Bathroom sink unit dispute

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I bought a bunch of new bathroom stuff from a supplier recently, total cost was around £3K as part of a larger renovation project on 2 bathrooms and a downstairs WC.

Things were mostly fine, but the sink and basin unit for the en-suite wasn't what I expected. I was expecting the sink to be a standard porcelain/ceramic finish, but it turned out that it was poly marble, which is an acrylic material.

By the time I noticed this, it had been installed by the fitters. I had 3 bathrooms to do and a ton of boxes so couldn't realistically check it all over like I would have done normally.

I have raised a dispute with the supplier because the manufacturers website that advertises the product does not make the material finish clear. I would expect to see the key facts under the Specification section, but it doesn't list it.

Manufacturers link: https://www.hudsonreed.co.uk/products/furniture/fusion-fitted-furniture/gloss white/CBI141

The price I paid was around £160.

Supplier says that as the item can't be returned with original packaging they won't refund it. I've tried to get them to talk to the manufacturer but they don't seem to be entertaining that anything is wrong. I've put in a paypal dispute but the supplier has stated that if that succeeds, they would try and get back the money from me via small claims court.

The sink needs to be written off, but should it be me that does so? I could have looked deeper into the specs but I just assumed it was a normal sink, and the manufacturer could definitely make it clearer on their website.
 
Associate
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Having been through the same situations on renovation project I can sympathise with you and understand the difficulty in not opening every box immediately.

However overall its your responsibility and it has been fitted, so you either live with it, or buy another at your own expense.

I imagine a court would agree
 
Soldato
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It says polymarble on the data sheet, if you were that concerned about the material you could have checked that.

Yes, that is not in dispute, but I am just an average joe consumer here, I didn't even know bathroom sinks came in anything other than porcelain/ceramic usually.

Is it fair and reasonable to expect people to open datasheets to check material composition? I am of the opinion that it is not. That kind of thing should really be listed front and centre, as a minimum under the specification bit.

I've suggested to the retailer that, whilst I can take some blame, they should also take some for not listing it clearly, so I'm willing to negotiate with them, but will see what they say.
 
Soldato
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Having been through the same situations on renovation project I can sympathise with you and understand the difficulty in not opening every box immediately.

However overall its your responsibility and it has been fitted, so you either live with it, or buy another at your own expense.

I imagine a court would agree

I didn't realise before how one-sided the bathroom suppliers were in terms of distance selling stuff, things I've learnt:

The supplier I am dealing with simply gets things delivered from the manufacturer directly. In my case they had 2-3 different manufacturers across the whole order, they received them all, then sent to me in one go.

When you receive the items they want to know about any problems within 48 hours, when you get a lot of items this is hard because you can't really unbox stuff in-situ, you risk damaging/losing parts doing this.

The fitters you arrange will normally be booked ahead of time, and you can't get the items delivered just in time because of potential delays, so you wind up between a rock and a hard place when it comes to having time to check items between delivery and fitting dates.

The supplier actually had a couple of incorrect items on my quote compared to what I asked for, so it was fortunate that I was reasonably on the ball in terms of what units I was getting, this is really the only problem I had.
 
Soldato
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Did you not view them prior to purchase?

Sorry to say I would be doing same as the supplier. You accepted the goods and had them installed.

Not really possible for some of this stuff, not on show in a lot of places.

I'm not really blaming the supplier btw, more the manufacturer, but my contract is with the supplier so I need them to argue my corner with the manufacturer.
 

daz

daz

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Once installed you're on your own, I don't really see how you can expect to return it now it's been installed? If it was still in a box then I'm sure they'd swap or do a credit no bother.
 
Soldato
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agree it is misleading , glancing at other fusion gloss units they , have wording like, say
https://www.hudsonreed.co.uk/products/furniture/fusion-fitted-furniture/gloss white/CBI102

  • The simplistic style of the gloss white finish blends seamlessly with our range of polymarble basins
so their website in inconsistant.

or http://www.fusionbathrooms.co.uk/in...-canopy-800-floor-standing-vanity-unit-detail
here, it explicitly says, Ceramic Basin



misrepresentation ? https://www.businesscompanion.info/...he-sale-and-supply-of-goods#Misrepresentation
Misrepresentation
A misrepresentation is a false statement of fact made by a person or their agent that induces someone else to make a contract with them.

Dependent upon whether the misrepresentation was made fraudulently, negligently or innocently, the party that has relied on the misrepresentation will be entitled to a remedy that may include rescission (which means unwinding or cancelling the contract), refund and/or compensation.
 
Soldato
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Not really possible for some of this stuff, not on show in a lot of places.

I'm not really blaming the supplier btw, more the manufacturer, but my contract is with the supplier so I need them to argue my corner with the manufacturer.

Totally sympathise with you here. I am in a similar boat with respect to doing a complete house renovation and having stuff arriving daily and it being impossible to check because either a) I'm at work and b) the house is a building site and there is not really the space to do so. Whilst I can see why you probably don't have any sort of leg to stand on I see how it happens. You can only check what you can in any practical sense.

Something not being what you expected is one thing but I also worry about things being faulty given the inevitable time lapse between ordering and fitting when you have a huge jigsaw of tradesmen to fit together!
 
Soldato
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I learnt this the hard way. Doing everything myself it can be months between me receiving something and getting it installed.

I'm not one to get embarsed or ashamed but in the past I had always tried to make life easy for delivery people. They have timeslots to meet and I don't want to make life hard for them, so I'd routinely just check the outer boxes for damage.

But yeah, I'm now pretty sure delivery drivers would acitvely choose to avoid coming to me with stuff that requires me to "check items on delivery" - because now I'd happily hold people up for an hour as I check for damanaged or missing parts.
 
Soldato
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agree it is misleading , glancing at other fusion gloss units they , have wording like, say
https://www.hudsonreed.co.uk/products/furniture/fusion-fitted-furniture/gloss white/CBI102

  • The simplistic style of the gloss white finish blends seamlessly with our range of polymarble basins
so their website in inconsistant.

or http://www.fusionbathrooms.co.uk/in...-canopy-800-floor-standing-vanity-unit-detail
here, it explicitly says, Ceramic Basin



misrepresentation ? https://www.businesscompanion.info/...he-sale-and-supply-of-goods#Misrepresentation

Thanks, that could be helpful, especially the inconsistency on the wording they use on their own website for the same range of products.

Totally sympathise with you here. I am in a similar boat with respect to doing a complete house renovation and having stuff arriving daily and it being impossible to check because either a) I'm at work and b) the house is a building site and there is not really the space to do so. Whilst I can see why you probably don't have any sort of leg to stand on I see how it happens. You can only check what you can in any practical sense.

Something not being what you expected is one thing but I also worry about things being faulty given the inevitable time lapse between ordering and fitting when you have a huge jigsaw of tradesmen to fit together!

These larger items often come with smaller bits as well, trying to check items whilst also keeping all of the necessary bits is hard. If the manufacturers could 100% guarantee just in time delivery then I'd have done that, and checked things better as they came in.

I do get the other side though, where people might damage items whilst in possession of them, it's a tough one to police as you have to rely on people being honest.

I learnt this the hard way. Doing everything myself it can be months between me receiving something and getting it installed.

I'm not one to get embarsed or ashamed but in the past I had always tried to make life easy for delivery people. They have timeslots to meet and I don't want to make life hard for them, so I'd routinely just check the outer boxes for damage.

But yeah, I'm now pretty sure delivery drivers would acitvely choose to avoid coming to me with stuff that requires me to "check items on delivery" - because now I'd happily hold people up for an hour as I check for damanaged or missing parts.

Yes I am the same, check outer boxes for obvious signs of damage, but I don't really want to hold up delivery people for ages either, so like you I usually just accept delivery and check things over more carefully later on.
 
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Buy a new sink and move on you will waste weeks of your life on this and not win the argument. It’s not like it’s a couple of grand and you gave the stress of refurbing a whole house don’t add to it unnecessarily.
 
Soldato
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Buy a new sink and move on you will waste weeks of your life on this and not win the argument. It’s not like it’s a couple of grand and you gave the stress of refurbing a whole house don’t add to it unnecessarily.

just do this. It sucks but really the info was there you didn't read it. You've ordered it AND installed it!? and now you say yo uwant a refund ? NO CHANCE. Even if the description is wrong, it's irrelevant.

Like if you order a steak and a salmon comes. You eat the salmon and then say but I actually wanted a steak. no chance. Remove and reaplce. And try to sell on the other units.
 
Soldato
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Buy a new sink and move on you will waste weeks of your life on this and not win the argument. It’s not like it’s a couple of grand and you gave the stress of refurbing a whole house don’t add to it unnecessarily.

just do this. It sucks but really the info was there you didn't read it. You've ordered it AND installed it!? and now you say yo uwant a refund ? NO CHANCE. Even if the description is wrong, it's irrelevant.

Like if you order a steak and a salmon comes. You eat the salmon and then say but I actually wanted a steak. no chance. Remove and reaplce. And try to sell on the other units.

fwiw the first thing I did was get a new sink unit, after that I wanted to come back and revisit this with the supplier.

I am not really expecting a full refund, I just wanted to negotiate something with them and the manufacturer because the advert for the product isn't listing the product spec properly/clearly. If I installed it myself then yes fair enough, but it's like I've ordered a steak, a salmon arrives, and someone else has eaten it! :p

More or less done with the work so it's not really adding any burden to chase it up, I'll see how it all goes.
 
Soldato
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fwiw the first thing I did was get a new sink unit, after that I wanted to come back and revisit this with the supplier.

I am not really expecting a full refund, I just wanted to negotiate something with them and the manufacturer because the advert for the product isn't listing the product spec properly/clearly. If I installed it myself then yes fair enough, but it's like I've ordered a steak, a salmon arrives, and someone else has eaten it! :p

More or less done with the work so it's not really adding any burden to chase it up, I'll see how it all goes.

Fine bud. But it seems then, that the issue is with whoever fitted it. They didn't check it was the right part. Did they have all the information to check if it was the right part ? Did they know it was to be parcelin and not plastic marble ? Who's responsibility was it to make sure that they fitter knew what he was fitting ?
 
Soldato
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Fine bud. But it seems then, that the issue is with whoever fitted it. They didn't check it was the right part. Did they have all the information to check if it was the right part ? Did they know it was to be parcelin and not plastic marble ? Who's responsibility was it to make sure that they fitter knew what he was fitting ?

Honestly not the kind of thing I was on the lookout for myself so didn't brief the fitters, other stuff I ordered was as expected, it's just the one sink unit that wasn't.
 
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Honestly not the kind of thing I was on the lookout for myself so didn't brief the fitters, other stuff I ordered was as expected, it's just the one sink unit that wasn't.


Cool. Just take it as a lesson for the future. You could have done better. Fitter could have done better. supplier could have done better. But there's only 1 out of those 3 that you can change. (well maybe get another fitter or another supplr but the potential problem still stands)

Anyway be glad it's a stupid sink and not some custom fabricated thing that took 6months to make and then doesn't fit.

Also , i just wanted to add 'caveat emptor' which pretty much sums it up.
 
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Soldato
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hotels seem to have these polymarbel basins (novatel) and they are common in the usa, but, I can't believe they are as resilient as ceramic -
you can't just use jif on them, for cleaning, say, but need some delicate cleaning, plus hair dyes etc. might upset them.
---- the advertising is misleading, as I commented.
 
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