Return of furniture. Must I pay carriage?

powerful_Rogue

bundly said:

Thank you for your message DullGreyGuy. I'm not going to get into specifics about my weight as it's irrelevant to the issue.

My complaint is not that the weight limit for the sofa is too low. It is that they did not disclose that there was a weight limit at all until after it was delivered to me. Had I known then obviously I would not have bought it.

If a piece of furniture has a maximum safe weight, by law it has to be clearly stated on the sales page.

Armed with this new information I rang and spoke to a manager this time and he has refunded me the £99 and given me a date for collection. They will refund me in full.

 

Which law is that?

Okell

bundly said:

Thank you for your message DullGreyGuy. I'm not going to get into specifics about my weight as it's irrelevant to the issue.

My complaint is not that the weight limit for the sofa is too low. It is that they did not disclose that there was a weight limit at all until after it was delivered to me. Had I known then obviously I would not have bought it.

If a piece of furniture has a maximum safe weight, by law it has to be clearly stated on the sales page.

Armed with this new information I rang and spoke to a manager this time and he has refunded me the £99 and given me a date for collection. They will refund me in full.

 

Well done for getting a very satisfactory result.  Congratulations.

By the way, is there such a law or were you bluffing?  (Nothing wrong with a bluff if you judge it right.  It's worked for me in the past)

bundly

MANY THANKS to everyone who has joined the thread and put in their "2p worth". It's been interesting to read all the posts, especially for future reference now that this matter is resolved.

Yes it's correct that due to a medical condition all my excess weight is in my hips and legs. From the waist up I am a normal size/weight. I look like a freak.

I have actually had three previous two-seater power-recliner sofas, all of them "off the peg" from big online retailers. I was never made aware of any weight limit. None ever tipped up or broke down as a result of my weight. I only ever replaced them because of wear and tear on the upholstery. I am about 3 stone lighter than when I bought the one from FV about six years ago. I still have it and the electric mechanism still works perfectly. I'm thinking now it may be better to have the upholstery seen to and keep it rather than spend weeks searching for one with a suitable weight limit.

I've had a look at specialist "bariatric" weight seating and they make them only in single armchairs, not sofas. I need a sofa as there are often two of us using it.

When I went online shopping for a mobility scooter recently, and every single one, on every single site, had an upper weight limit clearly displayed on its webpage. Why the difference? Most of the people I see out and about on scooters are slim, yet each scooter's limit is openly displayed.

Many thanks once again

Bundly

PS I think I may have missed some posts. I logged in yesterday, read and responded to DullGreyGuy's post, and posted that I have now resolved the issue. I read from my script and they agreed not to charge me for the return AND gave me a date for collection (8 May). Then I came back on today and there are all these posts I have not seen before which seem to have been left before I responded to DullGreyGuy. 

bundly

Okell said:

bundly said:

Thank you for your message DullGreyGuy. I'm not going to get into specifics about my weight as it's irrelevant to the issue.

My complaint is not that the weight limit for the sofa is too low. It is that they did not disclose that there was a weight limit at all until after it was delivered to me. Had I known then obviously I would not have bought it.

If a piece of furniture has a maximum safe weight, by law it has to be clearly stated on the sales page.

Armed with this new information I rang and spoke to a manager this time and he has refunded me the £99 and given me a date for collection. They will refund me in full.

 

Well done for getting a very satisfactory result.  Congratulations.

By the way, is there such a law or were you bluffing?  (Nothing wrong with a bluff if you judge it right.  It's worked for me in the past)

I thought it was the law, the one Lunatic pointed to.

bundly

PS Special thanks to Lunatic for the superb letter!

Dear SCS

I am writing with regards to order xxx, unfortunately the recliner purchased has an upper weight limit and I have had to cancel my order with you after delivery due to it being unsuitable.

I am grateful for you arranging collection of the recliner but customer services advised I had to pay a £100 collection fee, whilst I understand if had just changed my mind you are entitled to charge this fee, I feel that the lack of information noting an upper weight limit on this particular type of product was an omission that altered my transactional decision leading me to make a purchase I otherwise would not have. 

With this in mind I have the right to unwind the contract under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and do not believe should have to pay for the return of the recliner. 

If you may look into this for me to see if you'd be willing to refund the collection fee I was charged and continue to proceed with collecting the recliner on (xx date) as agreed I'd be most thankful. 

Thank you in advance for your time and I look forward to hearing from you soon, 
Sincerely, 
bundly

bundly

this is the one I bought 6 yrs ago, and all the others are almost identical in design.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Thanks for coming back to update us OP, great to hear, good result  

Okell

bundly said:

Okell said:

bundly said:

Thank you for your message DullGreyGuy. I'm not going to get into specifics about my weight as it's irrelevant to the issue.

My complaint is not that the weight limit for the sofa is too low. It is that they did not disclose that there was a weight limit at all until after it was delivered to me. Had I known then obviously I would not have bought it.

If a piece of furniture has a maximum safe weight, by law it has to be clearly stated on the sales page.

Armed with this new information I rang and spoke to a manager this time and he has refunded me the £99 and given me a date for collection. They will refund me in full.

 

Well done for getting a very satisfactory result.  Congratulations.

By the way, is there such a law or were you bluffing?  (Nothing wrong with a bluff if you judge it right.  It's worked for me in the past)

I thought it was the law, the one Lunatic pointed to.

Ah.

I think if you asked the lunatic whether they were sure that that law applied in your case they'd probably say "Maybe.  Maybe not."

I think you accomplished a successful bluff!

Very well done!

DullGreyGuy

bundly said:

Thank you for your message DullGreyGuy. I'm not going to get into specifics about my weight as it's irrelevant to the issue.

My complaint is not that the weight limit for the sofa is too low. It is that they did not disclose that there was a weight limit at all until after it was delivered to me. Had I known then obviously I would not have bought it.

If a piece of furniture has a maximum safe weight, by law it has to be clearly stated on the sales page.

Armed with this new information I rang and spoke to a manager this time and he has refunded me the £99 and given me a date for collection. They will refund me in full.

I never asked what your weight was, I asked what the weight limit of sofa was... I appreciate you have said you are 20kg above the limit and therefore from one you can workout the other but it was an unfortunate consequence. 

To play devils advocate, which by definition means to take it to an unrealistic extreme... show me a single car that states the maximum weight of a passenger?  At the same time do you realistically think a Fiat 500 would operate with a 6,000 kg passenger sitting in it?

Unfortunately your claim for a law existing that states every item has to express a safe maximum load is simply not true. The reason for asking the weight limit of the sofa was to judge how extreme it is to exceed it. Cars get away without listing a maximum weight because it's unlikely anyone will weigh 10x what the maximum that any human has ever weighed will exist. As you have said, the main issue is not just your weight but the distribution. If someone was the inverse of how you say you are, being disproportionally heavy above the waist but average below it they undoubtably wouldn't have had a problem with this particular unit. 

A company cannot be expected to deal with every single possible permutation in the universe. It seems you've now had a satisfactory resolution but hopefully you also have learnt from the experience. 

Okell

@DullGreyGuy  -  considering the OP is obviously quite sensitive about her weight, your post perhaps isn't a very helpful contribution?

Regarding her claim that there was a law that said they had to state the maximum weight, she simply misunderstood what the lunatic had said about misleading omissions.

It don't matter as it seems ScS knew no better either.

Well done OP.