B & Q - Paint falls from shelf onto clothes

sainty43

Please please help us out.

A pot of gloss paint fell from a shelf in B & Q and spilled all over my Girlfriends clothes, through no fault of our own. Badly stacked!

We have priced up all the clothes that were damaged and B & Q are happy to pay the £170 to replace everything.

However.....

If the damage was less than £100 to her clothes they will pay this, in Cash, in store and we let B & Q keep the damaged clothes. No receipts, paperwork etc.

As the amount is over £100 we now have to buy ALL of the replacement clothes first out of our own pocket, with money that we simply don't have. We then have to take all the receipts for these clothes aswell as the damaged clothes back to the B & Q store. They will then send this all off to head office to be authorised, put through the area manager and hopefully we will receive a cheque several weeks later.

My issue is that,

1.) We have to spend £170 of our own money that we do not have before they refund us several weeks later. How do we buy these replacement clothes if we do not have £170 lying around? We are a young couple, we have rent, bills and food to buy and are lucky to have £20 left at the end of the month, let alone £170 laying about.

2.) They wont put anything in writing to guarantee that they will re-imburse us when we do take receipts back. They could easily back track leaving us £170 out of pocket.

I have spoken to B & Q customer service and they are not interested in changing this policy.

I thought the law stood that I simply have to prove the cost of the clothing that they had ruined by obtaining an invoice of replacement, and they will re-imburse me for this. If they crashed a trolley into my car in the car park, I wouldn't have to have it repaired at my own cost, and then be refunded.

It all seems back to front, and I am at the end of my wits.

Please please help us.

Thank You for your time

k3lvc

sainty43 wrote: »

Please please help us out.

A pot of gloss paint fell from a shelf in B & Q and spilled all over my Girlfriends clothes, through no fault of our own. Badly stacked!

We have priced up all the clothes that were damaged and B & Q are happy to pay the £170 to replace everything.

However.....

If the damage was less than £100 to her clothes they will pay this, in Cash, in store and we let B & Q keep the damaged clothes. No receipts, paperwork etc.

As the amount is over £100 we now have to buy ALL of the replacement clothes first out of our own pocket, with money that we simply don't have. We then have to take all the receipts for these clothes aswell as the damaged clothes back to the B & Q store. They will then send this all off to head office to be authorised, put through the area manager and hopefully we will receive a cheque several weeks later.

My issue is that,

1.) We have to spend £170 of our own money that we do not have before they refund us several weeks later. How do we buy these replacement clothes if we do not have £170 lying around? We are a young couple, we have rent, bills and food to buy and are lucky to have £20 left at the end of the month, let alone £170 laying about.

2.) They wont put anything in writing to guarantee that they will re-imburse us when we do take receipts back. They could easily back track leaving us £170 out of pocket.

I have spoken to B & Q customer service and they are not interested in changing this policy.

I thought the law stood that I simply have to prove the cost of the clothing that they had ruined by obtaining an invoice of replacement, and they will re-imburse me for this. If they crashed a trolley into my car in the car park, I wouldn't have to have it repaired at my own cost, and then be refunded.

It all seems back to front, and I am at the end of my wits.

Please please help us.

Thank You for your time

Do you actually have the receipts for £170 to start with - if not you fail at the first hurdle and should take their offer of £100 and run then go shopping in the sales

sainty43

k3lvc wrote: »

Do you actually have the receipts for £170 to start with - if not you fail at the first hurdle and should take their offer of £100 and run then go shopping in the sales

Thanks but that doesn't really help me. What you are saying is wait xx months until the sales and hope that the clothes are available and that £100 covers the cost. This could still very much leave us out of pocket!

powerful_Rogue

I think B&Q are being very reasonable to be honest.

Take £100 cash, or prove to us that you have spent £170 on replacement clothing.

Nothing else you can do really. If you tried the small claims court I could see it being thrown out as B&Q are being reasonable.

sainty43

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

I think their being very reasonable to be honest.

Take £100 cash, or prove to us that you have spent £170 on replacement clothing.

Nothing else you can do really. If you tried the small claims court I could see it being thrown out as B&Q are being reasonable.

But I can prove to them it costs £170. Very easily. But they are only interested in refunding me once I have purchased these £170 of goods with £170 that I don't have. How am I meant to move forward?

duchy

What was the breakdown >
Most people don't dress up to go shopping in B&Q especially if they are on a budget that only leaves £20 at the end of the month. Best clothes are kept for best - not visiting a DIY store.

powerful_Rogue

sainty43 wrote: »

But I can prove to them it costs £170. Very easily. But they are only interested in refunding me once I have purchased these £170 of goods with £170 that I don't have. How am I meant to move forward?

Theres nothing else you can do. B&Q are being very reasonable.

The only real alternative would be to send a "Letter before Action" and then issue a claim in the small claims court - however I cant see how that would work as B&Q are not refusing to resolve the situation and as such can see it being laughed out by the judge.

Whats a breakdown of the items damaged and the costs?

Stevie_Palimo

sainty43 wrote: »

But I can prove to them it costs £170. Very easily. But they are only interested in refunding me once I have purchased these £170 of goods with £170 that I don't have. How am I meant to move forward?

If you are 100% genuine with a loss of £170.00 on her items that are damaged then email here and explain the issue stating that you cannot afford to cover this as per the request made :


[EMAIL="Kevin.OByrne@kingfisher.com"]Kevin.OByrne@kingfisher.com[/EMAIL]


Explain the full details and ask that they look into this to enable you to have this resolved, You should take photo's of said clothing plus the receipts and attach to the email you send and see what they say.

mije1983

sainty43 wrote: »

But I can prove to them it costs £170. Very easily.

How can you do that without receipts from when you bought them originally? They may well cost £170 brand new in a shop now, but B&Q don't know if you picked them up cheap at a charity shop for example.

I think their offer of £100 to you, with no evidence of cost, is pretty reasonable. If you want more, you will have to show them that the clothes did indeed cost the amount you are claiming.

PasturesNew

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Credit card?

You seriously cannot scrape together £170 for a couple of weeks until you get reimbursed?

If not should you go around wearing £170 worth of clothes?

Not many people could ... but if they were going out then they might be wearing their best clothes, that they've bought, piece by piece, over the last six months.... or were bought some for Xmas/birthday presents from parents.

There are few people floating around who can lay their hands on £170 for a couple of months.... they'd need to save it up.

sainty43

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not many people could ... but if they were going out then they might be wearing their best clothes, that they've bought, piece by piece, over the last six months.... or were bought some for Xmas/birthday presents from parents.

There are few people floating around who can lay their hands on £170 for a couple of months.... they'd need to save it up.

Thank you. Finally a sensible answer!

I don't know why I need to explain why we were wearing what we were? For a start she was wearing £70 waterproof leather walking boots, £50 river island jeans, £30 jumper, £15 shoulder bag and a £2 pair of socks! I didn't realise this was exceptional for shopping in B & Q but I shall check their clothing policy next time

Secondly I shouldn't have to prove that we don't have £170! In fact not many of our friends would have that kind of money sitting around!

I feel I have posted on the wrong forum here? I'm being judged on what clothes my gf was wearing to go shopping and the fact that I don't have £170 lying around the place. I think most of the points I have raised above have been missed, especially point 2!