Goods signed for but faulty (4bathrooms)

Lesley, this company sounds dodgy and clearly has no idea of the law. You cannot possibly check goods without unwrapping them, and even then you cannot considered to have taken ownership of them until you have tried them out to ensure they are fir for purpose. Signing something on delivery does not constitute acceptance, the law recognises this. You must make it clear to the company you are rejecting the goods and claiming a full refund. Do this in writing for your own records (email/fax sufficient). You will expect the refund to be made within 7 days or you will be seeking recompense via the small claims court. Did you take any photos? because these will be useful. Remember if you paid by credit card, the card issuer has equal liability.

I have had a similar experience with 4bathrooms.

I ordered a shower enclosure and when it arrived the tray was faulty (a manufacturing fault). My plumber accepted the delivery (which was already 2 days late) but sigened the delivery note as UNCHECKED. We noticed the fault on the tray after we had to clean it - it was that dirty we had to give it a clean before installing it!

I have now had to purchase a replacement on the grounds they would refund the cost once they collected the faulty tray but they are playing up with the collection.

Dont bother emailing them as I have never had a reply to any email. There is only one person who deals with the company's bathroom division and if he is unavailable nobody else will help you. If you are put on hold be prepared to be blind transfered to a voicemail and then have to start the call all over again.

I have purchased literally hundereds of items over the internet and this is by far the worst experience I have ever had. I would never recommend this company and hope anyone else who purchases from this site has better luck than I have!

4bathrooms.co.uk – Rogue Traders DO NOT USE

I bought a shower enclosure & shower tray from these cowboys. The goods took 4 weeks to be delivered after numerous excuses blaming everyone but themselves for the 4 week wait. On unpacking the goods the shower enclosure was found to be severely damaged & unusable & the shower tray was not as described on the website. Like many I signed the delivery note & then unpacked the goods to find them severely damaged. 4bathrooms response to this was “tough luck, you signed for them therefore they are your responsibility”.

There is no point pursuing them if your goods are damaged unless you are willing to take these cowboys to court. They will not respond to letters if you write to them & show little respect for consumer law. I am convinced they know they are not complying with consumer law, but I guess they couldn’t care less. The staff there are quite thick as they confuse a delivery note to be some form of contract thus assuming once signed it devolves them of responsibility.

My advice to anyone who has the same miserable experience is to contact trading standards on 08454 040506 to report them. Also to write direct to Trading Standards in the local area at :-
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
Environmental Health & Trading Standards
PO Box 42
Lombard Street
West Bromwich
West Midlands
B70 8RU

4bathrooms.co.uk are registered at Companies House under the business name Trading Post Appliances.

If you are lucky enough to be reading this as the result of research before buying from them DO NOT USE 4bathrooms.co.uk THEY ARE ROGUE TRADERS & NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF COWBOYS

Agree with all the above. We signed for delivery (delivery note only stating 1 pallet) opened it to find an incomplete order and one of the things that had been sent was badly damaged. After initially agreeing to refund they then denied ever saying it - however after speaking to consumer rights people we contacted Halifax Mastercard - and our card has been refunded!!!! All is not certain yet as they have rejected our claim once again, referring to their T&Cs, however these stupid conditions DO NOT TAKE PRECEDENCE over UK legislation. I think they do not have a leg to stand on but I have never experienced such awful customer service!! How they can have logos of their City Council and the Ministry of Defence on their letters is beyond me. If I have the energy I will write to them but think I am rapidly losing the will to live....

I completely agree with all of the above, have just finished drafting a letter regarding the non-existence of my refund from 4bathrooms/tradingpost appliances.

I am shocked by the amount of orders they seemed to have c**ked up, see forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=248161 for more.

My saga is continuing... Halifax re-credited my account for the full amount; 4Bathrooms are continuing to dispute so I am basically having to keep resending original e-mail documenting problem. Then they gave a 'good will' credit of £200 to my account, which I have rejected.... have just received my latest statement with another £200 credited, which is almost the full amount, but it has just gone on and on. Do not understand how they can still be in business! (However I am now making a profit of £400 as Halifax had already credited my account at the start of all this.... suppose it won't last...) Am disappointed with the lack of input Halifax is having as they do not seem to be doing anything other than forwarding my own correspondance onto them. Thought they would possibly be a bit more proactice, but maybe this is just standard practice.

4bathrooms. What a nightmare! I ordered because they seemed to be the best bathroom prices on the internet. The website was easy to view. The order was easy to place. The money left my account immediately. Then the stress begins...

I had to make so many telephone calls just to get a delivery date. When the bathroom suite actually arrived they had sent the wrong toilet. You'd think it would be straightforward for them to correct their mistake. Think again! Without going into loads of detail of my stressful experience with 4Bathrooms, heres a simple guide....

If you haven't already placed an order, I would strongly advise you not to.

If its too late, and like me, you've checked the review sites when you started to have problems, then my advice would be...
Don't email them with your problem...they won't reply.
Don't leave a messge for them to ring back...they won't.
Don't believe them if they say the person you need to speak to isn't available...just hold, until they are.
Don't take it for granted that the delivery date they say is correct, ring again on them morning of the delivery (they don't seem to mind their customers wasting days, waiting in for deliveries that haven't been organised)
Don't sign for a delivery without opening and checking each and every package to see if the correct item is enclosed and check for damages.

Our nightmare ended after a long, long process... the good news was that we had paid by visa and eventually got our money back. We had our money credited a couple of times when I wrote to Visa with the reasons why, legally, we should not be charged... each time that company refuted the blunt legal statements I had made. Eventually they accepted. But God, how can they still be trading?? It's unbelievable...

Re: 4 Bathrooms

Hopefully you are reading this before you place an order with '4bathroom'.
DON'T DO IT !!!!!!
I ordered a Grohe shower valve which was promptly delivered.
Then the nightmare started.
When I opened the battered brown box, the contents weren't even in their original packaging. The 'bits' that arrived, were wrapped in bubble wrap & a few screws in a small paper bag. Our builder opened the goods in disbelief.
He said ;
1/ The goods had either been used before or were ex display.
2/ The shower head was filthy & sratched.
3/ The main shower valve had water inside it !!
4/ Half of the kit was missing.
When I called to complain, the first thing they asked was 'DID I SIGN FOR THE GOODS'. I was then informed that I could not return damaged goods.
Luckily I hadn't signed for the delivery, but 5 weeks later & 10 telephone calls to chase a refund, I am still being fobbed off. I have reported them to Trading Standards who advised me that they were already under review. Can nobody stop these people.
PLEASE PLEASE don't even visit their website !!!!!!

Hi all,

How I wished I'd read these reviews before buying from this shameless company! I ordered a bathroom suite from 4 bathrooms and as with the others on here, had no problems up until delivery, when the pallet was disposed on the road in front of my house and driver pressured me to sign for delivery. On opening all packages (which I did asap) the sink was cracked and was unusable. The damage was so serious it could not have been sustained on delivery (and everything else was fine). However my story has a happy ending. After 2 weeks of being given the run around (same story as others on here so won't go into detail), I followed the advice on some of the other posts and I got a replacement sink (good news as the rest of the suite was lovely quality and design). Follow the advice posted by Jacko (June 2010) to the letter. Ignore what they say about signing for delivery as it's rubbish and once you've filled in the claim form and sent it in, call them the next day and stay on hold until you've spoken to the supervisor. Refuse to get off the phone until she's agreed to give you a refund/replacement - this is your statutory right and they can't deny you this - whatever they say. Include the wording from form letter 7 on Trading Standards website in the cover email for your claim form.

You can post the letter but this is time consuming and unnecessary - if you are persistent and speak to the supervisor (Kerry Delaney as of 10th Nov) straightaway, you'll be able to resolve the issue quickly. I only wish I hadn't wasted time letting them give me the run around by promising that I'd be called back and saying the supervisor's in meetings (she wasn't - just avoiding calls).

Finally there are about a million bathroom places out there and although the products in my case were lovely, the risk of an issue is too high and their poor customer service means that it's not worth the hassle to order with them, so i'd avoid like the plague.

Good luck! (and thanks to all who posted previously)

What can i say.. We ordered £1,500 of goods from these cowboys, there prices are very good but the customer service is the worst I have ever experienced and to be honest I don't know how they are still trading as they have so much bad press (which I wish I had read before i ordered)

They called us before delivery to let us know that one of the 2 sinks and matching vanity units could not be located in the warehouse but they would send the order without them so that it would not delay things. we were assured that this would be delivered by the end of the week. There was also another item out of stock which we changed (as colour was not an issue) and were due a refund back of £179.00

The delivery came and one of the shower trays was wrong, the toilet cistern was broken and there were various taps and other bits missing.

We had to email pictures of the broken and incorrect items and have chased DAILY for almost 3 weeks now, oh and by the way... still no refund of £179.00.

They apparently sent someone to collect the tray who never showed up, then when we tried to rearrange delivery, we were told WE would have to pay the cost, then when we tried to chase it we were told to call citylink, which we did only to be told that they couldnt talk to us to reschedule they have to talk to 4bathrooms, we are not authorised!!!

They then told us that the Cistern WASNT included with the toilet they sent us so shouldnt have been sent out and was sent out in error, and they wouldnt send us a new shower tray until they got the old one back!

IN THE END, we brought the missing items from bathrooms.co.uk who I must say are slightly more expensive, but you really do get what you pay for when it comes to customer service. We are still chasing collection of the shower tray and have not received the refund of £179.00 from changing items on the order.

The missing sink and unit still didn't show up and we are NOW after 3 WEEKS being told that it is discontinued... so... we have 3 options;

1. Live with one sink
2. send the whole set back and get a lighter colour unit
3. find one elsewhere

option 1 is the last option we will consider as the plumbing is there for 2 sinks.

We were told that because there is nothing wrong with the other bathroom furniture WE would have to pay the delivery cost of getting it redelivered.

Still no refund of £179.00...

I am waiting for a call back (which never comes) to get a FULL refund for the shower tray, missing taps, the undelivered unit & sink and the £179.00 which still Hasn't been refunded 3 weeks later.

DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY
DO NOT BUY FROM THIS COMPANY
THEY GIVE YOU THE RUNAROUND
A MANAGER IS NEVER AVAILABLE
THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS DESPERATELY APPALLING

they are crooks and very unscrupulous

I will never buy from them again

the above is a very cut down version of events, we have been told mismatching stories from different employees, varying reasons for no refund, one is because the order hasn't been finished and items are still pending, next person says smugly, "well we have 28 days to process refunds, read our terms and conditions"

BEWARE

4bathrooms

Hi all

I recently purchased a bathroom suite from 4bathrooms on Tuesday morning and it arrived within two days. I did check all the goods and all seem to be fine and in original packaging. I did also ring a guy up in the showroom who gave me advice on some bathroom stuff and he seemed excellent to deal with and new what he was talking about. I'm guessing the major improvement in 4bathroom's customer service and satisfaction is probably due to the new ownership.
I WOULD now recommend people to use 4bathrooms and would definitely use them again for my bathroom products

Hope this helps anyone thinking of buying from 4bathrooms

Despite the website stating that the company name is 'Tradingpost Appliances Limited' it is in fact called 'Trading Post Appliances Limited' (yes the space does make a difference). This company is currently in receivership. It has estimated deficiencies to non preferential creditors of -£1,002,372.00.

So make your own mind up as to whether you should deal with this company or perhaps trade with a finacially stable company!

I'm guessing the major improvement in 4bathroom's customer service and satisfaction is probably due to the new ownership.

Click to expand...

I guess the joint administrators could be descibed as the 'new owners'.

Dear All,

I am the Sales Director for 4bathrooms.co.uk. On March 21st 2011 Trading Post Appliances t/a 4 Bathrooms went into administration as a poster above correctly states. In May 2011 we (the new company) purchased the intellectual property for 4bathrooms.co.uk. I would like to assure all customers that is indeed a new ownership and not a 'phoenix from the flames' scenario. As I am a new poster, I am unable to attach links, but go to webwhois.nic.uk for proof of domain change of ownership, and the London Gazete website for proof of administration. If you have any questions or queries, do not hesitate to contact me on 0844 8 222 444.

Ali_Jones

Is the 4bathrooms.co.uk website now under your control (new company) and if it is why does it refer to Tradingpost Appliances Ltd? I can see the ownership of the domain now but do not understand why the webiste has not been updated.

Obviously it would not be correct to blame new unconnected owners for the short-comings of a previous company so this information would hellp sort this issue out.

Trickygj,

Having looked at the website, you are correct that it points to the old Trading Post company on Terms & Conditions. This is purely an oversight from our technical department. It was due to the mass upload of new pages and was simply missed. Thank you very much for bringing it to my attention and we will change this immediately. If you would like to speak to me regarding anything, feel free to call me on 0844 8 222 444. Whilst we are still local to the previous company, I must stress that we are a new company and belong to the Darlaston Builders Merchants group which have been successfully trading in this region for 20 years. We have 5 (now 6) branches and unrivalled customer service.

Ali_Jones

Yes I could see the builders merchants were the new owners which is why the website threw me a little. Unfortunately the intellectual property included quite a bit of bad press which is understandable as people lost money.

Hopefully when the website is updated and people can see a distinct disassociation between old and new and customers receive the service they expect 4bathrooms.co.uk should receive no more 'bad press'.

Maybe anyone who has lost money or not received goods through the old company might get a bit more discount from the new? I hope things now settle down and this puts an end to bad press from this forum.

regards