Purchasing advice .... hope you never need it

Madasmaz

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Hi,

Thought I would share a bit of hard learned experience. If you are contemplating making a purchase of significant value from a manufacturer directly or supplier, take the following precautions, just in case you should need a refund for whatever reason.

1. Use a credit card to make the purchase. Even if you have money in the bank, pay using the credit card then pay off your credit card with money in the bank. Why? For upto 6 years after purchase, your credit card company will reclaim your money back on your behalf via a dispute form.

2. Get evidence to support your claim for a refund, be it photographic or veterinary, and keep a record and copies of all correspondence with the manufacturer/supplier, telephone calls, emails and letters, especially if they are contradicting your claim or making life difficult. You will need this for no.3.

3. Visit the Citizen's Advice bureau if you experience difficulty with the manufacturer in giving you a refund. They will explain clearly what you are entitled to in terms of a refund, in your given circumstances, and will help you take the next step if necessary to lodge a Small Claims Court action.

4. Finally you will need to return the goods to the manufacturer/supplier so they can assess for themselves, this is required by law before they can give you a refund, but where possible if you have not been given and agreement for a refund, you should send a "letter before action", stating that you are putting the company on notice for impending legal action in order to reclaim your money. You should give them 14 days to respond and on the 14th day lodge your Small Claims Action with a court local to the manufacturer/supplier...this can be done on the web.

5. If the company is BETA registered, you can go straight to them with all of the above.

Cheers and happy confident shopping y'all

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Thanks for the advice

Can I please add (hope you don't mind) in order to start court proceedings you have to pay to lodge the papers with the court.

As further leverage with your LETTER BEFORE ACTION it is a very good idea to download the court papers from the web fill them in the attach copies of the oficial papers stating that they are ready to be lodged in court should they fail to respond within 14 days.

In my experience many people ignore the letter before action thinking that you won't really go ahead.

Usually the sight of court papers BEFORE they are lodged is enough to make whomever you are in dispute with to take your letter before action seriously. This way you let them know you are serious and it does not cost you anything.
 
Good point. I also forgot to add that you should also complain to the trading standards, I believe they start investigating once a certain number of complaints have been received.
 
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