Never saw it coming......had over a treat!! (RANT)

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Toby_Zaphod

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This is a rant, I’m really hacked off. I have 2 horses & I buy my hay once a year, 270 bales. I have been buying from the same person on a small holding for 5 years+. I pay for it immediately & I part with around £800. They keep the hay for me in their barn & I collect around 40 bales a time in my horsebox when I need it. This was a good arrangement that suited both parties.

Due to poor hay crop 2010, as we all know, they cut everyone back & I could only have 150 which I paid for. I managed to secure hay from another source, using that first & then collecting the hay from my normal supplier . I had worked out what I needed to see me through to this year’s harvest & until yesterday I had 30 small bales left. My horses, out in the day & stabled at night.

I was about to phone to arrange to collect the final 30 bales when I was phoned by them. She told me that she needed the hay for her horse & couldn’t let me have it & would give me a refund……….?????? :( I was in shock, couldn’t believe it, it isn’t her hay, I bought & paid her for it 10 months ago! She decided to ‘dump on me’ because she hadn’t managed her own hay needs. There’s nothing really I can do though, just accept the refund. I’ve since been hunting around to find an alternate supply. I’ve managed to & will collect on Friday but it will cost me £60 more than the hay she’s taken from me.

Am I right to be angry? She was so matter of fact about what she was doing…….as if it shouldn’t bother me & what she was doing was right?……in a moment I went from having sufficient hay to see me through, in fact I was quite pleased with how I’d managed it all, to having nothing & trying to hunt down a supplier at a semi reasonable price.
Rant over…..sorry to bore anyone……chocs, beer, wine etc for anyone who stayed the course
 
Sorry I've never been in a situation like that so i have no advice

But OMG! That sounds damn wrong to me!!!!
I would've gone over and demanded my hay though I guess in situations you can't always do that.. :(
My heart really goes out to you. Really hope someone helps you and you get the hay you need!
xx
 
I think its gonna be dog eat dog all round with hay this year. Its becoming a rare commodity.

What they've done is awful though.
 
That's a bit wrong!!!

Agree to sell them back but at a higher price!!!!! All the farmers are doing it! Do this if you are obviously NOT going to use them again!!!!

I would be super cross!!!
 
I would be fairly p***d off as well if it was me but not a lot you can really do about it.

Wonder what she would have said if you had said no it's mine and You can't buy it back off me :D
 
You are right to be angry, and probably should be finding another supplier. However I think that you were paying about £3 a bale, which, considering it was stored for you as well over the winter, makes it a very hard act to replace. You had a really cheap arrangement there.

I would tell them that you are very uspet that you were made to pay for the hay in advance, thus making it yours, and that you won't be paying in advance any more. Find yourself a back up supply.
 
foraday said:
That's a bit wrong!!!

Agree to sell them back but at a higher price!!!!! All the farmers are doing it! Do this if you are obviously NOT going to use them again!!!!
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I am sorting out a new supplier as I type, I would love to have sold it back to her at the higher price, I think I would have been entitled to as it actually belongs to me.....but it's in her barn so my options are limited. :(
 
Do you have receipt? Proof of cheque being cashed etc? It is your property which she has been storing for you as an agreement. Hitch the trailer and go get it! It's yours, perhaps also bung a cheque (£20 say) for storage?
 
I would be murderously cross, especially as you had already paid for it, it was a dirty trick to do but on the other hand, they have kept and stored it for you for nothing in the past which was jolly good of them, many suppliers wouldn't have done that at all; you buy it, you move it now type thing or otherwise it's still theirs to sell.
 
i would be livid, but i'll bet if you try and get more money than you bought it for she'll charge you storage!!
Have to be honest tho and say i would never trust anyone to store hay for me, it's too easy for them to use it just because it is there:(

slightly OT but i livery on a farm and he cuts his own hay and altho he got less bales per acre than the year before he has said over and over he can't understand the panic over ' the supposed hay shortage' (his words not mine) and if all us horsey lot stopped panicking and putting the ideas into the farmers minds we'd still be able to get hay at normal prices:confused: just one farmers veiw obviously but it did make me wonder how many farmers have just put the prices up because we were all expecting them to;)
 
Toby it doesn't matter it is stored in their barn! That was part of the original agreement! They can't turn round and then charge you for storage!

They should be paying your replacement cost!

As you said you have been careful with your hay supply and its not your fault that they have gone through theirs!!!
 
Ibblebibble said:
....and if all us horsey lot stopped panicking and putting the ideas into the farmers minds we'd still be able to get hay at normal prices:confused: just one farmers veiw obviously but it did make me wonder how many farmers have just put the prices up because we were all expecting them to;)
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Not so, I'm afraid. It has just cost us £200 more to fill up our diesel tank (holds 1000 litres, so NOT a big tank) than it did this time last year, and haymaking requires a fair bit of diesel.
 
Yes that does sound a pain in the bum. It seems a bit ridiculous that they could not forsee this and as you say the hay was yours. I would have charged her more to buy it back from me but how easy that would be to enforce i do not know :) Another one of those 'who is right situations'. I certainly wouldn't use them again though- no way to treat a long standing cutomer.
 
I would be more than a little peed off too if someone double crossed me like that as well!
Could I just ask though, you say that the horses are out in the day and in at night. Is there not enough grass for them to be out 24/7 at the moment which would help alleviate your hay shortage? Or do you keep in at night for medical reasons, ie to restrict grass, or to help guard against midges.
I am only curious because I think I am one of only a few people that keep their horses out 24/7 in summer and where I am now, the only one and yet there is plenty of grass.
I guess I just can't get my head around paying for stabling and grazing where the grass is free in summer months and then people keeping their horses in and paying yard owner additional money to feed dried grass that is not then free, with additional bedding costs on top.
Obviously if grazing is limited or there are medical reasons then I can understand, but I know certainly in my case there is not one horse that needs to be kept in for part of the day in the nicer summer months for any particular reason.
I guess I am just old school and think horses are designed to graze.
Sorry mini rant aside as each to their own.
I was just asking in case OP was able to keep their horses out for longer which would help with the feeding hay problem unless of course there was limited grazing or other issues.
 
They've had the use of your money in the period between paying for the hay and now. So, at the very least, I'd ask them to pay interest!
 
Ok, so here's a question for you!!

If you had gone back to collect the last 30 bales and their barn had leaked and the 30 bales were mouldy and ruined would you have still collected them or asked for a refund!???
 
Mrs_Wishkabibble said:
Ok, so here's a question for you!!

If you had gone back to collect the last 30 bales and their barn had leaked and the 30 bales were mouldy and ruined would you have still collected them or asked for a refund!???
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If that had ever happened, unlikely as the barn is only about 7 years old, brick built & totally enclosed I certainly wouldn't have asked for a refund. How could I, it was my property & my decision to store it there. If I had been buying 40 bales at a time off them & taking them away then of course I wouldn't buy mouldy hay....who would? But in that case the mouldy hay would have been their property & not mine so that would be a different ball game. :)
 
It's a bit harsh but you could have said "no, it's mine" and organised to collect it somehow.
 
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