Bensons for Beds wrong mattress delivered, years passed, what are my rights?

Poppymum2016

👋 

5 years ago we bought a super king adjustable mii bed with Bensons’ own mattresses. We paid for the medium mattresses.
Everything was delivered fine but my husband and I thought the mattresses were way too firm for what we had tried in the store when buying.

I called and asked about this, the woman on the phone asked me to read out the label on the end of the mattress and she said, yes, that’s the medium, it’s just because the showroom mattresses have been used by customers testing them out.
I thought, ok, she must know what she’s talking about, and it made sense that a mattress might get softer with use.
I’ll add here that I was fresh out of stage 4 cancer surgery (hence the need for adjustable beds) and chemo the previous year which affects my memory and focus etc, a lot.

5 years have passed and I’ve not remembered this conversation because of chemo fog, but I’ve had to stay with my unwell mum for a few months, sleeping on a lovely medium mattress. When I finally slept in my own bed again I realised just how hard our mattresses are. They haven’t ‘softened’ as the woman 5 years ago said. 

Looking at the label again, it says ‘a supremely firmer mattress’ and ‘firm springs’. I was so ‘out of it’ with cancer treatment and mental health when I spoke to the woman about the beds, I just took what she said as law, but looking at things now, I don’t believe there’s any way we were given the medium mattresses. 

Do I have any rights, nearly 5 years later, to contest this and finally get the mattresses we were sold, or even a refund?

sorry for the long post! And thank you!
Jo

bris

No, by using it for 5 years you accepted it a long time ago.

Mistakes happen, some people get it fixed, some think it's no big deal and will keep the product, you are one of those people

How much do you think a 5 year old used mattress is woth to anyone these days? If even gy some great customer service work on their part they agreed, thats the amount of partial refund you would get.

ThumbRemote

In theory you've got some rights as the legal limit for claims is 6 years. However, realistically, you've got next to no chance. You've used the mattress for 5 years which is likely to mean you've accepted the goods. Even if you did try to claim against them, what's the value of the mattress now? They aren't going to replace new for old. And you still have the problem of proving it's the wrong mattress since they probably don't manufacture that one any more.

Grumpy_chap

I suspect there are no consumer rights for this particular issue after 5 years. 

When we purchased our bed and firm mattress (from Bensons for Beds as it happens), the deal was 5 year warranty and 5 year interest free finance and the Sales Lady was on a patter that we should think of the mattress as having a 5-year life expectancy so when the finance ends that is the prompt that we need to replace the mattress with a new one, so we'd then take another 5-year interest free credit and the monthly just becomes like the bed equivalent of a car PCP.

FWIW, our mattress has softened over time.

Randomly selected online articles suggest a mattress life in the range 5 - 10 years:
https://www.sleepadvisor.org/how-long-mattresses-last/
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mattress-information/how-long-should-a-mattress-last
https://www.healthline.com/health/when-to-change-mattress#What-are-the-general-guidelines?

Having had and used the mattress for 5 years, I suspect any refund would be virtually zero as it would be what you paid less the value of benefit received over the five years and only the residual benefit of the mattress over the next zero to however many years the life expectancy is on that mattress.

I assume that the mattress you purchased is not one of the brands such as Tempur that are sold with a 10 or 15 year guarantee.

joannaphillips said:

👋 

5 years ago we bought a super king adjustable mii bed with Bensons’ own mattresses. We paid for the medium mattresses.
Everything was delivered fine but my husband and I thought the mattresses were way too firm for what we had tried in the store when buying.

I called and asked about this, the woman on the phone asked me to read out the label on the end of the mattress and she said, yes, that’s the medium, it’s just because the showroom mattresses have been used by customers testing them out.
I thought, ok, she must know what she’s talking about, and it made sense that a mattress might get softer with use.
I’ll add here that I was fresh out of stage 4 cancer surgery (hence the need for adjustable beds) and chemo the previous year which affects my memory and focus etc, a lot.

5 years have passed and I’ve not remembered this conversation because of chemo fog, but I’ve had to stay with my unwell mum for a few months, sleeping on a lovely medium mattress. When I finally slept in my own bed again I realised just how hard our mattresses are. They haven’t ‘softened’ as the woman 5 years ago said. 

Looking at the label again, it says ‘a supremely firmer mattress’ and ‘firm springs’. I was so ‘out of it’ with cancer treatment and mental health when I spoke to the woman about the beds, I just took what she said as law, but looking at things now, I don’t believe there’s any way we were given the medium mattresses. 

Do I have any rights, nearly 5 years later, to contest this and finally get the mattresses we were sold, or even a refund?

sorry for the long post! And thank you!
Jo

kobe84

bris said:

No, by using it for 5 years you accepted it a long time ago.

Mistakes happen, some people get it fixed, some think it's no big deal and will keep the product, you are one of those people

How much do you think a 5 year old used mattress is woth to anyone these days? If even gy some great customer service work on their part they agreed, thats the amount of partial refund you would get.

ThumbRemote said:

In theory you've got some rights as the legal limit for claims is 6 years. However, realistically, you've got next to no chance. You've used the mattress for 5 years which is likely to mean you've accepted the goods. Even if you did try to claim against them, what's the value of the mattress now? They aren't going to replace new for old. And you still have the problem of proving it's the wrong mattress since they probably don't manufacture that one any more.

It's worth mentioning that the Consumer Rights Act (unlike the old SOGA) does not use the concept of "acceptance" so this can't be used as an excuse not to be able to exercise your statutory consumer rights. I'd agree though that time has taken it's toll and I think the OP would find it very difficult to get anything from this and probably not worth the hassle or stress.

theoretica

Even when you don't have rights it can be worth seeing if you can get anything through goodwill and asking nicely - would you want a discount on a medium mattress from them, for instance?

sheramber

Do you have proof you 'bought' a medium mattress?

Do you have a receipt that says medium on it. 

The problem might be proving the mattress you have is the same one delivered 5 years ago.

molerat

What is a medium mattress ?

From a blog on the subject

Unfortunately, there is no uniform industry standard for a mattress's firmness rating

One man's firm is another's medium.

Poppymum2016

Hey all, thanks for the replies.

I’m not in this for a refund, I don’t want monetary gain.
What irks is that the bed label states it is a firm sprung mattress. I called and spoke to someone, read them the label and told them the bed felt a LOT harder than the ones we tried.
The sales person didn’t do any actual checking, simply said the ones in the showroom were softer as they’d been used. 5 years later and this is clearly not the case.
I have the receipt because mii beds come with a 10 year guarantee, it states medium as the mattress firmness.
I didn’t accept, and haven’t accepted the goods for 5 years, I enquired as I believed I was sent the wrong product. I was told I hadn’t, even though logic now tells me, because of the label and the firmness, that I did in fact have the wrong product.
I was in a messed up place, living in a hazy world of stage 4 cancer, my brain not working correctly. I just accepted what this woman said over the phone because I was like a robot back then, waiting to get sicker and sicker.
The past 5 years are a blur of scans and half-life. As I said, only after sleeping on another mattress have I realised and remembered what happened all that time ago. That is the only reason it has taken 5 years to finally deal with this.

The point is, I believe I was provided with the wrong goods and fobbed off by a member of staff who couldn’t be bothered to deal with me.

Alderbank

joannaphillips said:

Hey all, thanks for the replies

First of all you have been through a very rough time and I am really pleased that you are coming out of that tunnel and feeling so much better now.

The point is, I believe I was provided with the wrong goods and fobbed off by a member of staff who couldn’t be bothered to deal with me.
I was in a messed up place, living in a hazy world of stage 4 cancer, my brain not working correctly.

Perhaps you were not the easiest person to deal with. Also, recollections do vary (as the Queen said), especially when in pain and under strong medication. Perhaps you are being a little uncharitable?

I’m not in this for a refund, I don’t want monetary gain.

...and yet you have posted this in Consumer Rights.
I'm afraid that is all Consumer Rights gives you, just monetary gain and refunds. Nothing else.

Poppymum2016

Alderbank, thanks, it’s been a ride.
Ive always been a very polite person, and living in a robotic haze I was almost unnaturally cheerful, so I would have been easy to deal with.
I suppose I’m hoping that I would be able to get, in exchange for the wrongly delivered goods, the mattresses I actually paid for.
Perhaps a stupid belief, but if you don’t ask…