French Consumer law

Hi All,

I’m new here so not sure if this is the right place for my question.

In March this year I purchased 2 pellet burning stoves via an online site which turned out to be a portal and my order was fulfilled by one of their sellers.

The stoves arrived and we had them fitted by a qualified engineer. One of the stoves functions exactly as it should and we have no problems with it.

The second stove has had problems almost from day 1. We only used it a couple of times in early May and I noticed a small problem so I got in touch with the Italian manufacturer and they answered my question and sent me a manual in English which helped.

The next time we used the stove was at the end of October and we had lots of problems. We contacted the original website and they passed on to the actual supplier. For the next 8 weeks, I worked with one of their technical people trying to get the stove to work correctly. He sent me a new electronic control box which fixed most of the problems but not the main problem which concerned the worm gear which feed the pellets. We exchanged about 60 emails, all of which I have.

They then offered to send a complete worm gear and motor for me to fit. At this point I decided that enough was enough. I am 72 and have considerable experience with electronics and computers but I don’t consider myself to be a mechanical engineer competent enough to effectively take the stove to bits, fit the new parts and put it all back together properly.

So I contacted them and gave them 3 options - a full refund, replace the stove or send an engineer to install the new parts.

I also explained that my understanding of French Consumer Law is that they must either refund or replace the faulty stove and I gave them 7 days to decide what they wanted to do.

Since then I have heard nothing from them.

I am left with a stove which cost, including the special chimney part, over 1200€.

So my question is this, is there anything else I can do to persuade this company to sort the stove or refund my money?

My French is not good enough to deal with them on the phone.

Is there a French equivalent of the UK Small Claims Court system in France and if so, how do I start proceedings?

Any ideas gratefully received particularly as the weather is getting cold!

Thanks

Tim

Hello Tim

Do you have ‘protection juridique’ with your house insurance policy?

If so then take copies of everything to your insurer and they will act on your behalf.