Need advice re Buy now pay 12 months later

N3il

We bought some kitchen appliances in march from homebase on a buy now pay in 12 months interest free thing.

Its been sort of worrying us a little so decided to pay it off today, havent had any documents so it took a while to get the finance company details from homebase (its Barclays).

Rang them and was told homebase haven't told them the goods were dispatched (this was march we had them) and so they havent given any money to homebase and we dont have an active account with them. They did confirm that we would have 12 months to pay from the date homebase notify them, IE if its today then we have till nov 2015 etc.

Honestly im fed up of chasing homebase round, they are utterly useless and i don't want to waste time trying to get them to sort this, so would it be reasonable for me to leave it and let them do it in their own time and take the 12 months or are there some possible bad consequences for me down the line?

Cheers

Foxy-Stoat_3

I would read the contract/credit agreement you signed and follow that, not what some roundtrees-randomer says on the phone to you.

If the agreement says you have 12 months interest free credit from the day Homebase notifies Barclays that the goods have been dispatched then I would diary this for another 6 months.

N3il

Thing is we never received an agreement, I guess i need to ask for a copy from homebase.

Thanks

enthusiasticsaver

You definitely should have received some sort of finance agreement either from homebase or Barclays. We have just done a similar payment arrangement for a conservatory so if you pay it off within a year there is no interest to pay but if you go over the year the interest rate is extortionate. You really want the terms and conditions in writing, don't trust the staff on the phone, most of the time they are hopeless.

Bmth100

That's inspiring, I have a Homebase due by February haha. Did think they were a creation though...

chanz4

with them it will also be picked up at audit, homebase is argos

Pixie5740

N3il wrote: »

Honestly im fed up of chasing homebase round, they are utterly useless and i don't want to waste time trying to get them to sort this, so would it be reasonable for me to leave it and let them do it in their own time and take the 12 months or are there some possible bad consequences for me down the line?

What do you mean by "let them do it in their own time and take the 12 months?"

They won't just take the payment, you'll need to make the payment on time or you'll get slapped with a horrific interest rate.

These buy-now-pay-later deals are only good if you can remember to pay later on time.

Gaz83

With a lot of 'buy now, pay later' deals, the interest rate is applied from the day of purchase if the payment isn't made by the due date.

Say you'd bought something worth £1,000 with a 20% APR... if you pay it off within the 12 months you'll only pay £1,000, but if you're a day late, the balance may well be £1,200.

N3il

Okay thanks for the advice guys will chase it up with homebase.. Honestly they are such an awful company to deal with though. Not going to buy a thing from them again.

Foxy-Stoat_3

N3il wrote: »

Okay thanks for the advice guys will chase it up with homebase.. Honestly they are such an awful company to deal with though. Not going to buy a thing from them again.

What, because you didn't put your copy of the agreement you signed in a safe place now you can't find it?

N3il

My displeasure with homebase is not just limited to this issue with the credit.

The whole story is as such, condensed.. Bought a cooker, hob and extractor from them on this deal, to be delivered 4 weeks after purchase. Got home, checked invoice, found they had replaced the cooker we ordered on the invoice with another one costing some £200 less and still charged us the higher price. Went back to complain, had to wait 1.5 hours in store to sort it out, finally got it resolved having to pay yet more money for a more expensive cooker since the one we had "ordered" some 2 hours ago was apparently discontinued. All we ever got from homebase was a receipt, no credit agreement or anything, we foolishly assumed that would arrive in the post.

Anyway about a week after purchase we kept getting calls from them to deliver the next week even though we had specified 4 weeks, we called them and explained and they insisted on delivering early. The kitchen fitter had not even started at that time.

They delivered the goods and we put them in the conservatory out the way till the guy needed them. When he did he found that there was some damage to a part, which homebase refused to deal with because it was outside of the period in which they feel they are liable to do so. They couldnt even arrange a replacement. We contacted Neff who said all homebase need to do is give them a part number and they could sort if but homebase wouldnt do that. Eventually we agreed homebase would give £50 "good will" and we would order the part from Neff ourselves which oddly enough cost £50.

Part arrived the next day, all good. After a few weeks we got a letter from homebase enclosing their £50 gift card (not what was agreed, they specifically stated a cheque). Emailed their central complaints dept who apologised and said they would send a cheque for £50 and we could keep the gift card again as a good will gesture. Got the cheque from them, gave the gift card to my mum who tried to spend it and was told they had cancelled it.

These may well be small issues but they added up to being quite a frustrating experience resulting in my having very little trust in the company as a whole, and thats why i don't want to deal with homebase again.