Wrong description on 1.5k purchase

[Gribbit987]

In January I bought 1.5k of engineered oak flooring from Luxuryflooringandfurnishings.co.uk.

In the description it says because they’ve used a non commercial lacquer you can buy the product yourself and do localised touch ups if required. It is really unusual for a wood floor product to offer this. We’re very rough on our floors and refinishing is very disruptive so this seemed a great feature.

The floor only got fitted in May. A few weeks ago my dog did some spectacular gymnastics across the room and scratched the floor.

I tried to buy some lacquer as per the description and got stuck - couldn’t find anything with that name.

I emailed them on 22/6 and waited.

I sent a follow up email on 29/6.

On 5/7 I received the below response (original attached):

“Good Afternoon Ellie,

Thank you for your email.

Osmo don't not sell Lacquer, it appears there is an error on the product information on our website. We use the Osmo Oils for our other products.

The lacquer our manufacturers use can only be bought commercially, as such these aren't branded so we are unable to tell you which lacquer was used for your flooring. I would recommend ordering a few samples of the flooring via our website and sourcing some sample lacquers from your local diy store and testing the lacquers out on the sample pieces of wood to find the best match to your flooring.

In order to relacquer the flooring the whole area needs sanded and the lacquer applied to the whole area. Patch repairs cannot be done with the lacquer as you will be able to tell the difference.

Kind regards, Luxury Flooring”

They've now updated the listing and removed the highlighted text.

I am not very happy with their response!

Not sure how to handle things going forward and whilst I have a ponder figured I would find out what others would do in this situation…

All musings appreciated 😀

I have no advice but would be incredibly pissed off in your shoes!!

ps, you’ve left your name in the text, might wanna report it and get MNHQ to remove

Trading standards?

Thanks for the heads up but I’m fine with it - only my first name and there are thousands of us out there!

Take.screenshots now of their site before it's amended.

products must be ‘as described’ under the consumer act.
I would ask them to remove the product and issue a full refund, or replace with one of the other products which you can patch repair.

I’d be angling for a refund for the whole floor as it’s not as described.

I’d be pushing for a refund. They’ve admitted there is an error on their site. It’s not the product you wanted

Yes, I'd be pushing for a refund.

For what it's worth...Osmo oil is excellent and will probably cost you much less than their lacquer.

^^This. A refund and potentially the cost of removing the flooring too.

I once had to do battle over a product wrongly advertised. My brain is mush right now but i think I'm right in saying it was either money supermarket or Wh?ch who have draft letters you can download off their website. For me, after getting no response to my polite emails, I then used this template and got an immediate response completely in my favour. You have evidence in their email to you of their admitting their mistake, so they have nothing to stand on.

I'd be pissed. That's exactly the description that would make me but a certain product.

We have engineered wooden floors. The first big scratch did my head in but once you've had a couple it will feel a bit better. Doesn't excuse the company though, I'd still be pissed!

How did you pay?

Osmo oil will be useless on a floor - do not use it

It will give it very little protection if you're hard on your floors.
If your dog scratched through lacquer, a lot more damage will be done with Osmo oil.

I love Osmo oil for our oak worktops but never for a floor.

Refund, threaten small claims if you have to.

what a pain in the arse though

Whoah!! They have made a BIG mistake there! You should definitely push for a full refund.

Did you pay by credit card? If so raise it with the bank now.
Have you got screenshots of the original description? If so, keep them.
Send a letter of claim - which have a guide. Stand firm, we had an issue with my parents kitchen that was resolved very quickly!

Is it just me who's teeth are itching at 'Osmo don't not...'?!?!

A few weeks ago my dog did some spectacular gymnastics across the room and scratched the floor.

Completely missing the point of your post OP, sorry, but please be careful with this. One of our dogs badly tore a ligament due to "gymnastics" across a bare wooden floor when we'd temporarily removed the large rug we had down for cleaning. Our vet said it's very common and not at all good for dogs, particularly large breeds, and their joints.

She’s already done that, and posted it in her OP ….

Before my boyfriend and his dog moved in, I used to stare lovingly at my wooden floor, now it's covered in rugs and runners. Bloody dog.

The listing doesn't make sense, so its clearly a mistake.

They need to compensate you, I would suggest (if you don't want the whole floor taken up) that they pay to refinish the whole floor professionally.

However, you might have done a bit better than you thought.....

As pp states, Osmo Oil isn't really going to cut it on high traffic areas with dogs.
Factory finish on a new engineered floor is pretty thick, (when you come to sand it for the first time its actually quite hard to get it all off, even with a belt sander). If the dog has gone through that, it would have completely trashed a floor with an Osmo Oil finish, so in the long term it might be better that is lacquered even if you didn't choose it.

I'd also have a go with Bona Refresher, its designed to go on pre-lacquer, but it is often quite effective on scratches through lacquer and it would mean not having to sand a whole area of the floor. Put it on with a clean cloth and rub it in with small circular movements (like shoe polish!) then let it dry. Then use a clean cloth to buff it off. Repeat a couple of times. It might well get it to the stage where you can't see the scratch unless you are actually looking for it, if that makes sense!

Yes - they had misinformation which led you to believe this was an easy fix. They need to fork out for this. At least, they need to sort out the lacquer and a re-do at their own expense.

Full refund and they could come and take it up. That's terrible.

do they still deal with individuals cases?

colron range do a good wood repair range

Thanks for all the responses.

I read the email and was so grumpy about it I decided to take a while before responding.

No apology at all and a recommendation that I spend time & money conducting experiments to find a suitable replacement product! Plus 2 weeks before I got a response.

In answer to some points raised…

I paid by credit card & could launch a dispute via them. I don’t want to though. I actually really resent having to spend time grumbling about tedious stuff like flooring.

I am pleased with the floor. It looks nice and I really don’t want to remove it and start again as it’s such a big upheaval. Plus paying for fitting again… I can’t see how I wouldn’t lose money and be really inconvenienced.

Re: dog gymnastics. It’s never encouraged but is sometimes unavoidable 😂 I think she saw a fox in the garden. Very serious action was required and she did a leapfrog somersault over her brother to get out in front of him 🙄 Picture of guilty party attached.

My last floor ended up with many rugs. That’s why I was so keen on the idea of being able to fix scratches without major renovations.

Ps Yes, the typo also bugged me!