoke to the manager on the phone. He was very unhelpful, telling me that I was wrong to describe the cabinet as "faulty". He said it was only "damaged" so the Sale of Goods Act did not apply. (Although the folks over on the Consumer Rights board tell me that it does). Eventually, he said that he could not authorize replacement of the broken/faulty/damaged cabinet. He said no-one in the shop could. So no amount of grovelling will help, even if I do catch him on a better day.

I don't understand why Bathstore felt it necessary to involve the shop in an internet purchase, but I can understand why the staff would be fed up at having to deal with a problem in an order they had nothing to do with.

Euro_Trio_White

andyhop wrote: »

Buy another, when recieved tell them its damaged. Ask them to collect and refund

Wouldn't that be fraud? In any event, it doesn't seem a fair way to do things, and I've always dealt with people honestly. So thanks for the suggestion, but I won't take it up.

keystone

OK I just spotted in your earlier post that it might have been an internet purchase and your post above now confirms this. As such the rules are different and you'll have to excuse me if I go look them up and get back to this thread later.

Don't confuse Clause 7 and 8. They cannot force you to check the items thats why its a recommendation and why they then give you 7 days to do it if you wish. I don't think Clause 8 applies in your case for one minute.

Bathstore Manager is being an a..e frankly. The Ts&Cs clearly state that in the event of damage you should apply to your nearest store for help. You have done that. He is not following his own company's procedures by all accounts.

Cheers

BTW Andy has a point using someone else to buy another and then declare it broken on delivery but I don't think thats a very good idea myself.

Euro_Trio_White

keystone wrote: »

OK I just spotted in your earlier post that it might have been an internet purchase and your post above now confirms this. As such the rules are different and you'll have to excuse me if I go look them up and get back to this thread later.

Again, thanks. I've been forced to read up on this stuff over the last two days, and the only difference seems to be that internet purchase gets the additional benefit of the Distance Selling Regulations - most importantly, the right to return (most) goods in reasonable condition within 7 days regardless of reason.

That wasn't why we ordered over the internet. We had stopped by the store and picked up a catalogue. The same deal seemed to be on offer there, but the shop is in a very inaccessible part of town - difficult to park and two bus rides away. Our builder had said he could see that his plumber would be ready to start work on fitting the stuff in a week, so we needed to finalize our plan and put in the order quickly. (He had been saying for weeks prior not to commit until the rooms were ready, in case we wanted to change our minds when we saw them).

Don't confuse Clause 7 and 8. They cannot force you to check the items thats why its a recommendation and why they then give you 7 days to do it if you wish. I don't think Clause 8 applies in your case for one minute.

I've also been forced to study Bathstore's Ts & Cs. They are a mess. It looks like someone with legal training drew up a basic but clear document - paragraphs are numbered, the language is simple, and what is said complies with the law as I understand it. But then someone else with an advertising background came along and inserted heaps of gushing prose that has no business in Ts & Cs ("We have developed 4 great delivery service options ...") into the middle of it making the whole document very hard to read and understand.

I think you are right about Clause 8. It's about cancelling - sending stuff back and getting money returned. I need replacement to match the rest of the cabinets, although I guess money back would be an adequate second best, so that I can get something similar elsewhere.

As an aside, buried amongst the flowery guff, and ironically given my and previous posters' problems, I found this sentence

"Bathstore offers a no quibble replacement policy for items incorrectly supplied or damaged in transit during our delivery."

Ha!

Bathstore Manager is being an a..e frankly. The Ts&Cs clearly state that in the event of damage you should apply to your nearest store for help. You have done that. He is not following his own company's procedures by all accounts.

Cheers

BTW Andy has a point using someone else to buy another and then declare it broken on delivery but I don't think thats a very good idea myself.

My opinion of the store "manager" would probably cause your computer to turn crimson with embarrassment. A manager carries responsibility and has authority, but this fellow seems to be saying he has to ask Head Office for permission to wipe his own .. um .. nose. Replacing a defective product promptly is one thing anyone dealing with customers should be able to do.

I thought I had simply come up against an unhelpful jobsworth until I rang the head office number he gave me. The lady there was reading from the same script, so this "no replacements after 7 days" thing appears to be Bathstore's official, hard-line, policy.

Update: See update at head of thread. I spoke to the customer relations manager, who said that their policy is not quite as stated in their terms and conditions, which simply request that they be informed of faults in delivery within seven days. In practice they refuse to replace if informed outside seven days, and then exercise flexibility (I think that was the phrase she used) if a customer takes matters further. So it genuinely seems that this is, at least for the present, the company's official policy and their store managers do not have authority to replace faulty goods. Astonishing, but true.