Vicki has been having terrible trouble with a dishwasher she bought from Littlewoods. It arrived by courier and she organised a plumber to come and install it. "However when we opened the packaging, there was significant damage to the dishwasher," she said.
She sent us a picture and it is badly damaged.
She rang Littlewoods who “quickly offered me a €32 discount which is the equivalent of 5 per cent off the €649 price. I said that this was insufficient considering the extent of the damage and the cost of the item”.
She was then told that Littlewoods would collect the item within 10 working days and take it for an inspection. “If the item was deemed to require a refund they would give me my money back. I explained that I needed a dishwasher quickly and could not wait up to five weeks to go through this process.”
She says she wanted a replacement as soon as possible. Vicki was told this was not possible and that she would need to buy another dishwasher at her own expense and then wait for money to be returned to her if the refund was approved.
Suitable option
“I ended the call saying that I would send pictures of the product in so that they could see the extent of the damage and hopefully come up with a more suitable option for me. I did this and am yet to get a reply to the email. This morning a courier contacted me to collect the dishwasher although I had not requested this.”
She rang Littlewoods again and explained that she could not afford to buy another dishwasher and wait for their long inspection and refund procedure. “The man on the phone explained that if I had a credit account with them instead of a cash account they may be able to treat the situation differently. I questioned how an account type could determine my consumer rights and he stated that this is just Littlewoods policy.”
We contacted the company and received the following statement: “Littlewoods Ireland has spoken to the customer in question and the issue has been resolved to the customer’s satisfaction. We acknowledged that there was an issue and apologised to the customer for any inconvenience caused.”
