Appliances Direct sold our air conditioner instead of sending it back to us

[Iyamnotayam]

We bought a portable Air Conditioner from Appliances Direct last year. It worked for the entire summer, and in the winter we used it's dehumidifier function.

In this years heat wave, the air cooling function kept cutting off, and it would only work on fan function. My husband emailed them as it was under warranty, they asked for a photo of it installed. We sent one of it installed as per the instructions. Appliances Direct then claimed it was incorrectly installed and that we'd blown the compressor so the warranty was void.

DH pointed out that they can't make that judgement without opening it up as the compressor is internal, so they eventually agreed to take it back and have their engineer look at it to establish whether the fault met the warranty conditions.

My husband chased Appliances Direct after they'd had air conditioner a week, and Appliances Direct said that their engineer tested the air conditioner and it was in working order, however they were willing to refund, or pay £600 for the model they had in stock as all their air cons are out of stock.

DH emailed back asking if we can just have our air con back if it's apparently in working order. And they emailed back saying "apologies, we can't send your air conditioner back as we've sold it".

All correspondence has been via email, so we have a paper trail showing that it was definitely in for inspection and potentially repair. They never asked if they could sell it, we never mentioned it being sold.

DH wants to ask them to replace with one of the ones they tried to upsell us, at no extra cost.

I'm absolutely raging, and want to escalate this, because imo it amounts to theft.

AIBU for wanting to escalate now instead of asking for a replacement?

Mention something like 'loss of amenity of the air conditioner at a critical time'. The media would love your story ❤️

I work for a charity group ...every year someone sells our own fans, sun brollies etc...everything has big "Do Not Sell" labels now 🤭😂 we are daft and soft hearted. ...but at least it is OURS to sell.

What happen to your family is awful ❄️🧊❄️🧊❄️🧊❄️❄️❄️ icy thoughts 🍹

I wonder if this would be the case if they sold it for more than the refund though as thats highly likely the case. So its worth speaking to Citizens Advice because if they offer a refund as the only option and sold it for significantly more, I would say there would be more that can be done but they will be the best people to advise.

It was actually a significant loss. DD 13 has a congenital heart defect, and another condition that causes severe heat intolerance (to the point school authorised multiple days off in June). I have dysautonomia, which is made significantly worse by heat. We've actually had to spend time in hotels on some of the worst nights because the heat affects us so much. We bought the air conditioner last year to avoid having to do that. But we've had to resort to hotels multiple times because we don't have an air conditioner any more.

I wanted to say add in any relevant health conditions but didn't want to be impolite.

My goodness they should jump at the chance to make this right. Awful

(I love the idea of it going viral and you being well compensated).

Hope they wake up and expressly deliver a good replacement tomorrow 🧊❄️🧊❄️🧊 and make compensatory gestures

Its definitely worth getting some advice seeing as you are being financially disadvantaged. Even using AI to look at any relevant legal info might be helpful but chatting to Trading Standards is a good idea.

Had they come back and said its faulty they may have got away with saying refund is the only option, but because they have told you it was fine and sold on, they have admitted mishandling something that you owned.

I would be asking them when, where and for how much it was sold as that is also relevant information. Did they profit from doing this and how quickly after they received it did they sell it on.

Don’t forget the Daily Mail also has a consumer column.
You could get the involved.
You should also contact Which the consumer rights champion.

But they sold someone else’s property. It isn’t theirs to sell.

They can’t do that without agreement. The customer has to reject the goods, which they haven’t.

Cheeky gits!!!! I'd be going for the upgrade as a gesture of goodwill

I agree with your husband, push them to send you a replacement at no extra cost. After all, the one you returned for repair has been deemed functional, when it clearly isn’t, so you don’t really want that one back do you!