Returned goods

Foxycat88

• I recently placed an  order with John Lewis for goods amounting to £593.

Under their standard terms and conditions, most of these were returned (as unsuitable). They were packaged securely and delivered to a drop off point for the courier (Evri) that John Lewis had arranged

A few days later, I received a call from John Lewis saying the goods received back in the warehouse were not the goods on the order. According to John Lewis warehouse staff, the packages contained clothing from a well known Chinese company (presumably Shein or Temu).
A few days after the phone call, I received an email confirming that the refund was being refused (expected refund was £408).

I called John Lewis's customer care team and discovered that the warehouse staff are not able to provide any photographic or documentary evidence to substantiate the claim of incorrect goods returned, and are refusing to investigate further. I advised that I had returned the correct goods and that they take this issue up with Evri.

Since it was John Lewis who arranged the courier for the return (Evri), I am not able to pursue any action with Evri directly.
I have referred this matter to "Report Fraud", the UK’s national cyber crime and fraud reporting service under police.uk, who has told us that as both John Lewis and Evri are reputable organisations, no action will be taken.

Clearly, this returns package has been intercepted and the goods replaced.
John Lewis cannot provide any supporting evidence and is refusing to investigate further, I cannot pursue an investigation with Evri as the return was arranged by John Lewis, and "Report Fraud" are unable to help.
So, in these circumstance, what are my rights as a consumer?

Aylesbury_Duck

You're entitled to a refund for goods returned.

If you exhaust JL's process, it's time to send a letter before action threatening small claims court. It may trigger the refund. If not, it will be down to the court to decide whose evidence is most persuasive. I'd take the view that a consumer is unlikely to pursue court action if they had deliberately returned a load of cheap clothing to fraudulently obtain a refund.

Placitasgirl

Just FYI Report Fraud recently rebranded itself from its previous name Action Fraud. They do not, and never have been an organisation who take action to assist those who use the service, they merely note the incident.

It’s a common misconception that they take any action at all to assist, they merely compile reports of the types of incidents that are reported to them… hence the name being changed to hopefully make this clearer to service users.

Okell

@Foxycat88 - "… Under their standard terms and conditions, most of these were returned (as unsuitable)…"

To clarify - it may be of use to you if you do - did you simply return the goods following JL's own returns procedure, or did you actually inform them within 14 days of delivery to you that you were "cancelling" the contract?

The reason it might be of use to you is that if you clearly informed them that you were cancelling the contract, then that would bring into play certain statutory consumer protections that might be more beneficial to you than JL's own returns policy.

In any case, if JL refuse to cough up and you have evidence that you returned the goods, your ultimate course of action would be to send JL a Letter Before Claim, and if they don't comply you will have to sue them. (There is plenty of anecdotal evidence on here that if you sue JL and have a good case, they will just pay up.)

But before you reach that stage - have you escalated your complaint? Escalated Complaints | Customer Services | John Lewis & Partners

[Edit - if JL will not play ball and you end up sending them a Letter Before Claim and issuing a claim, you will need to explain whether you were retruning the goods under JL's own returns policy or whether you were exercising your statutory right to cancel a contract under the The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 ]