Janet grew tired of living with no carpets in house
MANY people read The Sunday Post’s Raw Deal page but never think they’ll have to call on our help.
That’s exactly what happened to Janet Watson of Hartlepool.
She has read our paper ever since she was a lass and Raw Deal is one of the first pages she turns to on a Sunday.
But Janet never suspected that one day she’d need our help.
Her problems started after she bought a washer-dryer from Currys last October.
It was a top-of-the-range Hoover model and, being the careful sort, Janet also took out extra insurance cover.
The washer-dryer performed very well until May 19. That morning, Janet woke up to a disaster.
The machine had flooded her flat. The flooring in the kitchen and her hallway carpet were ruined.
Janet was able to stem the flow of water, but it was the following Tuesday before a Hoover engineer was able to get to her.
The engineer said he’d never seen this particular problem before, but changed the parts on the machine. Janet says he admitted the fault lay with the washer-dryer and that the engineer saw the ruined carpets outside her flat.
Janet asked Hoover for a claim form.
She got an email saying it had been sent on May 25 but it didn’t arrive until June 3.
When she eventually got it, Janet filled it to the best of her ability – although was worried that one section said this was only the starting point, which made her think that the entire process would take a very long time.
Janet sent two estimates and lots of photos of the damage. All she wanted was for her flat to be put back to the way it was before the leak.
Everything went very quiet after this. Janet couldn’t get any information from Currys
action desk. They wouldn’t even say if they had received her paperwork.
All this took its toll on Janet. She was left frightened to use her washer-dryer and the stress of the situation was having an effect on her health.
She contacted Raw Deal to see if we could hurry things along.
We had a word and Hoover got in touch to offer £500 for the damage. This didn’t cover the cost of replacement floorcoverings, which were more like £700.
But Janet was tired of the whole affair and after several weeks with bare floorboards she
just needed carpets in her house. Raw Deal had a further word. Currys stepped in with a gesture of goodwill. They agreed to make up the difference, giving Janet £200 to meet the full cost of the ruined carpets.
Janet was ecstatic. She wrote to us to say: “What a relief to know my flat will be back to normal.
“Thank you for all your help with this, I’m thrilled. Thanks to all concerned. Keep up the good work, Sunday Post.
“I have read your paper since I was a little girl. I never thought one day you would come to my rescue.”