TO WANT MY MONEY OR MY GOODS - LAURA ASHLEY

[sabas]

Laura Ashley's ridiculous policy on the expiry of refund cards.Any refund card provided by Laura Ashley expires 28 days after it is issued and they DO NOT inform customers of this in the store that I shopped at.

Bacically i bough wallpaper to the value of £50 for my son's bedroom. When the painter saw the paper he recommended that I return it as he said it was basically rubbish as it was so thin. By this time more than 28 days had elapsed so I couldnt get a refund but was offered a refund card. It was not mentioned by the assistant that this card expired in 28 days. The card does state this i have now discovered but it is in teeny writing at the back.

I went to use the card today at another store and the manager there was so rude and basically told me that it was tough. there so called customer relations team were no help either, telling me ive lost my money and its not their problem and when I asked if I could at least get my goods back I was told "no".

I wouldnt be bothered if the card was years old but to my knowledge no other shops have such a unfair policy on refund cards/credit notes and I wasn't told about it.

I have basically lost my monry and the goods, something that I can ill afford. I am raging at the unfairness of it! Would it really kill them to let me use the cards, and apparently if i go and give them the cards and walk out with my original goods it is theft!!

I'll tell you what happens when you contact customer services: They don't answer the phone and fail to reply to emails for several days. When someone finally gets back to you, they promise to sort the problem but don't actually action anything. Useless company!

I am SO glad I saw this, I was planning on placing a reasonably big order with Laura Ashley. Now I wont. Will spend my money with John Lewis and The White Company instead.

You could tweet your complaint too!

StealthPenguin - I didn't realise that your post was about me! I "liked" it and commented "me too"! Thank you for posting, was vey kind of you!

My FB post has been commented to by LA, asking me to contact their customer relations team via email. I spoke to (rude & unhelpful) there yesterday, and she didn't want to know. I did respond to the comment to this effect & ask if this was the same team that I spoke to yesterday.

Thanks to everyone so far for comments & support, maybe Mumsnet will be on the News again soon, this time for forcing a major retailer to change their refund policies by voting with their feet

Tis would stop me shopping there. Well this and the fact they sell chintzy crap.

This is terrible. You should have been able to get a refund, (although not a legal right I don't think unless goods are faulty,) but cannot see why you can't have your goods back since you paid for them. It's outrageous. It would certainly stop me buying stuff there. Was thinking of going there at the weekend as in the middle of decorating. Won't now. "Catching the customer out" is low. - Let us know what happens.

I can't see their wall at the moment. It's either deleted, or they've blocked me.

And here I am in desperate need of frilly valences.

hi all.

so after my fb post, i got a call this afternoon from laura ashley "to try & resolve my complaint". Funny that, they weren't interested before

the girl i spoke to said that they had followed all the correct procedures but that "as a gesture of goodwill" they would sent me out a new refund card reinstating the original value but it would also have a 28 day validity period.

I did tell her that i had no desire to go into one of their stores ever again & that I wanted a refund, but she said that the refund card was all they were going to offer & that they didnt even have to do that.

I was in work when she phoned, trying to get packed up to go home to my baby after a hard day so i just agreed to let her send me a stupid new card. Plus i didnt really want to argue the toss about how crap their policy is infront of the whole office .

I suppose I am not out of pocket any longer but it does still anger me how utterly crap this company is. I think i will email their chief exec again if I dont get a response to my email to her. I will also update my post on FB ater I get my card as I think it is so poor that they only bothered about my complaint when it was made public - they obviously aren't interested in customer care at all.

thanks again for all the comments & help :)

Can you sell the refund card on ebay?

There must be something nice or useful in their shop somewhere? Batteries or something?

I was just about to bid on LA border paper on e-bay. She says that she's changed her mind about which to use but i'm wondering now if her decorator told her it's shit! Think maybe i won't now.

Have you seen the reply from "Laura Ashley" re Dawn Day post.

Obviously not from them but someone who thinks they are.

I'd also contact either Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert.com or the personal finance pages of one of the national newspapers (or indeed both).

They love these sort of stories - show up the corporate nasties in these credit crunch cash-strapped times. Would only be fair to get them a bit of national news coverage to publicise these outrageous terms given their own staff do such a poor job. Especially as most people don't expect to have to use a credit note / refund card within such a short time. And usually if there are some sort of time limits on it they are usually quite good at flagging it up to you.

Wonder when their policy changed to have such a short limit and how much money they have made as a result of it?!?

Could you buy a gift card with it - then at least it should have a longer life on it...

I would see if anyone on eBay wants it or anyone on here who will pay you cash for it. Totally shoddy though.

I wouldn't be surprised if Laura Ashley go into administration some time soon, what with this level of incompetence and customer dissatisfaction throughout the business.

Shocking! I will definately boycott them now

28 days for a refund card? Wow, who could know that? The assumption will always be it doesnt expire.

DOG

try this

Legally they can't do that!!!

Their so called policy is not the law.

They have basically stolen from you.

The so called gesture of goodwill is put in place when they get clocked!