Mattress returns & price-gouging

DCooper_2

Hello!

So a week ago my elderly mother mentioned that she was going to look to buy a new mattress. I said not to go ahead with it right away as I figured that mattresses, being a somewhat infrequent purchase, might be an area in which that infrequency is exploited. Nonetheless she visited a local bed/mattress store a few days later and purchased a mattress there and then. She mentioned that the experience was a little weird, as the (only) person there asked if she could pay partly in cash as otherwise they would have to close the store for a while while they went to get some cash that the store needed for some reason or another.

My mother paid £500 total for a mattress, £440 on her debit card and £60 in cash at that person's request. My main thought was that that mattress had better be the best mattress ever, I know that good quality mattresses can go for those sorts of prices and far beyond but that's still an expensive mattress.

The mattress got delivered, and it's a nice mattress and apparently very comfortable. Then I looked to see how good of a "deal" it was, expecting that online-only retailers would naturally have it at a lower price. What I found was that a couple of other bricks-and-mortar bed/mattress stores (not online-only, even) had the identical model of mattress priced at £180 and £200 respectively. I also found a Gumtree post where a person was selling the same mattress, and mentioned that they'd purchased it for £200 a year earlier. All of which suggested that something around £200 would be the reasonable price for it.

I understand that there will be variations in price, and if it had cost £250, or maybe even £300, that would fall within the realms of a "reasonable" variation in my eyes. £500 though is clearly a price-gouging !!!!-take based on exploiting people who implicitly trust a local, established store not to engage in that kind of profiteering, and who also wouldn't be savvy enough to immediately check on the value of the deal being offered.

My mother was provided with no documentation regarding terms and conditions, or details about the company's returns policy. Their website gives no information regarding returns. I looked into general returns policy for mattresses and read about how there's a large variation in policy from company to company, and how mattresses fall into a category where elements of consumer rights may not apply. I sent an anonymous email to the company generally asking about their returns policy, but I suppose my question is one of whether there'd be any kind of recourse or option for recourse in the event that they say something along the lines of "no returns". My concern is, obviously, that this is a "buyer beware" situation, but it's clear that given where mattresses fall in the category of return rights, this is what these kind of price-gougers count upon.

Many thanks for advice.

unholyangel

Unfortunately when you buy in person, theres no automatic right to return items unless they don't conform to contract. Online you have 14 days to change your mind but that right of cancellation can be lost in certain circumstances (ie if the mattress was sealed for hygiene reasons and the wrapping was removed).

Now if the salesman had made false claims about market conditions in order to get your mother to buy, that might breach the CPRs (consumer protection from unfair trading regulations) which you could perhaps argue should invalidate the contract.

But is there the possibility she went ahead on her own as she wanted to show shes still capable of buying her own mattress? If so, I'd consider letting it go. Pointing out how much cheaper she could have got it is probably only going to make her feel bad (not saying its the case, just a possibility I thought of when considering why she'd go ahead after you asked her to wait).

I'd hang fire at the moment anyway. You never know the stores response and perhaps even if they're not willing to entertain a refund, they might be willing to allow your mother to pick a different mattress. Being more expensive for one mattress doesnt always mean they're more expensive for every one. They could just have a different supplier.