Shed ordered online has not arrived, wrong one has!

Hi there, I was looking for some advice about my rights in regards to Distance selling.

My mum ordered a shed on the 28th of april from buyshedsdirect.co.uk and was told it would be delivered on the 7th of may. They took the money from my Mums account on the 30th. A letter was recieved stating the date of the delivery as the 7th.

On the 7th they called to say the delivery truck had broken down so it would be delivered on the 9th.

The 9th came, but they did not and there was no call from the company, we tried to call but it turns out they do not work on Saturdays, alright for some!
I called them on the following Monday (the 11th) to find out what was going on and after speaking to several different people I was eventually told that it would be delivered the following day.

Also on the 11th I got a call from the company who does the deliveries (this was the first time i realised that they were separate companies) and they told me the delivery would be made on thursday, not the tuesday. I was getting rather frustrated by this point so I explained to the girl what had happened so far and how many days I had already lost so she somehow managed to get my delivery moved to the next day! Hooray! Or so I thought.

So the next day (the 12th) the shed arrives, I noticed that the roofing felt was in tatters and pointed this out so they swapped it for someone elses off the truck. I did a quick check to make sure all the pieces were there and signed the delivery note also stating "goods not checked" next to it.

Later on that moring I was going to start building it and then noticed that the door was totally different from the rest of it, also it was really badly put together and totally the wrong colour! I checked on the website and it seemed like it was totally the wrong shed.

Had I realised sooner I wouldnot have taken delivery of it, but I was a touch blinded by the excitement of it eventually arriving.

I called the company and described it to them and they basically said that it was totally the wrong one, the cheapest one that they do. The company said I would be contacted within 2 days to arrange collection and exchange of the shed.

The next day (13th) I got a call telling me that the correct shed would be delivered on the 19th of May. I asked the lady of the other shed would be taken away on this day too and she relpied with "its not my department".

By this point I refused to call them any more because the phone numbers they use are those that the company profits from. I had already spent well over an hour and a half either on hold or listening to a message thanking me for holding.

So the 19th arrives and guess what? The shed did not arrive! I e-mailed them to ask what was going on and it is only today that I got a reply (2days later) stating that they have no idea what is going on!

I sent them a letter yesterday asking for a full refund.

What I want to know is what legal rights do I have to request this refund? So far what I have found on here and a couple of other sites is that I (or my Mum I should say) can request the refund because under the distance selling regulations, the goods must be delivered or the service carried out within the time period they have specified; which they most ceratinly have not.

Also is it reasonable to ask for costs of phone calls made to them back too. Every time I have called them it hasd been due to an arror on there behalf, not mine.

Can I even ask for some sort of reimbursement due to the time which I have had to make myself available to recieve the delivery? I wouldn't mind if it was a couple of day but it's 5 days in total.

Any help or thoughts are much appreciated.

Thank you

Martin

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your quick reply. I was hoping that by now I could report something positive, but the company still hasn't replied to my letter of complaint.

Quote

You can request a refund under the Distance Selling Regulations. This is from their website:

Quote:
Refund Policy
In compliance with the above regulation you have a cooling off period where you may withdraw your order and therefore your Agreement with us. The cooling off period is any time up to seven working days after the day we have delivered the product to you. You must cancel your order in writing either by fax, letter or email.

I am not certain about this point, you see they have not actually delivered the goods but the wrong one so would this cooling off period still be valid?

Also, I sent the email/letter of request for refund last week; how long do I give them to respond and what should my next step be?

Thanks

Martin

Hi Georginazn, things are progressing, very very slowly. There has been no reply from the shed company about the complaint I sent to them. But we have got a refund, hooray! Unfortunately it was not because of the letter but because I telephoned them again to ask if they had recieved the letter. The girl i spoke to told me that she personally had no way of checking if they had recieved a letter, all she does it take calls! However she was really good because she cancelled the order, said she would refund the money (which I think has happened) and also get the wrong shed picked up today.

The delivery company who originally delivered the shed have literally (about 5 minutes ago) just been. But guess what, they didn't come to pick up the wrong shed; they tried to deliver another shed!!

The delivery driver said that this was the second time that this had happened today!!

I am glad to report though that in the meantime, we managed to find a nice shed which was a bit more expensive but was supplied by a garden centre just down the road and I have now put it up and it is looking fantastic at the bottom of the garden.

Now to try and get rid of this other shed!!

Anyone want to buy a shed

Oh, and I'm not holding my breath about getting call charges back. But I may send another letter just to express my dissapointment further and to make the request again, cos as they say around here "shy bairns get nowt"!