Right to return goods

ndf9876

Morning all

Looking for a bit of advice on a situation my soon-to-be wife and I are in. I think I am on the right lines but would appreciate further input!

So, at the back end of last year (maybe September time?) my other half ordered 5 x bridesmaids dresses, made-to-measure, from a website (which has a UK address but the dresses and, I suspect, much of the business, operates from another country). She paid using her debit card. She also ordered matching gents ties and pocket squares. The dresses cost £105 each, the ties / pocket squares totalled £30. The gents goods were not custom-made.

Two of the dresses, and the gents goods, arrived on 9th January. We were disappointed that they did not look like the pictures shown on the website (e.g. seams in odd places) but the other half arranged her bridesmaids to come for a fitting. The fitting happened on Saturday, whereupon we discovered the dresses did not match the measurements we sent the company at all - we have evidence of this (we measured the dresses and compared them to the order). We're talking 15-20cm difference in some areas at minimum, so not a small difference. On the same day, she also received an email stating that one of the remaining dresses was going to be a slightly different colour - no reason given.

Luckily her mum knows a professional seamstress as a friend of the family, so we were able to get in touch and got a "mates rates" quote of £120 to adjust each dress. So now we are left with two ill-fitting dresses (they look really, really bad) and three more on the way, one of which is not the colour ordered. My other half has contacted the company who have stated, after emails to and fro (no tel. no. supplied) that they will offer 70% refund on two of the dresses and nothing on the gentlemans goods. We want to reject everything, because ties and pocket squares that will not match the dresses (we will now need to go and source new bridesmaid dresses that will probably be different colours).

I quoted Consumer Rights Act 2015 and said that I want to return all the goods - the gents goods under Distance Selling Regs, the dresses because they were not of satisfactory quality and not as described. The other company have said that we can keep the goods - we don't want them - but their offer of 70% refund on 2 dresses is the best they will do.

So...

- Am I right in thinking that I have right to complete redress of all goods under DSR and SOGA / Consumer Rights Act?
- If the company refuse to co-operate, can I start MCOL against them using their UK address or is it likely to be a bum steer?

Needing to source replacement dresses, we can't really afford to be out of pocket to the tune of close to £500; alterations seem impractical and that's really our least preferred option as the bridesmaids are not impressed with the dresses.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Gary123456790

Hi, sounds like a right pain - custom made goods i believe are exempt from your statutory right to return, combined with the fact that it seems like the company is based overseas. This limits your options, as you can't enforce UK law against a foreign company, and can't take them to court.

It sounds like your best option would be to keep the gents bits, look for matching dresses and get whatever you can out of the company. Would the bank do a chargeback perhaps ?

Thanks.

ndf9876

Gary123456790 wrote: »

Hi, sounds like a right pain - custom made goods i believe are exempt from your statutory right to return, combined with the fact that it seems like the company is based overseas. This limits your options, as you can't enforce UK law against a foreign company, and can't take them to court.

It sounds like your best option would be to keep the gents bits, look for matching dresses and get whatever you can out of the company. Would the bank do a chargeback perhaps ?

Thanks.

I did wonder about the chargeback option - we are reluctant to do that whilst still hanging onto the dresses, yet they are our only proof right now that they are not what we wanted (i.e. don't match the custom measurements supplied and not as pictured on website). I'm also struggling because the advice we were given goes against their own refund policy on their website :

100% Returns Policy
[Name of Company] promises that if the dresses you receive are made wrongly, defective, or not the same as advertised, you can send them back for full refunds or exchanges. Even if you simply don't like them, you can send them back for a 70% refund. We charge 30% for restocking since all our dresses, including the standard sized ones are hand tailored for you from scratch.

Geodark

ndf9876 wrote: »

Morning all

Looking for a bit of advice on a situation my soon-to-be wife and I are in. I think I am on the right lines but would appreciate further input!

So, at the back end of last year (maybe September time?) my other half ordered 5 x bridesmaids dresses, made-to-measure, from a website (which has a UK address but the dresses and, I suspect, much of the business, operates from another country). She paid using her debit card. She also ordered matching gents ties and pocket squares. The dresses cost £105 each, the ties / pocket squares totalled £30. The gents goods were not custom-made.

Two of the dresses, and the gents goods, arrived on 9th January. We were disappointed that they did not look like the pictures shown on the website (e.g. seams in odd places) but the other half arranged her bridesmaids to come for a fitting. The fitting happened on Saturday, whereupon we discovered the dresses did not match the measurements we sent the company at all - we have evidence of this (we measured the dresses and compared them to the order). We're talking 15-20cm difference in some areas at minimum, so not a small difference. On the same day, she also received an email stating that one of the remaining dresses was going to be a slightly different colour - no reason given.

Luckily her mum knows a professional seamstress as a friend of the family, so we were able to get in touch and got a "mates rates" quote of £120 to adjust each dress. So now we are left with two ill-fitting dresses (they look really, really bad) and three more on the way, one of which is not the colour ordered. My other half has contacted the company who have stated, after emails to and fro (no tel. no. supplied) that they will offer 70% refund on two of the dresses and nothing on the gentlemans goods. We want to reject everything, because ties and pocket squares that will not match the dresses (we will now need to go and source new bridesmaid dresses that will probably be different colours).

I quoted Consumer Rights Act 2015 and said that I want to return all the goods - the gents goods under Distance Selling Regs, the dresses because they were not of satisfactory quality and not as described. The other company have said that we can keep the goods - we don't want them - but their offer of 70% refund on 2 dresses is the best they will do.

So...

- Am I right in thinking that I have right to complete redress of all goods under DSR and SOGA / Consumer Rights Act?
- If the company refuse to co-operate, can I start MCOL against them using their UK address or is it likely to be a bum steer?

Needing to source replacement dresses, we can't really afford to be out of pocket to the tune of close to £500; alterations seem impractical and that's really our least preferred option as the bridesmaids are not impressed with the dresses.

Thanks in advance for any help!

So have any of the dresses been amended since you got them? Could this not complicate things in terms of returns / chargeback?

ndf9876

Geodark wrote: »

So have any of the dresses been amended since you got them? Could this not complicate things in terms of returns / chargeback?

Nope - we just got a quote, the dresses have not been touched, amended or altered in any way.

unholyangel

As soon as you said 5 bridesmaid dresses, I knew where your story was headed.

Typically this scam involves ordering beautiful amazing dresses at rack prices (or below) from a chinese company and when the goods turn up...well, theres actually sites/pages dedicated to how insanely different they are from the promised article.

Have a look at the UK address but you'll probably find its fake/a "virtual" office/PO box.

Chargeback is about your only option.

Also, being made to your specifications would exempt an item from the right to cancel for change of mind, but not where the goods fail to conform. Further to that, where some goods conform and some dont, you have the options of:
1) accepting all the goods
2) rejecting all the goods
3) rejecting the goods that don't conform but accept the goods that do conform (unless its a commercial unit then you must reject or accept the unit as a whole).

So if they had been a UK company, then you would have had the right to reject all of the goods (even the gents items) under the Consumer Rights Act due to the dresses not conforming.

ndf9876

Well, after a LOT of wrangling, we are in the following position now :

- The company do not want us to return ANY of the items.
- The company have agreed to give us a FULL refund on three of the dresses, after we presented a video of us measuring the dress (and how it looked on the bridesmaid). Two are ill-fitting, one is a different colour to what we ordered.
- The other two dresses have not yet arrived, but we can have a 70% refund if there is a problem with them.
- No mention of the gents goods; to be honest they are actually quite nice and I could probably whack them on eBay.

We have zero confidence that the remaining dresses will arrive and be what we wanted although we are going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I have told my other half to get the 0% purchase CC out, use that at a high street store (or at least somewhere UK based) and we will use any refund to repay the credit card.

What boggles me is that the company in question has LOADS of rave reviews, and just a handful reporting the same experience (although on Facebook, an allegation was made that the company pays people to remove negative reviews and / or write shill reviews). Anyway, that's the moan over with, thanks all for your advice. Lesson learned here.

shaun_from_Africa

ndf9876 wrote: »

What boggles me is that the company in question has LOADS of rave reviews,

I think that your post should actually read:

ndf9876 wrote: »

the company in question has LOADS of fake reviews,