Refunds.

nimu

Hello,

De-lurking, after reading for a long period of time!

Hubby and I are in the midst of an ongoing battle with Habitat. We bought 2 parts of a modular sofa at different times, and they are different colours and don't connect together as they should. They have finally agreed to give us a refund, which is great!

However..

One part was bought on my credit card, which they'll refund back. All well and good.

The other part was bought out of our wedding present fund, which was part of their gift account service. They want to refund this portion back with another gift card.

It's taken about 8 months of continuous wrangling to get this far, and their customer service has been worse than shocking. I really don't want to spend any more money with them, let alone buy another sofa with them.

Do they have the legal right to insist that the refund is in the method paid?

Any advice welcome!

Thanks,
Clare

Nile

Hello nimu

Welcome to the MSE site.:wave:

I'll move your thread to 'The (Consumer) Vent' board.

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Regards

Nile

mdbarber

very good question and im no expert but i think the answer may be yes they can, as there was no actual fault with the original purchase.
you should maybe approach them with a compromise, part refund part voucher or consider getting it in gift vouchers and flog em on ebay

Pollycat

I don't know the legality of how Habitat are proposing to refund but I think it's fairly common for most stores to refund in the same way that payment was made e.g. cash for cash, credit card for c/c, voucher for voucher.

hollydays

Again,not sure,but think this is legal.You have not lost out,you are back where you were.That appears to be fair.

Iamthesmartestmanalive

This is perfectly legal tbh

They arranged to sell you such and such colour and design, the fact it changed between you buying part 1 and 2 is irrelevent

Tbh your lucky to be getting what you have

You have absolutly no right to a cash refund when you never paid cash for it in the first place

nimu

Ah right.

Well - as far as I thought then sale of goods act specifies that goods were fit for purpose. As the goods aren't fit for purpose, I'd thought that legally I was right in getting the money back.

I asked the question as the trading standards website says that:

Q. A consumer paid for an item using gift vouchers, and he/she has now found that it is faulty. Can the trader insist that the consumer accepts the refund or compensation in gift vouchers? A. No. Where a consumer is entitled to claim a refund or compensation, he/she is entitled to cash. A cheque will usually be acceptable (or a Postal Order for consumers who do not have a bank account).

I just wondered if anyone had any further experience of this.

gibby

Had a similar thing with boots,

someone bought us a gift for our baby using boots points.
We already had one so took it back to our local and they refused to change it for something else as it was bought on points, from someone elses card
The person who bought it lived at the other end of the country so we would have had to post it back to them.

We gave it to a friend who needed one & havnt shopped at boots since

G

hollydays

nimu wrote: »

Ah right.

Well - as far as I thought then sale of goods act specifies that goods were fit for purpose. As the goods aren't fit for purpose, I'd thought that legally I was right in getting the money back.

I asked the question as the trading standards website says that:

Q. A consumer paid for an item using gift vouchers, and he/she has now found that it is faulty. Can the trader insist that the consumer accepts the refund or compensation in gift vouchers? A. No. Where a consumer is entitled to claim a refund or compensation, he/she is entitled to cash. A cheque will usually be acceptable (or a Postal Order for consumers who do not have a bank account).

I just wondered if anyone had any further experience of this.

Interesting,unless the company is disputing the goods are faulty,you could just send them a copy of that.There is a technical difference between faulty and not fit for purpose,and something that is just not matching.Have they agreed it is faulty?(I had dealings with Habitat 20 years ago,when a sofa I bought damaged my carpet,they were not nice people then)

olly300

Unfortunately all shops have a policy that they will only refund items by the way it's paid. People should be given warnings about buying gifts for other people when they are not using cash.

mdbarber

nimu wrote: »

Ah right.

Well - as far as I thought then sale of goods act specifies that goods were fit for purpose. As the goods aren't fit for purpose, I'd thought that legally I was right in getting the money back.

I asked the question as the trading standards website says that:

Q. A consumer paid for an item using gift vouchers, and he/she has now found that it is faulty. Can the trader insist that the consumer accepts the refund or compensation in gift vouchers? A. No. Where a consumer is entitled to claim a refund or compensation, he/she is entitled to cash. A cheque will usually be acceptable (or a Postal Order for consumers who do not have a bank account).

I just wondered if anyone had any further experience of this.

see theres the problem as far as i could see, you would have to argue the first item bought was not fit for purpose, that would be a tough one to convince a judge of i think, it would also depend on the length of time between purchases as that makes a difference as to whether u are actually entitled to a refund