WWYD damaging but not dangerous product

[sandy259]

Last Spring, I bought two pairs of identical black jersey pyjama bottoms (its rare to see black plain ones so I snapped them up) from a high street shop. The first night I wore them, the dye got everywhere, sheets duvet, pillow cases, a little on part of a pillow etc. The dye wouldn't come out even with bleach on the white sheets (duvet cover had a pattern so couldn't try it there). I washed the pj bottoms and even after a hot wash and a cold soak the water was still running opaque black. I also tested the bottom part of the leg on the unworn pair and it turned the water pure black too. The labels did not advise that the dye was strong or it may transfer on to other fabrics.

I contacted the high street shop I had bought these from via email and sent photos of all the damage done (just under £200) and of the opaque black water from the pyjama bottoms. They were very apologetic and asked me to send the pyjama bottoms to them so they could send them to their lab for testing. I did as they asked and received an acknowledgement from them that they received them and I would have the results of their tests within 30 days.

I kept seeing the pyjama bottoms being sold in the shop and worried about if the same batch as mine was damaging other peoples bedding. After about 2 months I contacted the customer service department again to ask if the results were available, they told me that they were not available yet and would contact me when they were.

It completely went out of my mind so it was much later this year that I got around to contacting them again. I asked if the results of the tests were available yet. They asked me to photograph the tags of everything damaged and to send it to them before they could release the results of the tests! It had been more than 6 months so everything damaged had either been gotten rid of or chopped up for important things like fancy dress.

I asked them again for the test results, they refused unless I sent the tags. I said I couldn't and queried why I hadn't received the test results as promised. They offered me £25 good will (for context each pair of pyjama bottoms I sent them was £15 so they're not even offering to cover the cost of goods I returned to them) but said again they wouldn't send the test results without the tags.
I genuinely don't understand why if they needed the tags, they didn't ask me to send photos of them when I initially sent photos of the damage.

Before Christmas, I sent a GDPR request for all correspondence relating to my complaint specifically requesting the test results using the email address on their website but received no acknowledgment that the request was received, so I'll just have to wait another 2 weeks to see if it arrives.

My questions are:
Do I have any other recourse other than to take them to small claims court?

Too much dye probably isn't dangerous or unsafe (they did dye my legs like when you get caught in the rain wearing new jeans but it was gone completely after 2 showers) regardless considering this batch of pyjamas may have caused damage to bedding should a recall have been issued?

Anyone got any idea why they would refuse to release the report to me?

I'd assume, by their reluctance to share results with you, that by 'do tests' they mean "put them in the bin".

If you bought replacement sheets and duvet cover I'd send photos of receipts for those, or photos of your bank statements with these costs shown and itemised (e.g. If your statement shows £100 in John Lewis I'd write £50 duvet cover, 2x sheets at £25 each).

If yoh take them to small claims court I'd suggest you'd need evidence of the damage and costs you've incurred, so you'd still need these receipts /bank statements /photos of the damage done.

I should say, you have my sympathy. Thames Water left a towel bale with me, to mop up a flood they'd caused. I thought I'd give them a quick rinse with some other washing and they dyed everything deep, horrible, patchy brown. :(

You have my sympathies too leeloo1, theres nothing worse than the sinking feeling of opening the door to the washing machine and discovering an errant item has ruined the whole wash. I managed to dye whites pink over Christmas but was luckily able to bleach them back to normal.

I have the photos I sent them of the damage and I bought the replacements with a credit card so I've got receipts if I do need to go to court, I went for better quality stuff as a treat so I spent well over the original cost of the items which is what I was asking them to cover not the newer more expensive stuff I asked them to cover.

I'm just baffled why they wouldn't release the results to me. If they didn't find anything in the testing, they would have told me straight out I think. So its got to be that they lost the items and no tests were ever done or the tests were done and its something more serious like the dye is dangerous in that quantity next to the skin and they should have done a recall.

Can't wait to see what my GDPR request actually uncovers, I've never done one before.

They never did the tests.

You’re seriously over invested in this.