The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Dear Consumer’s Voice #1

I received an email saying there were vacancies at the Harrington Hall Hotel in London. I have never worked in a hotel before. Is this a scam?

Yes, it most certainly IS a scam. The hotel mentioned is real and is perfectly respectable but the email has nothing to do with them. Hotels simply don’t recruit people this way. This is a fairly standard “advance fee” scam. If you respond to them I bet that they’d soon require you to send them money using Western Union. That’s what they’re really after. I suggest you just delete the email and don’t reply.

Dear Consumer’s Voice #2

We bought a bedroom suite on 30th December 2011 for P6,999 cash but we only collected in January because they were about to close for New Year. The salesperson advised that it would be quicker if we collected it ourselves. When we tried to collect it, the shop realized that most of the suites were damaged and they had to arrange another branch to give us the suite and they opted to give us the one which was already assembled in the store.

When they were packing the suite the store removed the drawers from the headboard, I believe to make it lighter to load. When we got home we realized that the drawers would not go in. The shop assistants came to attend to the problem and they realized that there were screws missing and they assured us that they will assist. We were later told that it was our fault that they were missing. The shop manager says there is nothing they can do because we lost the screws.

I think that the store should not have dismantled the suite because the drawers are difficult to put back. Isn’t it negligence on their side not to educate their staff?

Is it our responsibility to ensure we have all necessary parts of the suite before we left the shop?

I think this is quite simple. If staff from the store dismantled the goods and lost something then clearly it’s the store’s fault. Surely that’s quite simple for them to understand? What’s more it’s only a couple of screws, isn’t it? How difficult can this be to fix?

I suggest that you write the store manager a letter saying that they have failed to sell you goods that are of merchantable quality as required by Section 13 (1) (a) of the Consumer Protection Regulations. Furthermore they’ve failed to deliver their services with reasonable care and skill as required by Section 15 (1) (a) of those Regulations. Finally they’ve delivered products and services in a deeply silly way as forbidden by me.

Give them 7 days to fix the problem entirely to your satisfaction or you’ll cancel the entire deal, return the goods and demand a full refund. If they give you any problems let them know that you’ll see them either in the Small Claims Court or the pages of The Voice. Which would they prefer?

Update

Last week I reported on a complaint where a customer had paid for 2 chairs on 20th December but they still hadn’t been delivered, despite endless phone calls and broken promises from the store. Her demand for a refund was refused by the store despite her right to do exactly that. They just told her to wait even longer.

We spoke to the MD of the company concerned and he got personally involved. The consumer received a full refund and an apology.