John Lewis mattress

mezmerise1

I’d appreciate any advice on this please as we don’t know where to turn.

My partner bought an expensive pocket-sprung mattress a couple of years ago from John Lewis. It seemed ok, though she often slept in the other room with the baby. When I moved in though, it became apparent that this mattress was unusable. It gave us both terrible back pain if we slept on it together, leading to us sleeping separately. 

When we brought this to John Lewis’ attention they sent out an ‘independent’ assessor. He looked at it and asked questions, mainly relating to delivery. His report then contained distortions and plain falsehoods which John Lewis used to reject our claim.

We then solicited our own assessor who concluded that the mattress has indeed been made incorrectly, and wrote us his detailed report. We intended to file a report to the ombudsman, only to discover that John Lewis is not part of the ombudsman scheme. We don’t know where this leaves us.

Any suggestions?

theonlywayisup

Your report allows you to go back to John Lewis themselves, you don't need an Ombudsman. 

There are plenty of template letters and advice HERE which you can use to escalate your complaint to John Lewis.  Be sure to let them know you are pursuing this under the Consumer Rights Act 2015

Six months or more

If a defect develops after the first six months, the burden is on you to prove that the product was faulty at the time the goods were delivered to you.

In practice, this may require some form of expert report, opinion or evidence of similar problems or defects across the product range.

The retailer can also make a deduction from any refund for fair use after the first six months of ownership if an attempt at a repair or replacement is unsuccessful.

You have up to six years to take a claim to the small claims court for faulty goods in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and five years in Scotland.

This doesn't mean that a product has to last six years - just that you have this length of time in which to make a claim if a retailer refuses to repair or replace a faulty product.

Sandtree

mezmerise1 said:
We intended to file a report to the ombudsman, only to discover that John Lewis is not part of the ombudsman scheme. 

There are 2.5 types of ombudsman out there....

1) Legislative ombudsman like the FOS where their existence comes from statute and membership is mandatory
2) Voluntary ombudsman... these are formally ombudsman but have much less powers because they arent backed by law and companies can chose to be covered or not.
2.5) False ombudsman... the retail ombudsman was the key example before they changed their name... they self proclaimed themselves as a voluntary ombudsman but failed to be accredited by Trading Standards as an ombudsman

2 and 2.5 are not vastly better than other forms of ADR given they have no powers in law.

As you also have an "independent" report (there will always be a question over how independent a report is -v- the person paying for it) then you are in a one persons word against another situation. In the first instance submit your report to JL and await their responses. 

In my case I had to litigate against JL but as soon as the paperwork landed their external law firm contacted me and offered settlement, on first refusal, in full