On July 5th I ordered two remote controls for our 2 gite Qlima air conditioning units. (One of the original remotes had packed in and I thought it prudent to get two replacements.) The total cost for the two was about 77€.
The company I ordered from, online, specialises in supplying remote controls and I went direct to them, not via Amazon. I have not used them before.
The paperwork came through with correct (identical) addresses for invoicing and delivery and informed that I would receive them on the 7th July to 9th via the post (not courier).
With other stuff going on, I forgot about the delivery dates and it was only last Tuesday, preparing for our latest guests, I realised the remotes had not arrived. It looked like the email from the company was one I could reply to and I sent off an email that evening. I waited until lunchtime Wednesday and found a mobile phone number and rang it to hear a recorded message which basically said “I’m busy, send me a text including the order number”, which I did.
Unfortunately he phoned that same afternoon - firstly on my mobile phone, which I couldn’t get to in time and then the house number. I did not understand him (not realising who it was) and by the time I did, he sounded angry and hung up. I sent two more SMS’s reiterating my earlier comments that he had my money and I did not have my remotes. And would he please reply to me by SMS and not phone me.
I have not heard anything since his call.
I’m proposing to send him a more formal letter in writing “Lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception” saying either send me my remote controls or refund my money.
Quite frankly I feel there is little I can do and he can just sit this out (either it is a scam, or he sent them and they’ve been lost) because it’s not worth my while spending much money on getting this sorted out just to recover 77€. And I’ll just have to put this down to experience.
They may well have been sent back. If there was some message that got lost, or not acknowledged, then after 7 or 10 days would automatically be returned. Check with post personas well as office,
A couple of years back, someone, not myself, Gigi nor Tigre our cat somehow managed to put two(!) of our Daikin heat pump remotes in the washing machine. I was horrified to discover that replacements were €99 each, but then pleasantly surprised to discover I could get generic ones from HK for about €5 apiece. They work very well.
I had to deal with an awful third party French seller on Amazon once. When my purchase failed within its two year warranty, they tried to tell me all the rules related to shop purchases, and when I tried to explain online purchases are not the same, they got passive aggressive, and refused to deal with it. I contacted my protection juridique, and although they don’t deal with things unless above a certain threshold, they did send a recorded letter, reminding them on their obligations and threatened consequences (even if they wouldn’t follow up, but the seller didn’t know this). I quickly got a refund!
I bank with Credit Agricole’s Britline and have had success in having them cancel a double transaction in a restaurant and a direct debit from an energy company - si IMO its worth a try.
You could ask your bank if it will reverse the payment and find somewhere such as Amazon to order replacement remotes. Alternatively you could purchase a universal remoted and teach it from the existing working remote.
I believe there is something equivalent to UK Section 75 in France which might make it claimable depending how you paid. Might take a bit of digging somewhere like quechoisir.org as most consumer protections although they really do exist seem to be much harder to find and apply in France than in the UK where access to and applying levels of formal steps seems much more readily available.
It worked for us about four years ago. Our bank reversed the charge and we got a full refund. This was after failed attempts to get our money back ourselves. In our case we got no reply by any method, even telephone. It wasn’t immediate, the bank probably did their own due diligence but it worked.
