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Chronicle Live

National

Catherine Furze

Newcastle window firm threatens customer with debt collectors in £2,000 cheque row

Newcastle

A fed-up customer and a well-known North East home improvements company are locked in a fight about a £2000 cheque and whether it should be paid back.

Customer Paul Stafford says Pennine Home Improvements gave him the cheque as a promise that the outstanding work on his windows and doors would be completed within 10 days - but bosses at the Benton-based company say the cheque was given as a bond that the work would be carried out with no timescale attached. And now they have said they will start debt collection proceedings to recover the debt - which Mr Stafford is adamant he doesn't owe.

The row started after Mr Stafford and his wife Susie complained to Pennine about several issues after they paid Pennine £24,000 to replace the windows and doors in their 200-year-old cottage in Carrshield, near Hexham.

After the fitting was completed in June 2021, Mr Stafford said he had several complaints with the work, which he communicated to Pennine, including:

Three matching windows which did not look the same as the cross in the glass of one is completely different to the other two;
No weather strips were fitted to front door, which caused the door to split;
The door and windows were fitted with mismatching furniture, with some being silver and some gold;
Window sills were only fitted with a right-hand end piece and the left end pieces were not packed on the van. The missing pieces were not fitted until two months later;
The sills were not fitted level and all had to be replaced;
A pool of water formed on the kitchen window after a storm;
The surround on the windows all stand proud of existing wall or sill

And while a spokesperson for Pennine admitted that the Stafford's installation "experienced some snagging issues" he said they were all rectified according to the survey and contract and the £2,000 was now repayable to the company.

Mr and Mrs Stafford said that although they felt the job was not completed to a good enough standard in the first place, their main complaint was the length of time to resolve the ongoing issues, with some still outstanding more than a year after fitting, and Pennine refusing to enter into any conversation with them. Mr Stafford claims emails and phone calls to the company have gone unreturned and that Pennine did not acted within the levels set out in its own complaints procedure, which state that complaints will be responded to within 14 days.

The spokesperson said: "We provided the customer with a £2,000 holding cheque as guarantee that these works would be completed. The customer has cashed the cheque; therefore, £2,000 of our money remains outstanding. The monies remain outstanding and is in the process of being passed to a debt collection agency for recovery. As per the terms and conditions of the sale contract, we may refuse to provide any further services under the contract until such time outstanding monies have been paid.

"A holding cheque is to hold us to our agreement that we would return to complete any outstanding works. I have found no telephone or written correspondence confirming any 10 working days timescale. Nevertheless, there has been no offer of compensation, goodwill or equivalent provided for any formal complaint; therefore, the amount remains outstanding from the balance due on the account. The amount has remained outstanding since the date of completion."

The spokesperson said Pennine was unable to provide any proof that the cheque did not have a time limit "due to GDPR" (data protection laws).

However the Stafford refute Pennine's claim, saying: "The £2000 cheque was given to us by a Pennine employee with the express condition that it could be encashed if work was not completed within 10 working days of his visit. It was not! There has been no contact from Pennine Home Improvements regarding this money. This, considering that I have mentioned in letters and included within documentation sent to their customer services manager, seems strange that they have not corrected this particular issue before now."

Mr Stafford wrote to Pennine on 21 August 2021 to outline his complaints and referred to the the cheque, which he stated in the letters and emails had been given as a promise that the work would be completed within 10 days. He also gave notice that the cheque would be cashed the following week. "My complaint is not that the work has not been completed, but the poor quality of response and length of time it took them to carry out all the work," he said.

Pennine has refuted Mr Stafford's claims that his complaints were not attended to in a timely manner.

Mr Stafford said: "Unfortunately, there is no documentation regarding the comments regarding cashing the cheque. It would be just his word against both of ours. In different circumstances I would be prepared to take this to court and swear under oath that he made those comments. But now, I just want to close this whole sorry episode. I would however, like to know why Pennine made no reply to my comments regarding this cheque in the letters I sent to them on 13 August 2021, and 25 October 2021, these were resent on 8 April 2022 and again in an email to Pennine on 6 July 2022. It is only now ChronicleLive is involved that they have raised this subject, and only with you. We have still heard nothing from them on this matter."

The spokesperson for Pennine said: "The whole point of the holding cheque is to provide reassurance to the customer that we will return to carry out the works. We would never advise they could cash it and keep it. If this was the case, we would not have a business to run. I have no further comments to add."

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