Bensons For Beds - Faulty Mattress - Comfort Guarantee issues

swgdesign

I am hoping someone here can help me with what I think is a blatent load of crap and Bensons For Beds trying to negate having to swap my mattress?

I bought a mattress Bensons For Beds on 2/1/2020 and it was delivered on 4/2/2020. Within 3 days a rather noticeable dip had appeared, so I complained and a  Homeserve technician was sent out. Thankfully, the technician reported that the delivery men had damaged the mattress by folding it in the lift (which they did use) - all well and good.
Now, I had to sleep on this damaged mattress for 6 weeks waiting for a replacement to be manufactured and delivered (that's a joke in itself) on the 14/3/2020. Just over 2 weeks ago, I rung them to complain that I did not find the mattress comfortable and I was experiencing lower back pain and could I maybe switch it for a different mattress inline with the 40 night comfort guarantee. The below is what I was told pretty much verbatim by the condescending customer support rep (Steve);

"the comfort guarantee is more of a good-will gesture, and is not a guarantee"
"The period of time starts from the delivery of your first mattress and is continuous"
"It does not restart on the delivery of a replacement mattress"

I emailed support a lengthy complaint email, and all I got told was the same BS. There is nothing they can do about it.

What are my rights on this as far as the issue of the above and there being nothing about these statements in their T&Cs, or on the Comfort Guarantee web page?
How is a customer supposed to assess a mattress that has been damaged from day one?

Any help greatly appreciated.
Simon

JJ_Egan

They are right if that's what their guarantee is .Its an extra subject to terms and conditions and not your Consumer Rights  . CR see sticky top of page .

shaun_from_Africa

My suggestion,
Contact them again and point out that under the terms of their comfort guarantee, you are entitled to an exchange:

You can only exchange your mattress once under the guarantee.

The first time the mattress was replaced it was because of your statutory rights as they delivered a faulty item and not because of the guarantee.
Make sure that you state that due to the damage on the first mattress, you were unable to satisfactorily assess it for comfort due to the dip in it so you think that the 40-56 day period should only start once you were given an undamaged mattress. 

As for it being "a good will gesture". 
This is not the case. Whilst it's certainly true that they are not legally obliged to offer such a guarantee, once they do so, the terms of that guarantee are taken to form part of the contract of sale. If this wasn't the case, any shady retailer could state just about anything that they wished in order to entice consumers to make a purchase then refuse to hopnour those promises.

swgdesign

Thanks for your replies. I did indeed point out the above points in my complaint email to them, and they just ignored everything I pointed out. They did not address my questions or the fact that the original mattress was damaged on delivery. They just reiterated the same comments that there was nothing they could do. 

To be honest I think what they're trying to pull is rather fraudulent when there is nothing in writing in any of their terms and conditions relating to damaged goods and their comfort gaurantee. You cannot advertise something as a gaurantee, and then withdraw it when it suits your business or you do not want to meet said gaurantee. 

I guess my next steps are to contact Consumer Direct/Trading standards and go from there?

Thanks, Simon