Refund/termination of contract

[Greg b]

Afternoon all.

I’m a small business owner, refurbishing alloy wheels.

I have a receptionist who deals with the bulk of bookings, though I deal with many of them too.

Had a customer book his car in to refurbish his wheel. Did exactly as he asked.

He came to collect it and complained it wasn’t how he expected it. I offered to do them as he expected but explained we’d done as we were asked, all that we could do.

Turns out he’d not asked the process we would use to refurbish them. I presumed he’d spoken to the receptionist, she presumed he’d spoken to me.

After lots of WhatsApp messages I decided to refund him.

He’s now had them re-done elsewhere and wants me to pay the extra costs involved. He’d have had to pay these costs to me, had he advised us that was how he wanted the wheels doing in the 1st place.

caveat emptor - the onus is on him to check what is being done 1st.

we did exactly as asked

we refunded him, despite doing exactly as asked

Where do I stand?

Does the full refund fully terminate any contract between us?

[R0b]

Tell the customer to (politely) bugger off.

There is no recourse for him unless he can show that there was a fault or other problem with the service. If there is more than one way of refurbishing wheels then you are correct, the customer should have been more specific rather than assumed the service he was paying for would be what he was getting.

Service was requested and provided so you were not required to refund him but presumably, you did as a gesture of goodwill. Based on what you describe, he can try his luck by issuing legal proceedings but I don't think he has a leg to stand on and as you are right, there is no loss suffered because you would have charged just as much if not more had he been specific.

Reading between the lines it sounds like the customer knows what they are talking about in terms of the processes for wheel refurbishment which means he could be taken to have additional skill and knowledge than the ordinary user and a court would assess him against that standard i.e. he should have been specific about the process he wanted you to take.

[Greg b]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your comments.

Are you a lawyer?

Greg

[atticus]

Whether he is or is not, he has given sound advice.

[Greg b]

Thanks. I thought so too