The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Will they repair them?

Can you kindly assist me? I bought a bed and TV both with hire purchase in September 2024 and I'm still paying for them. The mattress is no longer comfortable and the TV screen broke accidentally on the road from Kasane to Pandamatenga when I was moving to Francistown.The TV screen broke, I was holding it the road is bad honestly..

I long reported for my bed replacement in October 2025 and TV 2 weeks ago but they are not assisting me. I also sent them an email but no response and I am expected to continue paying.

I might have some good news. But I might also have some bad news.

Normally, when people buy things on hire purchase, the warranty lasts for just one year. If this was true in your case, you'd be out of luck because both the problems you reported happened more than a year after you purchased them. However, the good news is that the hire purchase agreement you sent me shows that you bought an extended warranty for these items. This lasts for the whole period you're paying for them, three years. It looks to me like the bed is still covered by the warranty, so I hope the store can do the right thing and fix it for you.

However, you might be out of luck with the TV. The insurance that comes with a hire purchase contract usually only covers things like theft and fire and probably doesn't cover accidental damage while you were moving house. Another problem is that the agreement says that you must inform them if you're changing your address. It's important to remember that with hire purchase, the items you thought were yours actually still belong to the store until you've made the last payment. You might think you were moving YOUR TV from one house to another, but in fact you were moving THEIR TV.

Nevertheless, I'll contact them and ask how they can help you.

Where's my money?

Please help me. I was to take a bed from a furniture store in Francistown on hire purchase. So I paid a deposit. That was last year October.

I wanted for them to deliver the bed but they never came. I went to them in a week time after paying the deposit but they said the deal was not captured well so they want to capture it again. In a month time, I decided to call to get my money back. They said they will do the paper work to reverse the money. I waited but the money never came. Then they said they are capturing it as a laybye to make the money to come back. Till now I had no positive response from them, they keep on saying they long sent the mail to the head office.

I'm still sometimes surprised by how useless some stores can be. This store must sell hundreds, if not thousands of items every year so there's no excuse for making mistakes when capturing a customer's details into their computer system. Is it really that difficult? And now they're talking about converting this to a laybye in order to refund you? That makes no sense to me but if that's what they need to do, then they need to do it and not bother you with their silly internal procedures.

I'll contact the store and see if they can treat you like a customer whose money they've taken.