Safestyle fiasco

Susanlily

In August of this year a Safestyle UK salesman came out to give me a quote for a metre wide wheelchair accessible door and wheelchair threshold with side panels as i have Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis and need to use a wheelchair to get out and about.
It was arranged for a surveyor to come out, which he did and on the forms he clearly states a 1000mm door with wheelchair threshold. I paid my £100 deposit with the further £1944 to be paid upon completion.
I was given an installation date, no one turned up, i rang to see where they were and was told they were not coming. A whole day wasted and five hours of a privately paid carers time. I got not apology.
I was given a second installation date but the frame was broken. The fitter offered to "bodge it together with filler" but i declined. More of my time and my carers time wasted and more money wasted.
I was given a third installation date, yet again no one turned up and yet again i received no phone call. I had to call them to be told they were not coming. Another day wasted and another five hours of my carers time and my money.
Installation date number four. They showed up but the side panels had been manufactured incorrectly so the fitter had to add sills to the side panels to keep my house secure. Outside was left untidy with a large screw on the floor and debris everywhere.
I gave Safestyle two weeks to phone, apologise and set up another date. After two weeks i phoned them and was given another date.
Installation day number five came. Initially he said the side panels were wrong again but then after a phone call he 'suddenly found correct ones behind the others' in his van. The door was fitted, the side panels fitted and at last everythung seemed correct. I paid my balance and was advised to claim compensation for the shambolic time it had taken and poor customer service.

It was whilst i was writing a letter of complaint that i chose to measure the door etc. They have fitted a 90cm door so i phoned their customer advice line and asked if a metre door was actually a metre wide and a 90cm door 90cm wide or was it the frame size. I was reassured it was the door size so if i ordered a 1000mm door that would be what i would get. A door 1000mm wide. I wrote this conversation down in the letter of complaint and after a farcical phone call from them today where they asked continually, 'does you wheelchair go through the gap" and harping on that the door was correct it was the frame that was a metre wide (at which point i gave them the date and time i spoke to their customer care line where they said the exact opposite). Ultimately after asking me to take photos and i refused they said they would send a surveyor out.

This evening i have received an email from Safestyle telling me the door is what i ordered, the surveyor has checked the paperwork and it is all correct and they offered a goodwill gesture of £50!

I am angry, insulted and flabberghasted that they can treat any customer like this, let alone a disabled one. I have refused their offer and think i shall contact trading standards, legal advise perhaps. Any ideas folks as to how to go forward. The customerservice advisor advised me to accept nothing less than 25% compensation after the third installation date no show and up to 50% if the service got worse which it did.

Help!

lammy82

If you go down the legal route I think you will need to spell out what your actual losses are from this poor treatment.

Can you quantify the cost of the carer's time and any other out of pocket expenses?

As for the door not being the full promised width, you should consider whether you want them to refit a wider door, reinstate your original door, or do nothing. If the door they have supplied is of a quantifiably lesser value to the one you ordered, then you should claim the difference in value. If it's just their confusion about door/frame width and the door suits your purpose fine, then I'd leave it. Unless the door is actually no good, but it doesn't sound like you have a problem with the finished product? I.e. 90cm instead of 1m width doesn't make a material difference to how the door works for you?

As far as I know, there's no legal right to compensation for them taking multiple visits to do the job, or leaving the site untidy or leaving a screw on the floor.

So I would focus on quantifying how much you have had to actually spend because of their no-shows and spell it out for them. If you request 25% or 50% back, this is totally up to them, it's not a legal entitlement, so you can try it but it sounds like they've already decided they're not going to give you that.

I am not a lawyer.