co-op electrical, missing refund, which ombudsman please? ***Resolved***

[deadkennedy]

Hi All I hope you can help.

 

The situation is that I was due a quite substantial refund from co-op electrical for faulty goods that they couldn't replace.

 

Co-op electrical state that they have refunded the money "to the card/account that paid for the goods" however the card issuer states that "my account" has not received any funds, and quite reasonably they cannot check whether the funds have been added erroneously to another account.

 

I have tried to get co-op electrical to give me the account details (mainly number) of the account they have refunded to but they will only tell me "the card/account number it was paid with" as they claim the actual number is information only their bank holds.

 

It is now over 2 months since the alleged refund and I have got no further.

 

I have sent them a subject access request on the advice of my card issuer which will hopefully crowbar an actual account number out of them, but frankly the experience I have had so far is so shocking that I want to report them to someone, but I cant work out who.

 

The office of fair trading over see the sale of goods act, but says they don't take individual complaints against companies.

[rebel11]

Hi Deadkennedy

 

Welcome to CAG.

 

It sounds like Co-op aren't Co-operating.

 

Write a Formal Letter of Complaint, mark it as such. Explain what's happened (promised refund), how they have let you down (failed to refund/won't provide information) and what you want them to do (refund the money). Tell them you want the SAR fee back and compensation. Explain that you want a final response so that you can take the matter to the FOS, explain that if you do that it will cost the Co-op £500.

 

Send it to:-

 

James Holland

Managing Director

The Co-operative Group

Customer Relations

Freepost MR9473

Manchester

M4 8BA

[deadkennedy]

Thanks for the quick reply and welcome rebel11.

 

So the best course would be to pull out of the SAR (for now) and formally complain? The letter was only sent this morning so they are no where near cashing the cheque.

 

One thing I noticed was that their own SAR request form was much more limiting in there favour than the SAR you have in the library here.

 

The fact is that they allegedly *have* refunded the money, but wont/cant tell me where to.

 

BTW, what compensation would I be looking for. It has cost me a fair few hours and phone calls. I also went overdrawn for the first time in years because I needed to replace the item but expected the refund to be in before the months end.

 

sorry, Im ranting a bit now but their attitude has been really atrocious.

[rebel11]

See what compensation they offer, then point out what it's cost you. Carry on with the SAR, the £10 fee is part of your costs, so make sure you claim that back.

 

Thanks for the quick reply and welcome rebel11.

 

So the best course would be to pull out of the SAR (for now) and formally complain? The letter was only sent this morning so they are no where near cashing the cheque.

 

One thing I noticed was that their own SAR request form was much more limiting in there favour than the SAR you have in the library here.

 

The fact is that they allegedly *have* refunded the money, but wont/cant tell me where to.

 

BTW, what compensation would I be looking for. It has cost me a fair few hours and phone calls. I also went overdrawn for the first time in years because I needed to replace the item but expected the refund to be in before the months end.

 

sorry, Im ranting a bit now but their attitude has been really atrocious.

[deadkennedy]

just a quick thought. I am still within the timescale for charge back and is it worth going down this route?

 

Basically I bought a PVR but from day one there were problems with it, and I can show forum posts where I was asking for advice on how to fix it. As I got closer to the warranty ending I started to get the manufacturer involved, they kept claiming it was a problem with the broadcast signal not the PVR but had coincidentally withdrawn the PVR from the market over unspecified issues. Finally and just within the 1 year mark I got them to admit that the "fault" was within the unit. This actually cost a great deal of time (thinking of the compensation) because I was forced to borrow a friends PVR for a while and have it record the same programmes from the same broadcast signal. However, by the time the manufacturer agreed the fault, co-op electrical had nothing in stock to replace my unit (which was a result if I'm honest).

 

so, I noticed the fault 14 months ago but only got confirmation of the fault within the last 120 days.

[rebel11]

I would stick with the advice given in post 2, remember they've refunded that money to an account. If you go for a Chargeback it will confuse issues, especially when your Card provider speak to the Co-op and the Co-op say we have already refunded the monies.

 

just a quick thought. I am still within the timescale for charge back and is it worth going down this route?

 

Basically I bought a PVR but from day one there were problems with it, and I can show forum posts where I was asking for advice on how to fix it. As I got closer to the warranty ending I started to get the manufacturer involved, they kept claiming it was a problem with the broadcast signal not the PVR but had coincidentally withdrawn the PVR from the market over unspecified issues. Finally and just within the 1 year mark I got them to admit that the "fault" was within the unit. This actually cost a great deal of time (thinking of the compensation) because I was forced to borrow a friends PVR for a while and have it record the same programmes from the same broadcast signal. However, by the time the manufacturer agreed the fault, co-op electrical had nothing in stock to replace my unit (which was a result if I'm honest).

 

so, I noticed the fault 14 months ago but only got confirmation of the fault within the last 120 days.

[deadkennedy]

OK, thanks for all the help Rebel11. The letter is written and I will post it in the morning.

 

What complicates matters further is that the card was cancelled in the interim, but they have been very helpful not withstanding and I believe that there has been no credit to the account. The card issuer has said that if a situation like this arises they will accept the payment and then write to the card holder to ask how the money should be refunded.

[rebel11]

Let us know what they say.

[deadkennedy]

will do, cheers

[deadkennedy]

Well that was interesting.

 

The Co-op data protection team have emailed to basically say "we cant give you the account details because data protection, but our systems are infallible". I dont think that this will have been in response to the complaint though, as I'd imagine its still in the bank holiday post.

 

So, wanting to make sure I had all the details correct I dug out the CC statement from 12 months ago to confirm that I had paid on the card I was sure I had, I then contacted the card issuer again and asked them to double extra positive check that no payments had been received.

 

Well would you believe it, a payment was made on the 14th April and they had just issued the cheque.

 

So just to get that in context, the Co-op had absolutely stated that their infallible system had refunded the payment to the card it was issued on 6th March, yet it coincidentally appeared in my card account the day after I emailed them asking to forward me a Subject Access Request form.

 

although the money is at least on the way, I'm sorely tempted to follow up the formal complaint letter with a new one, because of all the messing about Ive needed to do.

 

Thanks for the help Rebel11.

[rebel11]

Hi deadkennedy

 

Well Done, let us know how you get on with the 'follow up the formal complaint letter', you have the evidence, photocopy it and send it off. All the hassle is deserving of some compensation, the phone calls, letters, poor customer service, distress etc.