Victoria Plum sale, mislead into early purchase?

dropnflip

Hi,

I'm after some advice. We're getting some works done to the house, including a new bathroom and decided to look at Victoria Plum.

We'd added all our goods to a basket whilst agreeing which suite/taps we liked etc. when we noticed the countdown at the top of the page saying the 50% + 10% sale was ending in less than 24 hours.

We weren't getting our bathroom till March, but we did not want to miss out on the savings being offered so purchased the goods in our cart there and then.

The items were delivered a week or so later and there were damaged and missing items, so I went back to the site to get in touch with customer services.

When doing so I saw that not only were my items were all still in my basket, but the sale counter had been reset and I had 2 days XX hours to benefit from the 50% + 10% sale.

I decided to check if the value of the items in my basket and was shocked to find that they were now £140.25 less in the 'new' 50% + 10% sale (the tiles we bought had been further reduced).

I feel we were mislead into making an early purchase by a sale that did not really end. I've taken this up with Victoria Plum who have said this is a totally different sale and prices of goods change over time, therefore they won't offer me any money back.

Do I have a valid complaint here? I would really like them, especially in light of the other issues, to refund the difference. We're not talking about a price change over a period of months, this is just a few weeks after the boxing day sale 'ended', which pressured me into the early purchase.

pinkshoes

As it comes under distance selling, why not just reject the entire purchase?

You will not have to pay to return faulty items, but depending on their T&Cs you will probably have to pay for return of other items and any reasonable restocking fee.

They are ALWAYS having a sale!

Le_Kirk

The usual question asked is "what would you have done had the price increased - offered them some more money?"

However, pinskshoes advice is valid, just a case of working our further reductions versus restocking fee.

dropnflip

Thanks for your replies, it look's like I just chalk this one off to a bad experience as the cost of returning the goods plus the hassle of arranging that and taking more time off work for the delivery etc. would counteract the benefit of the £140 refund.

I certainly won't be recommending Victoria Plum to anyone as the practice of applying pressure by inferring "buy now or the sale ends and you'll have to pay more tomorrow" to then find you're actually worse off is shockingly dishonest.

"what would you have done had the price increased - offered them some more money?"

Of course not, they were implying the prices would increase by having a big red counter saying the sale finishes within XX hours. The whole reason I am upset is the sale didn't end, and the prices went down, not up!

Hmph :mad:, time to move on

mije1983

Playing devil's advocate, but maybe the sale did end when they indicated and then a week later they had a new sale.

dropnflip

To be fair, I didn't check the day after my purchase, so this may have been the case.

I suppose the thing that has really got me is the pressure applied by the countdown implying that sale was ending and the prices would increase, when the facts I currently have available to me indicate the reverse happened.

They have every right to reduce the pricing of any item at any time. I would feel really guilty though if I told a customer a sale was ending only to reduce things further a short period later. I guess that's why I have not made my fortune in business yet

hcb42

some companies have permanent sales - e.g. kitchens and bathroom companies, carpet companies and sofa companies.....it's best not to rush into a 'deal' with these kind of companies