Little Tikes Faulty Product - hurt baby - compensation?

[PavlovtheCat]

I bought a Little Tikes 'Tool Box' which is naturally plastic. It is meant to shut so it can be carried.

It does not shut properly, and DS aged 8 months pulled it towards him and it opened with a reasonable amount of force, and cut his forehead.

So i inspected it, to find that one of the rounded edges had a sharp bit of plastic sticking out, where the moulding was not finished properly, and a bit of additional moulding was attached, a tiny bit but very sharp.

The cut is not bad, not needing anything more than a clean, but if it had got his eye it would have been significantly worse, given the sharpness of it.

I have called Mothercare who said bring it in they will look at it, and he looked at one in the Store and said that one had the sharp bit too. He said if it was Mothercare product they could sort it out there and then for me but as it was Little Tike they would need to contact them first, and asked what I wanted to happen. I said at the very least to let Little Tike know they have a faulty product, and a full refund.

He said bring it in and they would refund, and discuss what else needs doing.

Is it reasonable to expect a 'sorry' gift voucher? or am I being a bit mercinary? I posted this here not in AIBU as I am interested in whether I should ask for something more than a refund, rather than a 'you greedy cow' type post

greensleeves no I would not ask for the money!!! I would tell them my issue and see what happened of course, but i wondered what an acceptable response would be to satisfy me, whether some monetary compensation was justified/could be expected.

I am not that mercenary to actually say 'give me £50 compensation please'

AND consumer rights/sales of goods act state that in the first instance the customer should go the point of sale, not the company, as the 'contract' so to speak is with that point of sale. So Mothercare should attempt to resolve this according to sales of goods act, but that does not have to be the case. I can go direct if I want to.

Mothercare don't really rely on their reputation though. They have a monoploy pretty much everywhere unfortunately. All 3 independant baby shops in my town have shut in the last year :(, leaving mothercare the only alternative. They truly won't give a shite

Sorry - didn't read properly [embarrassed]

If you are unhappy, I would send a strong letter to Little Tikes - Good Luck!

dd1 once crawled over one of those pop-up toys and it popped open into her eye, scratching the cornea. she had to wear an eye patch for a fortnight.

that was just one of those things tbh - i think sharp edges need sorting on baby toys. write to lt, and then let it go. no lasting harm done. (assuming it's the sort of thing that will only cause a scratch, rather than sever a finger?)

nickoftime it could easily cause a deeper cut, the type of cut on his forehead is a slice, and when you run your finger along it, its sharp like a knife. so its like a nick in his forehead if that makes sense. If it had been the eye itself, it would have been a slice in his eye, and can easily cut little fingers, it is that sharp, or could hurt feet when stood on. It is easily located, not hidden, but where the moulding on the round edge of the 'box' was not smoothed down. I will try to upload a photo but using phone as camera is broken. It is not really acase of he might hurt himself again, but more when.

nick that sounds really painful for your DD i meant to add. Poor love.

(you are not going to tell me that she crawled over it when she was 30, crawling after her own baby are you? )

sorry i don't understand why money should come into this? you have said the cut is not bad. i would speak/write to little tikes in the hope that the toy is inspected and they apologise.

yes of course, that is what I want too, and said as much to Mothercare, which to be fair the bloke I spoke to was doing as he was already looking at the item still on the shelf and acknowledged it was sharp on one edge at least, in the same place as the one I had.

I would expect a little bit for the stress and inconvenience and I'd say between £30 and £50.
Not sure why it's such a terrible thing to expect a bit of compensation for a serious fault in a product.
I once took a faulty lamp back to the White Company and asked for petrol and parking costs which they gave me.

i agree. My Dh complained to an outdoor pursuits company about a torch he bought when we were camping and our other one broke. The one he bought to replace it broke after 20 mins use, just stopped working, we had bought it in a town that we were not staying in, but visiting for the day, so could not get back to it easily. DH emailed and told them it was inconvenient while camping with small children and was offered as an apology a refund AND a replacement torch, as well as the apology and assurance they take action on faulty goods.

and I agree back

AND i agree with your name *imisssleeping' . me too!

lol, no. dh was away for the week and came back to his 9mo pfb with a huge white bandaged eye. i was fairly hysterical at the time, we were in germany and they kept sending me to lots of different places to get specialist eye doctors to look at her, which my pigeon german just wasn't up to... (i could barely follow the directions of how to get there) she's fine now though.

we did have a swing collapse when ds1 was in it, too... but he was very quite fat and emerged unscathed, just a little surprised.

i'd love to be able to do proper complaints, just never get round to it...

I have emailed Little Tikes, and also emailed a copy to Mothercare so they know what I am doing, as due to work commitments tomorrow I can't take it back to the store and it bothers me they are still selling this item (or maybe the guy took it off the shelf, but who knows, possibly not).

No response from either company so far, emailed them this morning.