Land of Leather - Problem ***WON***

[Bookworm]

Bought 3 piece suite on credit, came with "free" table and chairs (RRP £800), credit with Creation Finance, standard agreement over 24 mths, covered under CCA74.

 

Table is badly faulty, scratched, and unsafe as the bottom bar doesn'tfit properly.

 

I have phoned, every time I have been promised a call back, never happened, it's been 2 weeks and I have run out of patience and them of time therefore.

 

Letter going off to local LoL, cc to HO, and also to Creation Finance reminding them of their joint responsability under s.75, but here's my question:

 

Payments haven't started coming off yet. As far as I am concerned, the order has not been satisfactorily completed and will not be until I have a replacement table, am I entitled to withhold payment until such time it has? I'm a little bit unsure on this, although my instinct tells me they can whistle until I have what I am actually going to be paying for.

 

Thanks in advance if anyone actually knows the answer.

[Bookworm]

Gyyyyyyzmooooooo!!!! Don't tell me you don't know the answer either!!!

[Bookworm]

I would have thought if you accept an offer from the store to supply you with replacement goods then you will obviously not be rejecting them.

 

As you are not rejecting them then you have to pay for them, whenever that is due to begin.

 

So, no, I don't think you would be able to withhold payments as you are reaffirming the contract but just accepting the goods when they arrive.

Actually, that's not correct, asking for remedy doesn't mean acceptance, and doesn't stop consumer from rejecting goods at a later stage; SOGA s.35 (6) The buyer is not by virtue of this section deemed to have accepted the goods merely because—

(a)he asks for, or agrees to, their repair by or under an arrangement with the seller

and

35A Right of partial rejection

(1)If the buyer—

(a)has the right to reject the goods by reason of a breach on the part of the seller that affects some or all of them, but

(b)accepts some of the goods, including, where there are any goods unaffected by the breach, all such goods,

he does not by accepting them lose his right to reject the rest.

 

You can't expect the Finance Company to honour their s75 obligations if you don't pay them BW.

 

You either rescind the contract now instructing the store to collect the goods & then advise the lender before ceasing payment & demanding a refund of any monies paid............. Or you allow the store to complete the contract, make the payments as arranged then demand compensation from the store for all the hassle.

 

When complaining to the lender you must advise them of your intention tp stop payment should matters not be resolved to your satisfaction

 

Anyway BW don't you know all of this already:confused:

I do, and I knew my reasoning had gone awry somewhere, but you know when you are looking at something right on front of you and you can't see what you're doing wrong? That's why I posted here, I just knew things weren't right, but brain was not engaging.

 

Thanks, guys. Revised letter winging its way to LoL today.

[Bookworm]

 

And how would you know of that place, may one ask?

[Bookworm]

It's not a question of how quickly *I* move, though, it's how quickly *they* will get their backsides in gear.

[Bookworm]

Update & headache... :-|

 

Got a letter this morning from Creation Finance, they have been advised by my bank that the DD was cancelled, and they only gave me the loan on condition I would pay by DD (WHAT? ) and I must reinstate DD, or else, charges £30, bla bla bla....

 

Now, the regulars on CAG will KNOW how I feel about DD. I don't DO DD. I despise DD. TO me, DD are the spawn of the devil, they give perfect strangers license to help themselves to the contents of your account and take what they want, when they want, and the DD guarantee is not worth the toilet paper it's written on.

 

With that in mind, when we bought the suite, we specifically asked the salesman and his reply was: "I'll set up the DD, you then cancel it and contact Creation and get the details so you can pay by other means, that's no problem." Great.

 

Sooooo, I phoned Creation to check on whether they had received my letter about why I had cancelled payments and why they weren't going to get any money until my order was sorted, fully expecting a battle...

 

Surprisingly, I didn't. :-? The young lady completed understood what I was saying, completely agreed that I shouldn't have to pay until the order is complete, and said that it was up to LoL to suspend the agreement until the order was completed to my satisfaction. Great.

 

I also mentioned the DD thing and she said it said so in the agreement, which I had checked before calling and she's right, it does say so in the small print (although I'd argue the paperwork is misleading as the front page big characters one says things like "pay by cheque" etc... but not the point just now) and when I told her about the salesman, she also agreed that the salesman lied to me and misrepresented the product to us (since I wouldn't have bought the suite if I had known it was DD payment only). Hmmm.

 

Anyway, I also made it clear that since they knew about the situation, they knew the account was in dispute, and I wouldn't take too kindly to adverse markers on my credit file, etc, etc... and we left it at that for now.

 

I then phoned LoL and things went rapidly downhill from there. I won't bore you with the inane and pointless conversation on a loop with someone who managed to be both patronising and inept, and left it with that only the manager can deal with my issue and she'll get him to call me back tomorrow. Ok, seeing the past form, I won't hold my breath. At least, I managed to confirm that they had received my letter, so that's one thing.

 

More as events develop.

[Bookworm]

Well, it was to check that my letters had been received, to be fair. The rest of the convo was incidental.

[Bookworm]

Well, b****r me sideways, but the manager DID call me back! Problem is I had my grandson in one arm, my daughter in the other ear, my son running around, so concentrating was a tad arduous, but if I got this right, new table is on order and he'll chase up an update on delivery, he's going to contact Creation about the credit agreement, and he even said something about compensation or freebies for the inconvenience!!!

 

He's supposed to call me back on Monday for an update, we shall see. I can't believe that things could get sorted so easily, this is me, things never go that smoothly for me.

[Bookworm]

1 - I actually tend to keep things informal(ish) if and when I can. It works for me. As for being an example to others, you have seen me in Manchester, how can you even think of me as someone whose example to follow?

 

2 - I don't do Recorded Delivery, if I want to have proof, I send with certificate of posting, which is free. And I happen to believe that when I am the one on the attack, a swift phone call following the first letter works very well in keeping the other side on their toes and lets them know you're on their case.

 

3 - So what if he has my number? Do you REALLY think that any DCA would get past the "we need to go through the security questions first to confirm your ID"?

 

Anyway, update: Creation sent me a letter today confirming receipt and that they'll investigate my complaint and contact LoL. So far, so good.

 

More anon.

[Bookworm]

Well, things have progressed nicely. The manager called me every day to keep me updated, we had one row when he tried to say to me that as the table was "free", it wasn't part of the credit agreement and tried to talk me down, like that was going to work...

 

When I said to him I didn't need to check with TS, as consumer law was my specialist subject (ok, a tad of an exaggeration, but he doesn't know that), he changed his tone completely and said he'd contact Creation and see what could be done.

 

Anyway, the repair guys came yesterday, fixed the dodgy leg, and did their best on the big scratch, but there is no way that can be fixed properly, so now awaiting the offer of compensation which has been hinted at a few times, and then I can start the Standing Order. (Creation can argue the DD toss with LoL, as far as I am concerned, if they want the money, they'll have it MY way.)

 

So not quite concluded, but shouldn't take too long now.

[Bookworm]

Nothing heard yet, so about to send a nice reminder letter about compensation, I think 10% off total price sounds adequate, what do people think? That is usually what gets taken off in case of damaged goods/ex-display, so since despite repairs, the table is still very visibly damaged, I think it is appropriate?

 

Thoughts before I send off my wee letter?

[Bookworm]

The problem with something like that is that it just confirms to me that a nasty scratch on the table and a few weeks of hassle is not such a big deal and not worth massive amounts of compo. I'm probably too fair for my own good. :-|

[Bookworm]

Well, thanks to MTM's egging me on, I did ask for 20% off, and today settled for £450 off (20% would have been £500) the total price, so thanks MTM, if you hadn't , I would have settled for about £200.

[Bookworm]

I shouldn't have said anything, now he'll be gloating for EVER!!!

[Bookworm]

Time for a revival of this thread, although it's not LoL which are the issue any more, but Creation Finance.

 

I paid off the credit agreement in May 10, as expected, having got a final figure and checked that the balance was a great big fat ZERO.

 

I came back from holidays to find a letter from them stating that the bank had informed them that my DD agreement had been cancelled (WHAT DD? ) and they'd added £30 admin fee to my account (WHAT account? ) in accordance with the T&Cs of my agreement (WHAT agreement? ). Oh, and apparently I am in arrears of £112.82.

 

This should be fun.

[Bookworm]

LOL, sounds about right, JC.

[Bookworm]

And today, chasing "arrears", they've added £25 for sending me this letter.

 

Arrears now standing at £137.82. Allegedly.

[Bookworm]

Where was I?

 

Oh yes, having sent them a letter telling them I owed them a big fat zilch, they sent me a breakdown of the account... What do you know, according to their figures, the last payment I made isn't showing!

 

So I sent them a copy of my bank statement showing the payment to them, and telling them where to stick their charges.

 

Today, got a letter from a "DCA" (must be inhouse as the address is the same! ). Bunch of morons.

[Bookworm]

Still no reply to my letter, instead, they "will pass the debt to an outside debt collection agency", and for this have added, wait for it, ONE HUNDRED POUNDS to the balance.

 

I said to DH yesterday that between the ones I have paid off religiously and faithfully and the ones I have defaulted on, you can't tell the difference by their letters or behaviours, at which point you wonder why bother paying them at all really.

[Bookworm]

Final (here's hoping!) instalment to the saga:

 

CF phoned the other night. Well trianed, Mr Bookie was about to refuse to clear security when I said, no no no, let me talk to them!!!

 

Lady at the other end of the phone tried to tell me that I owed x amount of hundreds of pounds, to which I told her not, I owed her nothing. Told her I had sent copy of my bank statement, which they'd ignored, and that they could add charges until the cows come home, wouldn't make any difference. She checked it, no sign of any of my letters , but she asked me for the ref no on the payment made, then said that I had given the wrong ref number on the bank payment (funny that the same ref no went through no problem for 2 years before that every month!) and that she would get the money transferred back to our account. she then said she would talk to her manager to "see what they could do" about removing the charges to which I nicely replied that they could do whatever they wanted about that, because I didn't owe them a penny and wouldn't pay another penny, and that how they dealt with the account from now on was really not my problem!

 

So HOPEFULLY, that will be the end of the matter once and for all.