Ian Cheshire
CEO
Kingfisher UK
3 Sheldon Square
Paddington
London
W2 6PX

My Ref. : A.DET.B&Q(K).Co.02.10
Your Ref. :
Date : 18th. October 2010

Dear Mr.Cheshire

DEFECTIVE B & Q PRODUCTS (PORCH LANTERNS AND ROBE HOOKS)

I refer to my original letter to you of the 23rd. July 2010 concerning the above matter, and to all subsequent communications between myself and your amanuensis, Mr. Steven Jones. I received Mr. Jones’s latest response
on the 23rd. September, i.e. only after some considerable delay and further inconvenience to myself, a delay occasioned by my being obliged by Mr. Jones to gather yet more facts from local B&Q stores about your defective products, facts which, as I previously told Mr. Jones, B&Q itself should have had full prior knowledge of without any further intervention in this manner being at all necessary on my part.

In his last communication Mr. Jones made the following statements:

1. “Following your e-mail regarding the problems experienced with the
hooks and lantern, from the CEO office I am happy to issue a full refund
in the form of a cheque for the items based on the information you have provided regarding the price.”

2. “The comments you have made in regards to the experience you have
had in the store, I am unable to comment on but can pass your email
to a manager at the store level for their comments.”

Based upon my previous experiences with B&Q Mr. Jones’s response, which the above statements formed the most part of, was largely as I expected it would be. It was, needless to say, also inadequate and unacceptable.

The “default B&Q response”, which Mr. Jones’s communication of the 23rd. September was merely the latest example of, has always, in my experience, been that B&Q’s view is that the mere refund of original purchase prices of failed B&Q goods that have created consequential losses and vast inconvenience to complainants is an appropriate and entirely adequate response to make.

I also have no doubt whatsoever that, also as previously, your current response will also be shortly elaborated to include the usual B&Q caveat that if an aggrieved customer accepts the offer of a mere refund of original purchase prices the customer is, by so accepting, also automatically agreeing to a declaration stating that the receipt of a mere refund of original purchase prices by B&Q binds the complainant to acceptance of the refund as, in that solicitor’s favourite phrase: “Full and Final Settlement of the Matter”.

You should, however, be under no illusions that I have any intention whatsoever of signing my legal right to redress against B&Q away in this manner, merely in exchange for the price of a paltry refund of original purchase prices. I would further inform you that in his reply I quoted from above, Mr. Jones in no way addressed any of the main points I included in my original letter to yourself of the 23rd. July. Both he (and, by implication, yourself) seem, in fact, to have conveniently forgotten the statement I made to you in my original letter of complaint, which was as follows:
“Having been “fobbed off” by B&Q on several previous occasions when B&Q products failed, sometimes dangerously so, I am now motivated by these repeat scenarios to say that I believe we have a good case for requiring B&Q to defray these significant additional consequential losses and expenses – an aspect which, in various previous B&Q cases, we have not pursued, but which, enough being enough, we do now intend to pursue.

In the case of the failed B&Q wall lanterns, we will not accept, for the reasons stated above, the limit of your liability as being limited to the retail value of your failed and inadequate goods alone. Unless, therefore, we

receive a substantially larger, realistic compensatory offer than the current retail value of these products would represent from yourselves within twenty – one days of the receipt of this letter, I shall instruct our solicitor to
institute proceedings against B & Q immediately after the expiration of this time period.”

I would observe that in addition to having ignored this essential point in their responses to me, B&Q have also actively discriminated against me when compared with other complaining B&Q customers.

A clear example of this discriminatory approach would be that of an old friend of mine who lives in London, who merely had to complain about his impression that he had been insulted by a member of your staff when walking around one of your London stores for B&Q to subsequently shower him with a cash compensation (in the form of a significant number of B&Q vouchers redeemable instore).

Remember, this was your response to this gentleman’s merely being upset by one of B&Q’s staff members, whereas in my case you offer nothing like this level of compensation. In fact, you offer me NO such compensation (for purchase price refunds do not equate to “compensation”) even though the “crime” committed by B&Q against my London friend pales into utter insignificance when compared with all those things B&Q have inflicted upon myself. My London friend had not even bought anything from B&Q, for heaven’s sake, before he received a no – strings compensation payment from yourselves!

So how do these two separate “B&Q situations” bear any form of comparison? They do not, of course. Hence the clear and inevitable conclusion that in their entirely different responses to two separate customer challenges, the far lesser complaint received a far greater and more favourable response from B&Q than did the far more serious complaint!

The example I cite above clearly indicates that B&Q are discriminatory in their handling of customer complaints, another serious aspect of B&Q policy I shall shortly be referring on to the relevant authorities, and to my solicitor, as a result of your entirely inadequate and dismissive response to my most reasonable and measured recent complaint.

Regrettably, I was also unable to detect in any of Mr. Jones’s several responses the least form of regret or apology regarding the shoddy and, frankly, sometimes DANGEROUS products (and, in addition, the too often inadequate instore service and staff attitudes) B&Q have imposed upon me, and doubtless upon many other of their customers, in the past.

Nor could I detect in Mr. Jones’s responses any form of thanks for my bringing to his CEO’s attention the fact that dangerous products were being openly retailed by B&Q, products exemplified by those I previously referred to you, as follows:

“An even more serious consequence of this complete failure of quality control on the part of B&Q became obvious when I examined each [robe] hook more circumspectly and found that they had all clearly been crudely cut to length (before being folded into shape) possibly on some sort of bench anvil, but certainly with a bevel – shaped cutting blade. … In all cases this cutting operation had produced quite lethal razor – sharp edges which had not been subsequently removed in any smoothing – off operation before these items were offered for sale to unsuspecting B&Q customers such as myself!

Imagine the small hands of a child reaching for their coat being ripped to pieces by these deadly weapons, and you may understand why I immediately threw these disgraceful products into the dustbin (in the process of doing so, badly cutting my finger!) with a gesture of total disgust and loathing regarding the disgraceful cynicism and blatant profiteering “at all costs”, even at the cost of totally neglecting the H&S of their customers, of B&Q. Shame on you!”

Despite the above important facts having been communicated to you and your CEO team in my original letter of the 23rd. July, I was very surprised to find an entire absence of any undertaking in any of Mr. Jones’s recent responses to this letter that dangerous or defective products, when once brought to your attention by a customer such as myself, would be immediately withdrawn from sale by B&Q! In fact quite the contrary seems to be the case, for I see the ”Stanley Knife” robe hooks are still actively on sale throughout the B&Q store network! I conclude from this state of affairs that B&Q are either in denial that they retail such dangerous objects, or that they have a cynical disregard for the quite evident fact that they do so, and also, evidently, contempt for bone fide customers who are good enough to attempt to assist B&Q in avoiding prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive and Trading Standards by bringing such facts to their attention.

We will, however, see what these two bodies have to say upon the matter when I submit the “Stanley knives masquerading as robe hooks” to them, together with the clear evidence that you knowingly continue to place your customers in physical danger of personal injury by continuing to retail goods that you have been fully appraised of as being dangerous objects by
at least myself. Incidentally, I see I was previously mistaken in stating I had, in disgust, thrown these items away, for I now recall that I threw these offending and very dangerous items only into my toolbox.

Given subsequent developments, how fortunate it is that I retained this vital
evidence, don’t you agree, Mr. Cheshire?

Another bizarre failing in Mr. Jones’s responses to my original letter to yourself, Mr. Cheshire, was that “a typical disaster day in a B&Q store” I subsequently related to him was completely cast aside by his statement that on general policy matters and in respect of the day to day running of your B&Q Empire the CEO and his team were: “… unable to comment …” and that such matters were entirely the responsibility of individual store managers!

What? Does the entire B&Q store network consist of independent franchises regarding the running of which Kingfisher’s CEO and his team have no influence or jurisdiction, then?

I think not sir, and your colleague’s glossing over the structural and corporate failures of B&Q that I have consistently both observed and brought to your personal attention – for your personal action – by thrusting the blame entirely upon each individual store outlet frankly beggars belief!

In the more moral and less nakedly self interested world of my youth, a world not yet overpopulated by Vince Cable’s “Spivs and gamblers”, it was always understood that in hand with the great – now the very, very great – rewards and power that came to those (such as yourself and your CEO team clearly represent) sitting at the top of the corporate, or political, etc., etc., tree, came also great responsibility.

Accordingly, it was also axiomatically understood that when things went wrong those at the top, such as yourself, were ultimately responsible for setting matters right without passing the buck onto various “fall guys” much lower down the pecking order whilst simultaneously also abrogating all personal responsibility for the captaincy of the ship (although now too often receiving an admiral’s salary for doing so). And when things went particularly, and consistently, wrong – even if the fault clearly lay lower down the ladder – the CEO would always resign on principal.

Not now – never now – however, for instead of the salutary spectacle of the captain of the Titanic saluting and standing to attention whilst his ship’s band played on to the end as his stricken behemoth finally slipped beneath the icy grip of the deep Atlantic, today’s “captains” of industry – and retailing – can only fight with each other to be first into the lifeboats, roughly shoving innocent women, children, and their customers, aside in their undignified scramble to escape the consequences of their high position and previous actions!

What an utter disgrace!

Yours sincerely

David E.Thomas

c.c.

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