In June, I ordered a carpet. Carpetright has a store nearby, so I thought this would be convenient. How wrong can one be?
Close to 21,000 Carpetright customers are owned nearly £8million for outstanding orders but most of them will not receive refunds.
The flooring chain went into administration in July and saw 273 shops closed, leading to 1,500 job losses while its remaining 53 stores were bought by its main competitor Tapi.
It owes millions to customers for unfulfilled orders and the majority will not get refunds, according to the directors’ statement of affairs.
However sources claim the amount owed is likely to be ‘considerably higher’, The Times has reported.
They phoned me the evening before the delivery was due. I had paid with a debit card. As I only have a small credit limit on my credit card and tend to use it for business expenses, it simply did not occur to me to use it for this purchase, just as it didn’t occur to me that the chain might be in trouble. As I had the money in my bank account, I paid using the debit card.
I was now in the unenviable position of having lost close to two grand. However, when Tapi took over, they kept my local branch. Once the dust settled, they instructed me to claim the money via chargeback and then reorder. A couple of weeks ago, the money arrived in my bank account. It did occur to me to go elsewhere and there would be some sense in having done so. I decided to reorder for the simple reason that all the measuring, quoting and so on had been done. Also, the carpet was in stock. This time, however, I paid using the credit card.
Last Saturday, like a well oiled machine, rooms were emptied and the carpet was fitted.
I got lucky this time. It could have gone a lot worse.
That’s the sort of happy ending you normally only see on the silver screen.
Not suggesting anything underhand but there is a connection. Carpetright was founded by Lord Harris. Tapi Carpets by his son Martin. The sale was by way of a Pre-packaged insolvency (a “pre-pack”). Tapi have done the decent thing in refunding debit card and cash customers. But the real gain, if it is anything like The Bodyshop, is that it gets them out of expensive leases.
Okay, I didn’t know that. I really hadn’t delved into the background.
Tim Worstall’s written about this a few times, eg:
https://timworstall.substack.com/p/the-little-trick-in-the-body-shop
Damn, you were lucky!
In that circumstance, Carpetright was happy to shaft its trade creditors but Tapi wants to hang onto its customers, hence their apparent decency. Good to be on the right side of the equation for once.
Reading The post title, the romantic in me thought it would be about your inamorata. Or maybe even a two wheeled transportation? Alas.