Why the musical chairs over our £466 VAT refund?
Probes a world of scams and scandals
P.F. writes: Last December, my wife and I went to the Furniture Village branch in Hull for two Rise & Recline chairs, priced at £1,165 each. We are both 75 and suffer from chronic arthritis. The sales manager said we could have a disability VAT exemption saving us 20 per cent, but we had to pay the VAT and then get a refund. Two weeks later, the shop told us we would have to wait 90 days for the refund. Then Furniture Village said there was a change in procedure and offered back just 10 per cent.
YOU quite rightly said no to the 10 per cent refund. Furniture Village then offered you £300, with a promise to pay the balance of the VAT refund if you could prove your entitlement.
You accepted the £300 on account and contacted the chair manufacturer Parker Knoll. It told you: ‘This seems very unusual, and not something we know retailers have had issues with before.’
Parker Knoll’s brochure confirmed the zero rating for the chairs, and advice from Revenue & Customs backed this up. Meanwhile, Furniture Village remained confused.
An email told you the Hull store had decided the chairs were not in fact eligible for VAT relief. But this was followed by another email saying the exact opposite, while adding that you had to return the £300 before Furniture Village would give you back the VAT of £466.
I asked the company what had gone wrong. Why could it not just hand over the remaining £ 166? After its bad advice so far, it was easy to see why you would be reluctant to hand over cash you already had, in return for Furniture Village’s promise of more cash later.
When the company offered no comment, I told it last weekend that I would publish your complaint. Within hours, you had a call from the Hull store, apologising and offering £250 on top of the £300 – which you of course were happy to accept.
You asked the caller if he had heard anything from The Mail on Sunday, but he said he had only been asked by his head office to investigate. Then at about 5pm last Sunday, the same caller rang again to say he had just received an email from me. He wanted you to tell me the matter was settled.
This was odd. I had not sent any such email. But I did receive one, from the Hull store, telling me you had ‘agreed not to print this letter’.
Well, look how that turned out. You have – very fairly – asked me nothing of the sort, telling me: ‘It has been a long drawn out nine months until your intervention and I would like to thank you for your help.’
I did press Furniture Village for an explanation of its VAT mistakes, but all it said was: ‘The Furniture Vill age customer service team apologises for the miscommunication.’ The issue had been resolved and you were happy, it added.
I had hoped for more. I did contact one of the directors of Furniture Village. His name is Stephen McPartland, Conservative MP for Stevenage.
He is also former chairman of the all-party Furniture Industry group a t Westminster, a nd former vice-chair of the all-party Disability group.
Believe it or not, he was also chairman of The Furniture Ombudsman, the organisation that rules on complaints against furniture firms, including Furniture Village. McPartland did not respond to repeated invitations to comment.