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Archive for the ‘Shop Direct/Additions’ Category

I recently had an interesting case where Shopdirect ended up settling out of court with me over a claim I made against them in the small claims court.

I originally purchased an Xbox 360 on a 12 months but now pay later scheme that Additions were running in January 2009. I went online, setup my account and bought the Xbox with a £25 pound discount and took advantage of the 12 months BNPL ( buy now pay later ) scheme. I received the terms and conditions through the post sometime in February/March , but was not happy with them and so consequently didn’t sign the agreement. I was rung by a CSR on a couple of ocassions but informed them that I wasn’t going to sign them as I wasn’t happy with them. I expected them to withdraw their offer to me and make me pay immediately, but never heard a thing back!

Anyway 11 months went past and I decided to go online and make the payment to get it all done and finished. I made the payment within the 12 months in January 2010. My online account showed the money paid and initially actually gave me a credit on my account, which subsequently disappeared the following month. I was happy the matter had been dealt with and forgot about it until I received a demand from Additions as I hadn’t made the minimum payment for March! I actually wrote to Additions ( that’s just a trading name of the Shopdirect Group ) and gave all the information, payment dates etc. I imagined that they’re had been a mistake on their behalf and the payment had not been entered on their system somewhere.

Then I get another letter 2 weeks later charging me £12 for the letter and £12 for a late payment charge plus a phone call from Shopdirect a couple of days later. So I go through and explain to the CSR on the phone that it’s all paid and sorted and nothing is owed. She says that according to her system I haven’t paid. So I write another letter detailing everything with proof and send it recorded delivery.

I continued to get these letters every two weeks until June when I snapped. I kept writing to them recorded delivery and NEVER once received a response to any of my letters. I know they got them as one time a CSR admitted to hving a copy of a least one of the letters on the system, but was still chasing me! I was being harassed by Shopdirect for money I didn’t owe on the phone and by letter and was being chased by debt collection companies for an amount that had been paid in January. Coupled to all that, Shopdirect decided they needed to notify te credit reference agencies that I had defaulted on my payment!!!

I decided to take them to court under a breach of contract, breach of the Protection from Harassment and falsely registering a bad debt against me to recoup my loss of earnings having to deal with everything over a 5/6 month period and compensation for my suffering.

The case was eventually scheduled to be heard at the end of January 2011. Amazingly I had a phone call at the beginning of January from a senior manager at Shopdirect who was dealing with the case and admintted liability over the phone and stated that he didn’t want to go to court but would like to settle before the court date.
After a little bit of toing and foing and a few silly offers from Shopdirect, I ended up with almost exactly the amount I was claiming.

Justice was served