La Redoute - Droyds collection

hmc279

Hi,

I purchased a table from La Redoute in July this year for £600 or thereabouts. Initially, they delivered only half of the table (it comes in two boxes and they only delivered one), so we contacted them to organise for the other box to be delivered, for which they blamed the delivery company etc etc. At first they said they would redeliver but could not only deliver the single box we needed, rather they had to deliver a whole table and collect the first box (god knows why). They also requested that we pay for a 2nd table and they would refund the initial table once they collected it. We obviously refused, as this is a ridiculous request, so in the end they redelivered and refunded and stated they would contact us over the next few days to organise payment for the 2nd table.

We never heard back, so have never paid. In all honesty I had assumed we had been gifted a free table as a result of their negligence, but this week received a text from Droyds (a debt collector), stating that we had not responsed to their letter (which we never received), and that we needed to contact them to settle our La Redoute "account".

Aside from the moral implications of trying to wangle a free table, is this enforceable i.e. am I going to have to swallow my pride and just pay for it ? We do not have a La Redoute account per se, this is just a single item that was bought and "paid for" in full at the time of purchase. Further, we have never received any correspondence from either La Redoute or this Droyds collectors, so in the event that I do have to pay, and there are additional collection charges etc, will I then be on the hook for these as well ? Obviously my preference is just to ignore them and not pay anything but wanted to hear what my options are

Thanks

RAS

Put in a formal complaint with Redoute using their procedure and copy in Droyds.

sourcrates

Standard generic debt collection letter, we have tried to contact you to settle your account, kind of thing, all complete lies, just a route for you to contact them by basically.

Just so that you are aware, the debt collector has no powers to make you pay, they do not own the debt, and are just acting on behalf of La Redoute, so can be completely ignored no matter what they may say in their "collection letters".

Only La Redoute, the owner of the debt, can take legal action to recover it, not that they will, they will just keep engaging DCA`s to chase this on their behalf.

RAS, above provides your next move in this dance, put pen to paper, and make it a good olde fashioned, official written complaint.

Tell them what went wrong, why it went wrong, and what you want them to do to put things right again.