B&Q up to 75% off sale on Outdoor Fun (swings, slides, etc) [CLOSED]

mae

Thankyou to frogling, miranda and rob for all your hard work, I just pm frogling with my details and I emailed them to Rob the other day ... Had a response to my complaint letter this morning from Ian Prout (Senior customer Service Advisor) saying the usual very sorry blah please accept £20 vouchers in full settlement blah blah. Needless to say I will be sending the vouchers back with a covering letter telling them I will be taking the matter to the small claims court!

Moglie

"Please be advised that when contracts are made, they create expectations on both sides, these expectations are fulfilled with the performance of the contract obligations. If there is a breach of contract, the claimant must have suffered an actual loss. At this stage, if you purchase the goods elsewhere at the lowest price you can find and the cost of these goods are higher than the cost of the goods you ordered from B&Q, you have a potential claim for loss of bargain. The law states that the claimant should be left in the same position as they were when the contract had been made. Please be aware that you will not be able to claim loss of bargain until you have purchased goods elsewhere and shown that they are more expensive than the goods you ordered from B&Q.



If you wish to pursue the matter, you will need to do so via the small claims track of the County Court. You will not require a solicitor and the Citizen's Advice Bureau should be able to provide you with all the advice you need"

CaitlinsNanna

D I Y I O U



They owe us all.
Have got the Mirror & as promised the B & Q article is there on page 33.
Negative publicity for B & Q in a national paper can only serve to help those of us who are taking this matter further.
Maybe the next article should read



B & Q S O S He He He



Well done Frogling, you have done us all proud! :T
Thanks also to Daniel Boffey for covering the story.

angelag_3

Its brilliant, i'm completely lost for words...well done frogling!!!

mirandamayhem

25 August 2005
D.I.Y I.O.U
B&Q owes customers £100,000 after garden sale stock blunder
By Daniel Boffey
DIY giant B&Q owes £100,000 to customers who paid for cut price garden gear - even though it had sold out weeks earlier.

The firm's computer stock-checking system crashed after more than 1,000 people flooded its website to snap up bargains, including a wooden play centre slashed from £799 to £195.76 and an outdoor table tennis table reduced from £399 to £97.76.

B&Q has promised to pay customers back, but they won't get the items they ordered. Some are now threatening legal action for "breach of contract".

At first the firm tried to wriggle out of it by blaming their suppliers. Later it admitted a computer glitch.

Mum-of-two Jo Gardner, 31, from Cheltenham, Glos, fumed: "We are not accepting this. Big companies should not be able to dump on us like this."

Joy turned to tears for youngsters when bosses told their parents the warehouse was empty and they would not be getting any more stock. It took two weeks for B&Q to tell people they were going to be left empty handed.


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To add insult to injury, customers happy to take a refund will have to wait 28 days. Mrs Gardner bought items for Emily, three, and Lottie, two, with £100 left to them by their great-grandmother who died recently.


She had told their mum to spend it on "something fun".


Mrs Gardner said: "I received a confirmation email from B&Q and the money was immediately taken from my credit card.


"I had my delivery date changed twice. But on the morning I got a call from the delivery company stating there was no stock left. Following three calls to B&Q, I have been told tough luck."


She added: "This means lots of very disappointed children."


Last night B&Q apologised, saying: "This was a genuine error."


from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15893152%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=d%2di%2dy%2di%2do%2du%2d-name_page.html

JasonLVC

A big thank you to Frogling & Co. You're the best!!.

Frogling

B&Q actually gave a much longer reply to The Mirror, which Dan kindly forwarded on to me, so here it is:

We have apologised for the problems that have been caused over the
clearance of some of our children's fun ranges. Even though we factored in
the 75% discount we estimated that we had five weeks stock rather than
three days. A systems failure over the opening offer weekend of 16/17 July
compounded the problem which meant that we inadvertently took orders when
we had run out of stock. This was a genuine error and at no time did we
intend to disadvantage our customers.

There were just over 1,000 customers affected and we have now contacted all
of them - there was a handful where repeated efforts of getting in touch on
our part was not successful and we have since written to them. We have
either been able to supply a similar product and where that hasn't been
possible, we have fully refunded the customers' money. There are a handful
of customers left where we need to deliver products and I am assured that
these will be delivered by the end of September if the delivery dates are
convenient.

We're aware that our contact with customers affected could have been better
and we have put some measures in place to ensure that there is no repeat of
this situation.

I have not been able to get hold of our legal person in the short deadline
but I am unaware of any formal legal challenge.

Once again, we are sorry that we have upset these customers.

Regards

Lorian

So, no real explanation from them as to why they didn't deal with the problem when it first occurred, or why they didn't allocate the stock they did have out on a first-come, first-served basis.

As far as I am concerned, B&Q have just made themselves look like completely inept fools, which I am beginning to realise is exactly what they are!

mirandamayhem

did they supply anyone with a similar item?

CaitlinsNanna

I think that they are referring to the lady in Southampton that had her story in her local press.
They gave her the loft house as a substitute.
Nobody here has made any mention to getting an alternative from them.

angelag_3

And they still havn't explained why i didn't get my order when i ordered really early on the morning of the 15th when i know that there was stock.

By the way they have since offered a similar product to one of the items on my order....and at the same time told me as that it was more expensive i would need to pay an extra £4.50.....and they tried to make it sound like they were doing me a favour. And this came after they had put the new customer service measures in place.