Need help with compensation claim for failed bathroom delivery.

Dogger69

cake_mistress wrote: »

You didn't offer useful advice because you failed to ask questions before making inaccurate assumptions, on to of which you accused me of being dramatic when I simply reported the facts of the case.

People like you give a forum a bad name.

I asked a question, denoted by a question mark. You had a strop.

I have now offered two pieces of constructive advice to solve your problems in the short term. You continue to strop. Calm down.

You are being dramatic. That will not help your case in trying to get compensation, it detracts from the important stuff.

Valli

cake_mistress wrote: »

Thanks! Okay, we'll work on that basis then. We'll tackle them over extra costs for builders and time on the telephone. I really appreciate your help on this. We're not out to get piles of money from them, we just want them to reimburse for expenses so that we're not left out of pocket. Does that make sense?

Yes it makes perfect sense; but, as I said, you need evidence of your out-of-pocket expenses, including the builder's overtime.

katejo

Dogger69 wrote: »

Oh dear, someone doesn't take constructive advice too well!

Why not get a free day membership for a local gym? That would solve your problem of having no friends?

Free day membership ! My local gym charges £7 for a one day membership

visidigi

This comes down to terms and conditions of the site, and as long as they are fair, there should be no issue...

So I got to... http://www.victoriaplumb.com/info.html

This is the first paragraph...

1. Making a Purchase
The following terms and conditions apply to all transactions on Victoria Plumb. The placement of an order indicates your acceptance of these terms and conditions. Please read them carefully and print a copy for future use. To order goods through this website you must be at least 18 years of age and accept delivery within the UK. We will treat each order for goods as an offer by you to purchase the goods subject to these terms and conditions.

IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO NOT SCHEDULE OR COMMENCE ANY INSTALLATION WORK UNTIL YOUR GOODS HAVE ARRIVED AND HAVE BEEN CHECKED.

The caps, they are theirs, not mine.

Then in the delivery section they go on to say...

Victoria Plumb strongly advises you not to book your installers or engage in any preparatory work until full receipt of your goods. If any item is out of stock, a Victoria Plumb sales advisor will email or telephone you to advise you of the expected delivery date.

Unfortunately your inconvenience is self inflicted, hindsight and 20:20 is nothing to do with it, they have refunded the delivery charge as they failed to deliver within the specified time frame, I suspect any compensation request is likely to be thrown out do the terms and conditions to which you agreed to be bound by which are not, IMO, unfair.

Valli

However, Visidigi, given that Victoria Plumb offer a next day delivery service, for which they charge an additional £50, then those T&Cs are overridden by themselves, surely, as they imply that you CAN have your goods next day when they take the additional payment; moreover the courier told the OP that there were two pallets but they (the courier) could only bring 1 pallet on the vehicle. In fact, by accepting the £50 and promising to deliver next day VP have implied different T&Cs to those you quote, and offered a different service to the OP.

In effect they are offering two levels of service; the OP chose to avail herself of the 'higher' level of service. VP failed to deliver the higher level of service (Next day delivery) - VP cannot, surely, simply move the OP back to the 'lower' level of service and think that suffices. The OP's contract was not to have 'delivery next day for £50 extra but if VP failed then she would have to wait and accept a refund'. VP should have made every effort to ensure the OP got her order when it was expected - it was not for the courier to turn up with one pallet and tell the OP that they couldn't fit the whole of her order on their van. Having taken the addtional £50 VP should have ensured the courier had sufficent capacity to transport the whole delivery in one vehicle.

So, (IMO) taking the additional payment from the customer then failing to deliver is, surely, a breach of contract.

(I don't KNOW if this is correct but it seems to me that Victoria Plumb cannot hide behind those ^ T&Cs AND request an additional fee in respect of a promise of next day delivery. It would be very interesting to see this go to court!)

ETA - hope OP is not offended by my assumption, based on username, that OP is female.

cake_mistress

visidigi wrote: »

This comes down to terms and conditions of the site, and as long as they are fair, there should be no issue...

So I got to... http://www.victoriaplumb.com/info.html

This is the first paragraph...



The caps, they are theirs, not mine.

Then in the delivery section they go on to say...



Unfortunately your inconvenience is self inflicted, hindsight and 20:20 is nothing to do with it, they have refunded the delivery charge as they failed to deliver within the specified time frame, I suspect any compensation request is likely to be thrown out do the terms and conditions to which you agreed to be bound by which are not, IMO, unfair.

That's fair enough, I wondered if that might be the case. Will be interesting to see what happens.

nickster1970

Dogger69 wrote: »

Surely a friend or family member will allow you to use their shower this weekend?

It is clear you have been inconvenienced, but the dramatics detract from your case somewhat.

Wow, I'm really impressed that you can tell dramatics from such a distance. It seems to me that the OP has been genuinely inconvenienced, having paid in advance to have certain items delivered within a specific timeframe, something they would not have done without some urgency, I would imagine.

In these situations it might be useful to wonder what kind of reply one might like to receive. Had the OP asked for shower/cleanliness advice, then I think fair's fair, but I hardly think her response to your question (not really a question, more a comment, right?) was a strop.

Anyhoo, to the OP, I think that you need to itemise your inconveniences as best you can and then take them to the company in a polite but firm manner. They have by all accounts refunded your delivery fee, but the reality is that you have been inconvenienced and that the company, compensation or not, should be made aware of this. Even if you do not receive recompense, they should be made aware that treating customers in this manner is bad news. As for the money, well, good luck, but neither the fear of receiving nothing nor the thicket of terms and conditions should stop you voicing your concerns.

As it is, can you manage somehow for the time being? Presumably if you had friends or relatives nearby you would have contacted them, so I can imagine that your distress is not helped by filppant comments. Just try to get through the next few days and then move on from there. Maybe you will be able to rely on some knight in shining armour who goes by a rather more chivalrous moniker than "Dogger69"...

cake_mistress

Valli wrote: »

However, Visidigi, given that Victoria Plumb offer a next day delivery service, for which they charge an additional £50, then those T&Cs are overridden by themselves, surely, as they imply that you CAN have your goods next day when they take the additional payment; moreover the courier told the OP that there were two pallets but they (the courier) could only bring 1 pallet on the vehicle. In fact, by accepting the £50 and promising to deliver next day VP have implied different T&Cs to those you quote, and offered a different service to the OP.

In effect they are offering two levels of service; the OP chose to avail herself of the 'higher' level of service. VP failed to deliver the higher level of service (Next day delivery) - VP cannot, surely, simply move the OP back to the 'lower' level of service and think that suffices. The OP's contract was not to have 'delivery next day for £50 extra but if VP failed then she would have to wait and accept a refund'. VP should have made every effort to ensure the OP got her order when it was expected - it was not for the courier to turn up with one pallet and tell the OP that they couldn't fit the whole of her order on their van. Having taken the addtional £50 VP should have ensured the courier had sufficent capacity to transport the whole delivery in one vehicle.

So, (IMO) taking the additional payment from the customer then failing to deliver is, surely, a breach of contract.

(I don't KNOW if this is correct but it seems to me that Victoria Plumb cannot hide behind those ^ T&Cs AND request an additional fee in respect of a promise of next day delivery. It would be very interesting to see this go to court!)

ETA - hope OP is not offended by my assumption, based on username, that OP is female.

Lol, not offended at all by assumption (correct) that I'm female.

The fact that we paid for next day delivery is very important in my decision to approach them for compensation. As I said in my last post to visidigi, I can see why VP may flat out refuse to give us anything, but we're going to try anyway. As you said, the fact that we paid extra for the higher-level service makes me feel that we are not entirely in the wrong here. Had we paid for regular delivery, the estimate would have been a rather vague 3-5 working days but - as you say - next day delivery is pretty specific and we planned around it, rightly or wrongly.

cake_mistress

katejo wrote: »

Free day membership ! My local gym charges £7 for a one day membership

Our local gym doesn't have a free day membership offer either. ETA: Or any kind of one-day only membership, as it happens. Minimum trial is a month.

cake_mistress

Thanks to everyone for their input. I was so stressed and frazzled earlier that I was struggling to get my thoughts straight and kind of needed someone calm to talk me down, if you know what I mean! Thank you very much to those of you who made valid points, and I totally accept what visidigi had to say about the terms and conditions of VP's website, but am also hoping that they will accept that our acceptance of the next-day delivery option will give us some room for negotiation here.

Off to get some sleep and start the weekend with a positive attitude! And maybe a bottle of wine sometime tomorrow evening...