Is this pregnancy discrimination after company in liquidation? Not sure what my rights are

[Wellwellwellys]

I booked a lump sum of beauty treatments. Each treatment had a downtime between of approx four to six weeks. I unexpectedly fell pregnant and could not complete a treatment. This cost approx £250 another treatment with the bulk purchase. Due to pregnancy and breastfeeding I could not use the treatment until a couple of months ago.

When I contacted the company I was informed they went into administration before I gave birth and they had given all customers a month to claim their treatment. I do not have comms to support this but either way I could not make use of this as I was pregnant.

I’ve followed up asking for either a refund or to redeem the treatment a number of times which were all ignored. My most recent attempt I suggested I was worried that this could be pregnancy discrimination as I’d tried countless times to communicate with them. They rapidly responded within the hour. I was told over the phone and email they’d consider their response and come back to me. That wasn’t the case so I followed up some two weeks after. The response I was met with was a discount of 10% on full price treatments and a free consultation. The consultation is usually between £25-50 and is redeemable against the treatment I have if you book this after the consultation. I’m not satisfied with this but unsure what my rights, if any, are.

No, it's not pregnancy discrimination.

Ridiculous. You weren’t treated differently from other patrons due to your pregnancy.

How can they give you treatments if they’ve gone into liquidation? Is the business still open and operating as normal? It’s not quite clear, but I wouldn’t have thought discrimination and rights about pregnancy applied to this kind of thing. They’re not your employers. There’s lots of things you can purchase that are no longer appropriate to use when you’re pregnant and it’s not the vendor’s problem to alleviate.

Good luck getting any money out of a company which is in liquidation ☹️

You say the company went into administration - is it still in administration and being run by the administrators? Or is it an entirely new company on the same site?

It's usually the case that vouchers/gift cards/pre-payments and the like are no longer honored (or as you say is the case here, honoured for a short period) in these circumstances.

There is no discrimination due to your pregnancy - if you hadn't been able to get the treatments due to a broken leg, you'd have been treated in exactly the same way.

If the company is still being run by the administrators, you could ask for proof that they'd contacted you. They may cave and give you what you've paid for if they think you won't let it drop, but ultimately they're not obliged to and you'd essentially end up at the bottom of a list of creditors.

If the company has infact shut down and there's now a new business in its place, they don't have any obligation to you.

If you paid by. Credit card you can make a claim for,a refund from them.

How on earth is it discrimination?

Ffs how is it pregnancy discrimination 🙄😆😳

The company is still operating and offering the same services under a new acquired organisation.

I’ve been advised I can purchase the same treatment again.

Thanks for the responses.

What does this actually mean? Like how Next bought Joules for example? Some of the shops stayed open and they still sell the same yellow coat but it’s not actually the same company at all because it’s owned by somebody else.

Lots of small businesses run up debts, go into liquidation, get their debts cancelled and then set up under a slightly different Companies House name (usually keeping the consumer-facing brand name). Absolutely shitty practice but government doesn't seem to care.

What did the use by date say? Did you try to redeem before it?

Deffo not pregnancy discrimination.

Exactly this. I think that sums it up.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond. Just wanted to check with you experts as it didn’t sit right with me to be paying for a service over already paid for by a company that seemed the same consumer facing. I’ll leave it here I think. Thanks again.

It is not in liquidation, it is in administration, which is not the same thing.