At the beginning of June, my partner and I completed the purchase of our first house. It needed new carpets and flooring throughout and we chose Carpetright, because there was a 6.5% discount for customers like me who have a Blue Light Card. The card offers savings for emergency and healthcare workers and I used my card to buy vouchers to fund the purchase through the Blue Light Card voucher shop. My partner also used her workplace discount program to get a further 6% off.
Carpetright went bankrupt before the flooring could be laid. We are now in the terrible position of not having carpet (we had the old one ripped out one ready for the new one) and lost £3,941. I tried to request a refund through Blue Light Card but it says they can’t comply. We have registered with the administrators but are unlikely to get much back from them.
It seems that a card designed to reward people who provide emergency and health services has left us defenseless. It has turned what should have been a time of joy – finally having a home of our own! – into an absolute nightmare.
SR, London
An unknown number of customers and suppliers were left empty-handed after Carpetright filed for bankruptcy last month and over 1,000 employees lost their jobs. The flooring group Tapi has bought the brand and 54 of its 273 stores, but is a separate legal entity and therefore not liable for orders placed before the takeover.
If you had paid Carpetright directly for your flooring using a credit card, you would have been able to claim the money back from your card issuer under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. Visa and Mastercard’s voluntary chargeback scheme would have protected a debit card purchase, but both schemes only apply when payment is made directly to the retailer. Transactions involving vouchers acquired from other sources, such as gift cards, are generally not allowed because the money is paid to the voucher retailer, who fulfills their part of the contract by issuing the voucher.
Initially it looked like you were going to get into this situation. You bought your voucher from Reward Gateway, Blue Light Card’s merchant partner who works with retailers to provide discounts to members’ organisation employees. However, after I contacted Blue Light Card, one of their advisors got back to you and told you that the money you paid for the discount voucher went directly to Carpetright. They assumed that you were therefore entitled to a chargeback from your bank and explained the process to you.
Almost immediately, your bank refunded you the money. Your partner is now trying to do the same through her bank for the amount paid with her employee vouchers. This may be good news for anyone else who has used corporate purchasing schemes, but success will depend on whether the payment was made directly to Carpetright or to a third-party voucher provider.
Blue Light Card says: “Reward Gateway has confirmed to us that the money paid is due to Carpetright once the voucher from SR purchased with a debit card on their website has been issued. Reward Gateway is therefore not obliged to provide a refund.”
Council puts brakes on car compensation
At the beginning of June, I posted an SOS from Madeleine Ruse, a student from Sheffield whose car had disappeared from the side of the road. It turned out that Sheffield City Council had towed it away for breaching temporary parking restrictions – and they had forgotten to tell her about it for a whole year.
The police were informed, but they also forgot to tell her when she reported the car stolen. In the meantime, Ruse’s insurance paid and since she could not afford a replacement car, she had to make do without.
Twelve months after her car went missing, the council finally informed her of their action, telling her that unless she collected it within two days and paid a storage fee of £12 per day for the year, a total of £4,400, the vehicle would be destroyed.
The recovered vehicle was in such a state that it was declared a total loss. When I intervened, Sheffield City Council waived the storage fees and promised to pay Ruse compensation. That was more than two months ago now. Since then, the council has done nothing, despite regular requests from her and me. They seem to think that an apology is enough to keep them afloat.
Councillor Minesh Parekh, deputy chair of the council’s waste and street scenes committee, simply says: “We said at the end of May that we were very sorry for the stress and inconvenience Ms Ruse had experienced due to the delay in notifying her of her impounded car.”
If things continue like this, it could be another 12 months before she gets her dues. I will make sure the council gets the publicity it deserves until it pays up.
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