Whitewall Galleries

ianh2013

Advice needed please.

We purchased a painting from Whitewall galleries in High Wycombe for a house we were planning to move to. We were concerned at the time about whether or not the house move would go through as the painting is totally unsuitable for our current house but we were promised by the store that we could pay for the painting, they would order it, store it and if the move fell through they would give us a refund on it.
Unfortunately, the move did fall through so I contacted the gallery to arrange the refund. The manager of the store told me that the employee who originally promised us the refund had left the store and as 30 days had passed she couldn't give a refund without going through head office. A few weeks later the gallery told us that we could exchange but they wouldn't be honouring the original promise.
Since then the gallery have been awful - they promise to return calls but don't. They refused to give us the contact details for head office instead offering to forward an email for us. We sent them a message explaining our complaint but received no reply. The gallery still have the picture.
Eventually after countless phone calls and visits to the gallery, they finally gave us the contact details for the head office. I sent a letter explaining our complaint but again have had no reply.
We paid for the picture by credit card and have contacted the credit card company (Nationwide) to see if they can do anything. They told us that they can't force a refund but under section 75 they might be jointly liable but we're still waiting for them to investigate the case.

I was hoping that someone on here might have some ideas about how we can proceed with this. Are the credit card company likely to pay up? Is the promise from the gallery legally binding? Are we entitled to a refund (we don't want an exchange, especially after the poor service we have received)?

Thank you all for your help and taking the time to read this,

Ian

ValHaller

There is a verbal contract in place. As a matter of law, your money should be refunded, because that is what the contract says. However, your problem is establishing as a matter of fact what the contract was. Thefact that the employee left puts the gallery on the spot to prove their case however ...

paddyrg

Perhaps the problem is down to the salesperson being paid commission 30 days after the sale, they have left, so the only way they could refund you would be at substantial loss. They've offered an exchange, is there anything in there you'd like anyway? I know it's a bit like a middle class Athena, but they must have something appealing?