Credit card company not honouring section 75

Somerset_Sue

A year or so ago we bought something for the house and paid part on our credit card. Within a month it had failed. Not having had to go through this before we sent the company the template letters from the Which? site saying we wanted things sorted. To cut a long story short we misunderstood that the legal cover on our house insurance would involve 'ambulance chasers' so now have a solicitor dealing with this Turns out the company we bought from went into liquidation and opened themselves up as a 'similar' company at the same time, so refuse to honour our claim. So we, via the solicitor, went to the credit card company and claimed through them. They are refusing to consider our claim until the manufacturer comes and inspects the product - we've already tried to get them to take some responsibility many times over the last year. The manufacturer says not their problem, is down the the seller and the credit card company. The solicitor is now preparing court papers for the liquidated company and the credit card company and a year down the line we are no further forward.

Where do we go with the credit card company? Clearly they are not prepared to pay up. I've had a card with them for years, frequently used, so not impresswed by their attitude. Should we raise with the FSA, or what? Anyone any experience of this sort of problem? Thanks for any help.

Hominu

I don't quite understand your post.

What did you buy, how much was it?

When it broke, did you contact the company you bought it from immediately and inform them that the product was no longer working?

What is this about legal cover on your house insurance and solicitors ? Did you not ask your CC company about the company and product first?

Thrugelmir

Was the product under a manufacturers warranty? Did you register the warranty?

agrinnall

Have you made a formal complaint to the CC issuer, and if so have they rejected it? Until that's happened, or 8 weeks have passed from making the complaint, you can't take it further. At that point you can complain to the FOS.

Somerset_Sue

It was internal doors costing £2000 so no warranty as such. The veneer started to fall off most of them within a month. Yes we complained to the supplier and they sent the fitter to report back. He said they were faulty, they said they'd sort. When we chased a week later to ask when this would be sorted they'd closed the branch, closed the business and opened up under another Companies House number. We did all the things the Which site told us to, wrote letters etc, next step was to go to court. Because this will cost money we don't have but do have legal cover on our home insurance we rang the insurers assuming (wrongly) that they'd cover costs - they don't, they hand on to a claims handling company who hand on to a local solicitor, who started the entire process again (despite us sending them copies of our letters). The seller's new company has been out and looked at the doors, safe in the knowledge it is nothing to do with them as they are not the 'original' company, and said yes, the veneer was peeling off, said they'd get the manufacturer to come out, went away and no one has been in touch, returned calls or speak to us or solicitor. No, we did not speak to the CC company first, having not been in this situation before, we didn't know we should. By the time the solicitor was involved, that we learned the original company had ceased trading, we suggested that the next step was the CC company. Solicitor has been told by CC company that they will not consider a claim until the manufacturer comes out. Manufacturer won't respond so we are in a catch22 situation. Solicitor suggested FSA but we have to make the complaint, not the solicitor.

jonesMUFCforever

Don't spend a penny more on solicitors.

Get a final response from the credit card then take your case to the ombudsman.
Take photos of the doors and keep all correspondence.

I don't believe a responsible solicitor would have taken on your case until the final reply to your complaint had been received.

Somerset_Sue

The solicitor is not costing us as such, it is part of and covered by our insurance policy. If we pull out before the complete the case we get charged their fees (about 10 months worth) so no option but to proceed Since this long drawn out procedure was not explained to us at the outset, we would not have gone down this route if we thought they'd drag it out this long, we just wanted our court etc fees paid, not to get embroiled with this amount of hassle but once we had started the process it was too late to back out.

But I will now be speaking to the solicitor MOnday to say we need to make a complaint to the CC company - she's talking about issuing court procedings which to my untrained eye seems a way for them to make money and inappropriate when the seller company is in liquidation.

jonesMUFCforever

If the company is in administration then it will be a waste of time going to court - the credit card is jointly liable so go after them first.
You have been done over like a kipper IMO as if the original transaction was nor bad enough.

Somerset_Sue

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

If the company is in administration then it will be a waste of time going to court - the credit card is jointly liable so go after them first.
.

The CC company will be listed as joint defendent in the court papers, solicitor says only way since the CC company won't deal with this. Now solicitor involved can't afford to get out of without getting their fees to pay - we looked into that, if we fail to follow their advice we have to pay fees and not be paid by insurance company.

Will be speaking to solicitor and FOS tomorrow.

molerat

The ambulance chasing solicitors are typically dragging this out to increase their fees. They want it to go to court because they will get an even bigger cut. Going straight to the CC co and then to the ombudsman if they did not play ball would have seen this settled months ago.

Somerset_Sue

molerat wrote: »

The ambulance chasing solicitors are typically dragging this out to increase their fees. They want it to go to court because they will get an even bigger cut. Going straight to the CC co and then to the ombudsman if they did not play ball would have seen this settled months ago.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I can see that now. But having not been in this situation before we did what we thought was the right thing and, as usual, we are stuffed.