Being held hostage by a supplier
Waht can you do in this situation? Wood flooring supplier sold us prefinished oak floooring that he assured us was solid. We told him we only wanted solid wood so we could sand it and re-varnish if we wanted. We bought $1,800 worth of flooring. After a da’s worth of installation by subcontactors, we discovered…
Waht can you do in this situation? Wood flooring supplier sold us prefinished oak floooring that he assured us was solid. We told him we only wanted solid wood so we could sand it and re-varnish if we wanted. We bought $1,800 worth of flooring. After a da’s worth of installation by subcontactors, we discovered the wood was not solid, but in fact compossite. Now we are out $1,800 and the subcontractors want their money for teh aprtially installed floor. Aghhhhh!
North sleeper is correct in saying that you can’t see it’s composite until you split the wood in half, which he didn’t see until the subcontractors were cutting the wood to size.
this usually happens, try to pay through CC only next time.
regards
vikram
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You FUCKED up and you don’t want to pay YOUR installers? WHAT AN ASSHOLE.
Mr. Hancock, who’s stupid? It should be you’re stupid, not your stupid. So, who’s stupid now?
3:26, you have a contract? Great. But your contract will specify what the limits of liability are in this case. And chances are they are limited to the return of the product. You can’t return it.
The cc company will listen to your story. They will listen to the merchant’s story. The merchant will agree he supplied the wrong product, based on what you say in 3:26. He will offer to replace it with the correct product upon the return of the incorrect product. That’s all he has to do. You can’t return it in its original undamaged state. It’s nailed to the subfloor. CC company will award payment to the merchant upon your non-return of product.
CC company is not going to get involved in all these issues of contingent liability, you would have to go to court, where you will lose, based on your own negligence.
Install what you got and try and get some kind of small settlement from the supplier. Maybe he’ll throw you a coupla bucks so he doesn’t have to hear you whine anymore.
Sorry to pile on here but if you or your “sub” didn’t inspect the material upon delivery and prior to installation, your vendor can’t be held responsible for your lapse in judgement. Like Denton says, IF you can prove that they delivered the wrong thing (and by prove I mean you submitted a written order for X and your receipt indicates vendor supplied Y), then the vendor will have to give you some relief or consideration on a new batch of product. Barring that level of proof, seeking compensation will ulimately become a battle of words which you’re unlikely to win.
And regardless of how Mr Hancock may have said it, he’s right. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Laminated vs. Engineered vs. Solid Wood. Even assuming that there was no information printed on the packaging in which it came, if you had looked at the end face of the planks you would have been able to determine what you received, no cutting required.
Sorry it happened but it sounds like this is a live and learn situation. Not paying attention to these seemingly tiny details will end up costing you a bundle in the long run.
update – the supplier just told us HE was told by the manufacturer that it was solid oak rather than being laminate. he has now told us he will ‘check on it.” we feel badly for teh subs who were just there to do their work. it’s basically a waiting game at this point.
for those of you who have nothing better to do than make disparaging comments, unless i were to split the wood from each case, there’s no way to tell the quality fo the wood. second, if you pay by credit card, of course you have recourse. My cc company would stand by me, unlike some of you losers. We had a contract to buy a certain kind of flooring, which was not delivered. Contracts 101 will tell you that the supplier has to make good on that.
PS: It’s not such a big deal how you paid… if you paid by cc, and you opened a dispute, the best scenario you would get is that the vendor would agree to replace the material upon its return. You can’t return it, cuz it’s nailed to your subfloor! You lose.
Yeah, I’m a little confused… what exactly is composite solid wood flooring? When it was delivered why didn’t you look at it? You paid cash, so what? Don’t you have a receipt that states exactly what you bought?
If the supplier gave you a receipt, and delivered something other than what he promised, he is liable to replace the material. He is not liable to pick up all the contingent liabilities which in this case would include removing the old material and installing new.
If he made a mistake, you would then be responsible for returning the incorrect material to him.
You are not able to return the incorrect material since you have installed some of it, presumably by gluing or nailing. Your supplier therefore can’t resell it–it is used.
We don’t know that your supplier tried to screw you, especially if the woods seem the same to the naked eye. He very well may have made a simple mistake.
However you have made a bigger mistake. You failed to inspect the material on delivery to ascertain that what you bought was what you received. Assuming you are not an expert in materials, you should have had your sub/GC do the inspection for you. You can’t expect the vendor to pay for your mistakes, only his own.
Additionally, if you didn’t get a receipt because you were helping your supplier avoid income tax on his profit, while you enjoyed a discount, you got what you deserved. I could be wrong.
In any event, I have to agree with 12:34… if it took you that long to tell the difference, maybe you shouldn’t worry about it.
Im not sure what kind of oak flooring is made of composite. Do you mean engineered? Or do you mean laminate?
If you paid cash, you are pretty much out of luck. If the business you purchased the flooring from is reputable, they would work with you on some kind of partial refund but I dont see any business providing new floors and picking up the costs of tearing out the existing and relaying the new floors. I could be wrong though.
Don’t listen to the second poster. Its nothing to be ashamed of. A lot of people here pretend to have been born with a wealth of knowledge about home repair but everyone learns the same way – by doing. Whatever this event cost you, you’ll reap the rewards later by being more dillegent about dealing with suppliers.
Good luck – I hope you get some compensation for the flooring supplier not providing what you paid for.