Threatened with police

veryconfused20

I made a complaint to a hairdresser I'd used for the the first time about a colouring appointment. We were unable to come to an agreeable resolution and after a reasonably short chain of correspondence, following progressively more personal and unprofessional comments by them, I have been sent back the amount they deem reasonable to refund me and have been told that if I contact them in any shape or form again, they'll report me to the police for harassment.

The situation has been blown wildly out of proportion and I'm at a genuine loss as to how to proceed now. 

Voyager2002

Best not to contact them again. If that is how they treat their customers they will soon go out of business.

visidigi

What outcome are you looking ideally looking for?

veryconfused20

visidigi said:

What outcome are you looking ideally looking for?

I was advised to seek a full refund due to the extent of what needed correcting. Whilst this would be preferred as it is going to cost me more than what I paid to have it rectified, on further reflection I would now feel satisfied with a 50% refund. This was offered in the second to last correspondence, which I admit I rejected at the time. 

fatbelly

The police won't take any notice of that.

I presume you are looking for a larger refund than you got but how much are we talking about? Ultimately you would have to consider a court claim and at that point the costs become disproportionate.

veryconfused20

fatbelly said:

The police won't take any notice of that.

I presume you are looking for a larger refund than you got but how much are we talking about? Ultimately you would have to consider a court claim and at that point the costs become disproportionate.

I was initially offered half, whereas I was advised to seek full. This is what I stated in my last correspondence that I was looking for, and instead I've been transferred less than a third and threatened if I dispute it. 

Flugelhorn

they sound pretty stressed and this will lead to other dissatisfied customers, there is never only one - what are their reviews like? 

In only sending a third they are really admitting there was a problem - they would be sensible to pay back the whole amount 

veryconfused20

Flugelhorn said:

they sound pretty stressed and this will lead to other dissatisfied customers, there is never only one - what are their reviews like? 

In only sending a third they are really admitting there was a problem - they would be sensible to pay back the whole amount 

They are an independent stylist so reviews are limited, but the small amount they have (~30) are positive.

I completely appreciate I haven't disclosed the full story, frankly because I originally tried describing it and it seemed so long and complicated for an OP that I thought it easier to simply sum up where we're at rather than what happened. However my complaint wasn't simply that I didn't like the result, it was rooted in the fact that my stylist made mistakes and failed to disclose that these had happened during the appointment; I was only later to find out when someone pointed it out to me. 

powerful_Rogue

Short and sweet. You send a Letter Before Action highlighting (boom boom) what you want and set a time of around 14 days. If you get no response or a negative one, you start a claim in the small claims court.

RefluentBeans

I’m not saying this happened - but when tempers get raised people tend to match the energy the other person gives or raise it. Normally, it’s the customers giving agro to staff but it can be the other way round. I’m not saying that is what has happened here, but it doesn’t really matter who started what. When a conversation can’t be had, and the relationship is irreparable, and shouting happens - typically the way of enforcing rights goes through the legal process (as you’ve effectively reached an impasse now and anything else that is said will only make the situation worse). 

There’s a few options you could look into:
1. If you paid by card you potentially could look at chargeback through your card provider - but the merchant may appeal it and they’d likely win (chargebacks don’t look at who’s ‘right’ per se but just makes it easier for people to get money back for products never received). 

2. If you paid by credit card and the components of the bill were over £100 - you could attempt a S75 - but your products need to be over £100. 

3. You could also look at sending a letter before action (which I wouldn’t constitute as harassment); where you say what you’re looking for, the reason for the refund, and you’ll be willing to take it to small claims court.
4. You chalk it up to experience and leave a bad review. 

For what’s it worth - communicating through face to face interactions can (in my experience) lead to miscommunication, and over reactions. Emails (and letters if you are old school) are written records and people can sculpt their replies and let their cooler heads prevail (sure we’ve all done an email to a colleague along the lines of ‘are you stupid?’ And then corrected it to be more professional! 

eskbanker

veryconfused20 said:

I was advised to seek a full refund due to the extent of what needed correcting. Whilst this would be preferred as it is going to cost me more than what I paid to have it rectified, on further reflection I would now feel satisfied with a 50% refund. This was offered in the second to last correspondence, which I admit I rejected at the time. 

veryconfused20 said:

I was initially offered half, whereas I was advised to seek full. This is what I stated in my last correspondence that I was looking for, and instead I've been transferred less than a third and threatened if I dispute it. 

Who was advising you to seek a full refund and on what basis?  When there's a dispute like this, there's rarely a right and wrong answer as such, so it tends to come down to negotiation to somewhere in between everything and nothing, although if there's clear objective evidence that the only viable resolution is to repeat the entire process elsewhere at similar cost in order to rectify the mistakes, then that would strengthen your hand in any escalation to independent bodies such as courts or card companies.