Rights around faulty refurbishment and payment terms

ministe2003

TLDR; had something refurbished, wasn't happy with it and was told to send it back.  Now company is refusing to release it back to me until I pay the original invoice.

I have a minor medial issue which requires a personalised piece of equipment to resolve and now and again this should be refurbished to keep it performing correctly.  This comes at cost to myself.  As for payment terms: I receive an invoice alongside the completed refurbishment so pay upon receipt of the completed work.  This is the first time I've had to go through the process of refurbishment.

I recently sent it to be refurbished and wasn't happy with the result. It had a clear difference to the original which meant it didn't fit quite right.  They wouldn't verbally accept any responsibility for any mistake but did say if I sent it back they'd re-do it.  In the mean time I've received demand for payment letters which I ignored, assuming they were automated and based on the date of the original refurbishment.  I thought I'd receive it back with another invoice or just a note to ask me to pay the original one.

Weeks later I've still not got it back so I called them up.  They said it's done and ready to go but they were withholding it due to lack of payment.  This confused me - I've not received it, why would I pay?  The jist of the response was "You did receive it. It was refurbished and you need to pay for that work. You weren't happy and sent it back.  But you need to pay for the original work".  
I questioned why I'd need to pay for a refurbishment which clearly wasn't done quite right, why wouldn't I be able to wait for it come back corrected and then pay?  The person I spoke to - who's business it is - was unpleasant and unmoved.  They only referred to the problem as "my opinion" despite the fact it simply didn't fit correctly after their refurbishment; not admitting any possibility of mistake at all and making out that by doing the refurbishment again they were basically doing me a favour I should be grateful for.  Pay for the original refurbishment, or I wouldn't get it back at all.   This doesn't sit right with me, I feel like there some be some sort of protection against this.  But not being armed with anything to back myself up and with their refusal to send it until I'd paid the original bill, I had no choice but to pay.

Do I have any means of protection against this in future or am I at the mercy of the will of the business?

Thanks

Alderbank

It depends absolutely what it says in your contract with them.

They seem to be saying,
'We carried out maintenance on your personalised piece of equipment and billed you for this. You haven't paid us for this and you have requested additional work. We need to be paid for the maintenance before we will carry out the additional work.'

You are saying,
'The contract says I don't pay until I am satisfied. I'm not satisfied yet.'

Is my summary correct?

Can you share with us the T&Cs of the contract?

HillStreetBlues

Are they saying unless you paid original invoice they won't do any work on it and then return it, or are they simple refusing to return it in the condition it is now? 

ministe2003

HillStreetBlues said:

Are they saying unless you paid original invoice they won't do any work on it and then return it, or are they simple refusing to return it in the condition it is now? 

They've done the original refurbishment and say they've done the correction but are refusing to send it to me until I've paid the original invoice

HillStreetBlues

It would depend on the T&Cs of payment
If it's invoice on completed refurbishment, then as I see it you have a right to have item back as it wasn't completed  when they first sent it to you.  So new invoice  would be required and  sent with item

ministe2003

Apologies for the late reply.  As for payment terms, the invoice comes delivered with the product and states that payment terms are on receipt of invoice.  The website actually says different, that they need payment in full when the order is placed, however I wonder if this is just for off the shelf items; that appears to be the case from experience.  I can't find any specific Ts&Cs on the website around custom products and their refurbishment.

So I guess "payment on receipt of invoice" is the terms from their end; my question would be how is this affected if the refurbished product does not meet the original?  Otherwise what's to stop them sending me any old rubbish and demanding payment?  An additional note is that when I phoned to raise the issue and was told to send it back, there was no specific comment on the call about payment, ie nothing like "you can send them back again but you'll have to pay the original invoice first".  Whether they t

HillStreetBlues

Companies are allowed to hang onto goods and not to release them till payment.
So even if you ask for new invoice I expect they would just e-mail you one.
I don't really see any option apart from you paying the invoice, as if they stand firm  you would need to take them to court and even if you did you probably wouldn't win.

Personally I would pay, and if it comes back unfixed,  deal with the issue then,  but I would be paying by card and if it costs over £100  a credit card would be better.