I've had a bit of a Google around, but can't find anything that's quite close enough to my scenario to be useful, I know there's a few of you on here clued up on consumer rights so here we go. On the 13th June this year I placed and order with a UK Ltd company for some car parts (IFS kit for my truck), the kit is made by an American company who the UK company is a distributor for, they ship it in and handle all the import duty stuff. They wanted payment in advance (fair enough, it's a high value and they don't want to be stuck with it), so I sent over £4100 by bank transfer. The item was supposed to be in the UK at their workshop for me to collect at the end of July. As the end of July approached I emailed them to see if it was all going to plan and received no reply. I've sent several emails since asking for an update and haven't had a single response. I got my dad to phone during the day while I was at work, he's got through twice and was told that it would be chased up and they'd let me know, both times I've not heard anything. He's tried to phone them again today and they haven't even answered the phone. I'm now getting fed up of not knowing what's going on and being ignored so what courses of action can/should I take. Cheers
You're **** out of luck on getting a refund if it never materialises, bank transfer, goodbye. Always pay by credit card so you're covered. Even if it's a part payment (has to be at least £101 as far as I can remember) You could try small claims court, but if they go bust, you're not likely to get much, if anything back.
Get in touch with the American company to tell that what a crap job the UK distro is doing and ask if they want that level of service as the face of UK operations. It won't get you your part or money back, but it might light a fire under their arse if the UK distro stand to lose the rights. Failing that, you're driving to their HQ.
Cheers for the replies. Yeah should have got my dad to pay for it on his card (I haven't got a credit card), they never offered card payment, just bank details, and I'm too trusting . I don't "think" they'll go bust, from the work they're putting on Facebook they should be doing alright but . I did send an email to the American company asking if they could tell me if they'd had an order and what it's status was, they just said they didn't have access to details about orders from their distributors (bit useless). They're in Essex so it's a bit of a drive from the midlands, but that's looking like the best option. I sent another email last night expressing how fed up I was with being ignored, I did get a reply, but just him basically saying "sorry it's been a hectic week with lots of phone calls, and he'll either give me an update today or Monday", so we'll see. If I had £4k of someone's money for something they'd bought I'd be falling over myself to let them know what's happening every step of the way. I can't understand how people think they can operate a business by ignoring customers
Honestly for that kind of value, I’d have no problem spending the money on fuel and taking a day to drive there and back to get some answers. Hope you’re able to get some kind of positive resolution.
You could always go with a nice public post on their Facebook page. "I'm contacting you here because you don't answer the phone or emails.....".
Rayleigh. Farm Fresh Garage. They hold a big'ish truck meet every month so they can't have pissed off everyone. I probably will have a drive down if I don't get a reply today, then park up in the doorway getting in the way as much as possible, .
Doesn't look to good to me, good luck. FARM FRESH GARAGE LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK (company-information.service.gov.uk)
My dad has been trying that while I'm at work, but on Friday they just didn't answer at all. They'll be getting an email everyday from now on too. My boss has said I can go down on Thursday to bang on the table. Anyone got any big mates round Essex ?
So after a few more phone calls and emails saying I was getting fed up and would be requesting my money back if I wasn't updated, I've finally got an update from him, it should apparently be ready for me to collect in about 2 weeks. It's apparently with his freight people in america, they were going to put it on the next container, even though he'd told them to air freight it, apparently they are now air freighting it. He's on holiday next week, so the week after it should be available. Seems very coincidental that the previous shipping container has just arrived in the UK though ( he has a container every month come over). I paid £800 extra for air freight as it saved 4 weeks (air was 4 weeks, sea was 8 weeks, it was either end of july or end of august). I'm thinking that he probably sea freighted it to make another £800 on it and has just been fobbing me off for 4 weeks while the container made it's way over. No way I can prove this though so meh, as long as I get the kit, then I can finally move forward with the truck. So fingers crossed, 2 weeks and I'll go collect it (don't trust any UK courier to not lose it or damage it ).
Fingers crossed mate. If you paid for quicker delivery I'd pick it up and not leave till they've refunded it if it's late.
Well I've got it. It arrived thursday or friday last week, I couldn't get down till Wednesday this week, 2.5-3hours down the M1 and M25 and there's 7 boxes there with lots of shiny bits in. Ordered a RHD steering rack from him now too, , another £1k. Wish he'd been paying a bit more attention to my very first messages though and seen that I was doing RHD, could have had it all at the same time. He's posting the rack to me and covering the postage, and he's giving me £300 for the LHD rack that came with the kit. So all seems to have ended ok, , just got to fit it now, and probably change the front well sump to a rear well sump as I think it's going to foul the steering rack. The joys of modifying cars,
