spazio light fittings

[murdock]

spazio management are now saying that this issue has not been respolved because i was rude to their manager...mmm...my response...please put everything in written with immediate effect...and make sure you get your fact straight because i havent even spoken to spazio yet...and have decided not to just in case i do loose my rag and say something i shouldnt and end up all over the net and sponsorship with drawn etc ...i look forward to their response in writting.

[murdock]

what i expected to be a simple...return...refund...has turned nasty...when a company uses being rude as reason for not refunding thousands of rands...indicates 3 things to me...either spazio in in the financial dwang and cant afford to refund the money...or they are trying to stall to make the books look good for the month end...or they know something i dont...

the way i see this matter...i have witnesses and i have pictures...what more do i need.

question...this should be simple

i order lights...they deliever...their rep removes the fittings from the packaging...attempts to fix their defective fittings...the rep then has to order more more fittings which are delivered but still cannot get the quantity we ordered in working order...so the customer refuses to accept them and we repack the fittings left lying all over the counters by the spazio rep into the same packaging they were supplied in...which the rep removed from the packaging...and we return via the same route we recieved...when i enquire about the credit...i am told there are 2 reasons why i have not received my credit...first reason was because the fittings where not in the original packaging and now i am told that it is because i spoke to the manager at spazio in a rude manner....lets say i was rude...maybe i was sleep waking and called them and dont remeber...does this warrant grounds for them to hold back a refund?

my first question is this like a joke or something...is this for real.

where do i go from here...

do i get a lawyer and go the legal route...do i even have a case here or am i just blowing smoke?

do i just not pay my account with my supplier and leave it up to them to sue me for the money?

do i go to the cpa and file a complaint...does this actually work...or is it just like another useless goverment department?

but most important...i have generated and invoice for my time...telephone calls...meetings...etc...for just over R9000 ex vat...can i now put in a claim...considering i get paid by the hour...would i first need an order number...how would i go about now claiming for my time?

does the customer have the right to insist that all the reject fittings already installed be replaced at spazios cost or can we remove the fitting which have already been installed and refturn them for a credit plus costs to remove...considering that the fittings have been mounted and there is no longer original packaging.

andy to answer your question about the delivery...spazio deleivered the fittings to my supplier who then delivered to the site...i returned the fittings via the same route.

in 30 plus years of contracting have i ever had to deal with such an unproffessional company...i have never had equipment delivered in with so many defects...and in such horrific condition.

[Justloadit]

Hi Murdock,

Your supplier is the one supposed to be doing the arguments with Spazio not you.
You ordered from your supplier, and he delivered, you returned the goods to your supplier due to defects, your supplier must refund you. It is not your duty to argue with the manufacturer, that is your suppliers responsibility, he was after all your representative.

The only problem here is that you will no longer have servive from your supplier due to this issue.

I would go and visit your suppliers CEO with all the evidence you have, and get him involved to clear it up. Going this route will ensure that they will service you as a customer in future.

[murdock]

i have just received a reply...with some pics.

this is the part you got to love.

"i must say i find it difficult to believe that the entire supply of lighting did not meet with thier approval" eeeh hello did you see the pics?

"in light of their dis-satifaction, we agree to accept return of the fittings, PROVIDED, they are returned in their original pacakging and in a (this is the part i enjoyed the most ) resaleable condition" ...they expect me to accept this fittings in the condition they deleivered them to me... as indicated in the pics above... yet they are not prepared to accpet them back in the same condition...eeeish.

[Dave A]

and in a (this is the part i enjoyed the most ) resaleable condition"

Just reply that they are being returned because they weren't received in a saleable condition in the first place. If they would like you to fix their defective product, they can ask for a quote

[AndyD]

Yeah it's a tricky one, if your original complaint was to your supplier and they requested you liase directly with the Spazio rep then the lines get a bit grey and blurry. Bottom line is they delivered sub standard equipment so they must make good. I would just catalogue all the events as facts only with a time line in one document and forward it to your supplier. Send him a separate letter expressing your dissatisfaction and your feelings that the Spazio agents are ducking the problem with finger pointing etc and tell him to get active toward a resolution.

I've come across a few suppliers with weird and wonderful returns policies in the past and the two cases of ours that came to legal action both settled long before court. I would guess that now with the recent CPA regulations, any attempts to renege on warranties are likely to be all mouth and no trousers if you appear tenacious with your claim.

[murdock]

i am starting to get the feeling...looking at the condition of the boxes when they arrived on site...that someone else had returned the fittngs already....they didnt know what to do with them so they forwarded them to me hoping i was just gona accept it...i didnt and returned them...now they have indicated in a letter that i must pay to collect them from their premises at my cost...yeah right.

the CPA clearly indicates that i have a right to request a new product if it is defective for a period of 6 months as indicated in wendy knowlers most recently show...with regard to the watch which was returned to edgars and the customer has a right to reapir or replace "regardless of the companies return waranty policy

these light fitting were delivered in a defective condition...so i have the right to request replacement fittings which we did...unfortunetly the rep could not get more than 4 fittings out of 12 in satisfactory condition...so now i want my money back...they have sent me pictures of damaged fittings indicating that i damaged them on site...unfotuntely for them and lucky for me i contacted their rep who removed the fittings from the package and attempted to repair them...i also took pictures of the packaging before it left site....i only repacked them because the spazio rep walked off site and has never returned...my supplier has been trying to ge thold of him to setup a meeting so we can resolve this issue...unfortunatey he is not responding to calls or messages...so we sit and wait..........and wait

now another problem is arising...my payment to my supplier...my customer will not pay me because i havent passed a credit for the fittings which they paid for...and so my supplier cannot be paid until i receive payment from my customer....mmm and so the big payment wheel grinds to a halt...the amount outstanding to my supplier is about the same amount my customer owes me...so it is in my supplier best interest to resolve this issue as soon as possible...maybe i should contact wendy knowler...this could be an interest task for her...the only problem is like the other problem with virgin mobile i dont like talking on the radio so they got someone else to tell his story which was similar to mine...but i lost out on the R500 voucher from virgin mobile...bit of a cheek if you ask me...in fact my issue with virgin mobile...even though they were at fault...i have still been blacklisted for R230...which i refuse to pay.

[Dave A]

My best suggestion is to try to ringfence the lights as a disputed transaction with both your customer and supplier to minimise the impact on unrelated stuff.

Unfortunately easier said than done. Anyone that has leverage will tend to use it in a fight, and the man in the middle is often the one with the least leverage.

[murdock]

we setup a meeting for this afternoon and it went exactly as i expected...unfortuntely i will only believe it when i see the credit note...it was a rather interesting meeting.

i still think i should go to wendy knowler so that we can bring this whole ordeal to the public attention...so that little contractors like myself dont get steam rolled like i did in this case...and indicate to the public what rights we actually have when it comes to reject or defective fittings being delivered.

by the way justloadit...it was a meeting which included the directors of my suppliers and the rep from spazio.

[murdock]

one of the interesting comments made during the meeting was the fact that spazio have a company policy...a 48 hour report time frame in which to report damaged packaging or defective goods...what they are saying is you have 48 hr from the time of delivery to report a faulty or defective product...if you do not report that your packaging or product is damaged...faulty or missing components as in my case all of the above and you only realise after 3 days that they have sold you a reject product you have no leg to stand on and no claim against them...


as in my case...the fact that some of the fittings are installed and a period of almost 2 months has already passed (and this issue is still not resolved)...i no longer have any claim against them...never mind the fact that i have not kept the original packaging (like seriously are you expected to rent a storage facitilty for all the product you ever buy...just so that the company can honour their warranty)...therefore i have no claim against them as they cannot claim from the courier company (because now they are trying to blame the courier company) regardless of the fact that the light fittings are all rejects...which the rep pointed out...while he was attempting to repair some of the fittings on site...at which time he instructed me to drill holes into the fittings which were already installed in an attempt to try get the end caps to clip into position.