Faulty travel system, retailer refusing to refund or acknowledge Consumer Rights Act

[Deleted User]

Hello fellow money savers! Please do consider reading as I could really do with guidance and a way out of this stress

Will leave out most specific details such as exact dates to remain anonymous (company has a big presence online and I'd rather I wasn't identified by them)

I purchased a travel system last spring for ~£400. Included pram/buggy, infant car seat and isofix base.

We began using it when our baby arrived 5 months later. Noticed an issue with the infant seat immediately, it doesn't connect to the chassis properly and is faulty. It's not a stiffness problem as they suggested during discourse, we have really tried to make it work, but it won't. For the fact that (with the improper attachment) it sits on the chassis at a sideways incline we cannot use it in that way with a baby inside. The travel system as a whole is also poor quality although I know that to some degree is down to personal opinion. All in all it's just a disappointing product. The issue with the seat is very clearly with the shell itself which makes me also worry about it's integrity as a transport safety item.

Have emailed back and forth about this with the retailer with no resolution. They've tried passing the responsibility to the manufacturer after reminding them the Consumer Rights Act says otherwise. They will. not. listen.

Sent a formal email using advice from Which? In December stating the issue, the resolution we'd hope for (refund) and that I will give them 14 days to reply. They ignored this email. I gave them over 3 weeks and emailed again stating the same things once more (issue, refund preferred, Consumer Rights Act) and they responded pretty fast telling me once more to contact the manufacturer. (We have once to see if they'd help more, they were just as "helpful") I responded that this is the retailers issue, to which they asked for video evidence of the fault (had previously sent images). We finally got time to video it recently (parents of a young baby with medical issues with little to no spare time is why it took a while) and someone from the company called me. They offered to send a courier to collect the seat and send it to the manufacturer to test it and see if it's faulty - why ask for that video if you won't believe our word or video explanation/evidence?

After reading on this forum I believe it was the consumer rights act stating a resolution (such as a return) shouldn't be a significant inconvenience to the consumer, which it is. I told them:

1) I don't have sufficient safe packaging for a car seat

2) worst case scenario it's returned to us no replacement or refund, there will be no way to verify the safety of the seat having gone through a courier trip to the manufacturer and back, rendering it unsafe for use as well as still faulty. I'm sure we've all seen how couriers treat boxes and the probability of it being thrown across a forecourt or banged around in a van is unacceptable.
They didn't really care and said essentially you post it or nothing.

Citizens advice have advised me today to send a "letter before action" but I wanted to ask if there's anything else I should do first, or do I just send the letter? I'm not sure how much ADR costs and if it's worth it, but I am not giving up on this! However I know the company well enough to assume confidently that they'll laugh at this letter and still not resolve this.

Any help? This is such a huge stress and we just want to be able to purchase a good quality functioning travel system for our baby now. P.s. reading trustpilot reviews shows this company does this to more customers than just me. They are truly awful and so hard to mediate with. Trading standards perhaps?

Thank you so much for reading

Aylesbury_Duck

Why haven't you taken up the offer of the manufacturer collecting it by courier?  If they organise and pay for the courier, it's their responsibility and therefore if damaged in transit, they'd have to put things right.  Although you're quite right that the retailer should be dealing with it, dealing with the manufacturer can sometimes get a speedier resolution.

If you don't want to do that, get the LBA in.

sheramber

(with the improper attachment

what do you mean by that?
Why are you using an improper attachment?

Manxman_in_exile

I think they simply mean that the seat won't attach properly to the chassis?

[Deleted User]

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Why haven't you taken up the offer of the manufacturer collecting it by courier?  If they organise and pay for the courier, it's their responsibility and therefore if damaged in transit, they'd have to put things right.  Although you're quite right that the retailer should be dealing with it, dealing with the manufacturer can sometimes get a speedier resolution.

If you don't want to do that, get the LBA in.

Because there's no way of assessing damage to a dropped carseat should it happen in transit. Just like after dropping a helmet you should exercise caution and best practice is replace. They may not classify it as damaged if the box turns up unscathed but the seat itself isn't safe after drops/bangs/car accidents of even small proportions for example. I really have little faith a courier would be careful, and we don't have packaging materials suitable. the only way we'd know it was still in safe working order if it was returned no resolution would be by seeing the outcome of a crash. Of course that's worst case scenario but I've run out of hope they'll help and the likelihood of having it sent back with "oh it's fine" seems high. The manufacturer is not very understanding.

[Deleted User]

Manxman_in_exile said:

I think they simply mean that the seat won't attach properly to the chassis?

Yes. We are following the instructions in the manual with the attachments it came with

sheramber

Did you buy it online and have it delivered by a courier?

born_again

Deleted_User said:

Because there's no way of assessing damage to a dropped carseat should it happen in transit. Just like after dropping a helmet you should exercise caution and best practice is replace. They may not classify it as damaged if the box turns up unscathed but the seat itself isn't safe after drops/bangs/car accidents of even small proportions for example. I really have little faith a courier would be careful, and we don't have packaging materials suitable. the only way we'd know it was still in safe working order if it was returned no resolution would be by seeing the outcome of a crash. Of course that's worst case scenario but I've run out of hope they'll help and the likelihood of having it sent back with "oh it's fine" seems high. The manufacturer is not very understanding.

Why have so little faith?
How do you think that a manufacture gets it to a retailer & then how does a retailer get it to a customer using online purchase?

You really need to step back & think how goods get moved around... Sadly with your thinking you would not be using it anyway. As some person in the manufacture's may have dropped it in the factory.