KAC's Post

Mon, Aug 20 2007, 9:51 PM
By KAC
Chard & Tax Free Gold
Has anyone had any problems with these companies? (same company, different trading names). They sell Gold coins, mainly for investment - not sure if the name means there is some kind of VAT avoidance possible?
I came across them as I am a coin collector, and had started a collection of the £1 Bridge coins, in Gold proof quality.
One of the coins was unavailable through the usual sources, The Royal Mint, Westminster coins etc.
Chard were advertising the coin I wanted and their web site stated that the coin came with the signed authenticity document from The Royal Mint (all these coins were issued with a certificate).
I rang to check this fact, was told "yes" and I sent off my cheque, receiving a coin with no certificate!
I rang and got an acknowledgement that I should have the certificate, but then they rang me back and said that the director wanted an extra £20. No way!
In the meantime they altered their web site, but I have print outs of the original.
This has gone on almost a year. They ignored my letter, their trade organisation BNTA have investigated and asked Lawrence Chard to supply me a certificate and a box free of charge.
He has ignored that. I have had help from Consumer Direct.
He has ignored my reordered (sic) letter giving him 14 days to supply the certificate.
So it looks like I will have to go to the small claims court. As the company is in Blackpool he probably won't turn up, so I will have to instruct bailiffs to go to his premises etc etc.
Apparently I can use my local small claims court as the transaction took place on my computer screen.
What a conceited little man. All I want is something he advertised, he must have, but he won't give it to me.
I believe that a number of people had fallen foul of his e-bay dealings, where he has an online shop.
Although a retailer can refuse to sell something advertised at a certain price on the Internet, I think the law says that if he goes on to take the money and supply the goods, they have to be as described and at that price.
Could do without the hassle, and nearly gave up a few times, but I really want to cause this guy as much trouble as he has caused me.
His shop is on Lytham Road in Blackpool. I am going there soon.... wonder if standing outside with leaflets will do any good?

Corrections
We have noted the following errors or inconsistencies in KAC's posting, and added our comments where relevant.

Mon, Aug 20 2007, 9:51 PM
By KAC

• We believe that people making strongly negative remarks should have the courage and decency to publish their full name rather than hide behind a pseudonym, in this case his initials.

• In which case, why not say "this company" instead of "these companies"?

• If you take the time and trouble to do so, you would find a full explanation easily found, and simply explained on our website. This is not "avoidance", simply that most gold coins are classed as exempt from VAT in the EU. Sterling (UK) coins are also mainly exempt from CGT.

• We think these were still available from the Royal Mint, but we tend to stock many of their new issues at discounted prices.
  KAC fails to state which date of gold pound was involved. It would be very time-consuming for us to try to locate his order and file. We have assume the coin ordered was a 2005. From memory, the three relevant prices were:
  • Royal Mint, complete with box and certificate £425.
  • Us, complete with box and certificate £395.
  • Us, without box or certificate £375.

• No, our site did not state that the coin came with its certificate, we stated that the coin had "no box". There is an important difference between these two descriptions.

• No, when you rang, you were told by Sharon that if it stated whatever you said on our website, then it would be correct. She should have been more careful, and checked her facts. We do make great efforts to keep our sites accurate and informative.

• We dispute that you were told you "should have the certificate". We did not ring you back to ask an extra £20.
  What we did say is that we had made an error, and that our site should have stated that the coin was "capsule only" or "no box or certificate".
  You omit to state that we offered you a choice of either a refund including your postal costs, or a coin complete not only with certificate but also with its original box.
  You also omit to state that we had two options on our site for this coin, one complete with box and certificate, the other without, and that the price differential between these was £20.
  You omissions of these important facts give a, presumably deliberate, slant to your comments.

• We did indeed alter our website to correct our mistake. KAC appears criticise us for doing so.
  We would be interested to hear from KAC, with a print or scan of our original page.

• Yes, the BNTA did suggest firstly that we supply you with a certificate, but we declined as in our opinion we had already given you two perfectly good and reasonable alternatives, This more than complied with our legal and ethical obligations. We believed, and still do, that you were being over-consumerist, and trying to extort something to which you were not entitled. Later they asked to supply not only the certificate which you were asking for, but also a box, which you were not asking for. While we believe the BNTA were and are right to expect high ethical standards from their members, we believe they are wrong in dictating that members should comply with excessive demands from over-active consumerists, and should be prepared to back their own members when it would be correct to do so. We believe it is weak (and in your words toothless) of them to bow to over persistent complainers.

• You fail to state that you had contacted Consumer Direct before the BNTA, and that they were perfectly happy to hear that we had offered you an immediate refund including your postage.

• We had, as stated above, already apologised and offered a refund.

• We would have been quite prepared to defend ourselves in a small claims court, despite the fact that the costs of our time would have greatly outweighed the amount in dispute.

• We do not think it is your place to opine on whether we would have attended.
  If the court had made judgement in your favour, we would have complied. No bailiffs would have been necessary, so your comments about them are misinformed at best.

• You should stick to constructive criticism our of company, and not resort to an unfounded personal attack on an individual.
  We believe we are justified in being proud of long-established good name and reputation, and for our efforts to publish accurate information on our websites, and to deal ethically with all our customers.

• It also takes account of the possibility of errors. Any contract between us was based on an error and misunderstanding, which we believe you may have suspected at the time. At all material times, we did not have any of the gold pound coins without box but with certificate. We believe any reasonable person would have accepted that we had made a genuine human error, would have accepted one of the two alternatives we offered, and that a court would have been likely to accept our position as more than reasonable.

• We did not cause you much trouble at all, you created most of it for yourself, we believe in an unethical attempt to get something which you were never entitled to.
  Your comment about causing us (this guy, in your words) trouble, speaks volumes.

• We are not aware of any visit from KAC, perhaps he did intend to visit us, but perhaps not.

Summary & Conclusions
We accidentally made a simple mistake; we are human. When this came to our notice, we immediately corrected our website, apologised to the customer, and offered to reimburse him for the coin and his postage. We also offered the alternative of a complete boxed example with certificate. KAC refused both, and continued to insist he was entitled to take advantage of our mistake. We believed this was unfair. We try to ensure that our advertising, product descriptions, and terms are fair, reasonable, clearly stated, and easy to find on our websites. Like everybody, we are not perfect, and make mistakes. When this happens, we make immediate efforts to resolve any problems caused without needing to be forced to do so. We also state on site that we object to people who try to bully their way to more than is fair, and that we would prefer the very small proportion of unsatisfied customers to deal elsewhere. This may sound slightly cavalier of us, but it ensures we are free to deal efficiently with the vast majority of our customers who are fair, reasonable, and happy.
KAC's omission of some small but important detail, and his inaccuracies, render his statement as defamatory to our company and to Mr. Chard personally.
At the time of writing this page 7th May 2011, we were unable to load the original posting from the Moneysupermarket.com website, but could find two Google cached versions of it.

Serial Complainer
According to another post on the same website, commenting on another KAC post:

• What an incredibly strange post!
  A serial complainer; and one that didn't learn to check the receipt in-store before leaving. KAC, in your own admission, you thought the price was wrong when you were in the store.
  Surely you can't expect to come back later and them take your word for it lol??
  The customer isn't always right... especially once they leave the store then come back/phone later LOL!!

• Wow, you're a happy shopper aren't you! The customer is not always right, and YES you should check the receipt before you leave the store.

KAC Agrees
KAC seems proud to reveal that he is indeed a serial complainer.

How many of us check our receipts when we shop ? It used to be a major problem for me. I have many experiences of being overcharges (sic), mainly at my local Asda, where I am hated at the customer service desk. There are two types of staff at Asda, new polite people, and the old pre-WalMart staff who are rude and unhelpful. One instance was two weeks ago. All summer they have had an offer on Asda flavoured ice cream, around 85p each, but 2 for £1. I knew the offer was finsihing (sic) because it stopped being printed on the tub lids, but was still displayed on the freezer, so I stocked up, and when I got home I had been charged the full price. I went back next day and the offer had since been removed from the freezer, and as my arch enemy was on Customer Services I wimped out and didn't complain.I also have a fairly local Morrison's, which is a lot better efficency (sic) wise, but they only open late two nights and it is always packed and the queue's horrendous.So.... (sic) once a month, my wife and I drive from Sheffield to Barnsley to do a major shop at Tesco, which we did on Tuesday night at 10.30pm. They are open 24 hours a day, it is quiet at night, the only problem is that you often can't get what you want for the many shelf stackers who seem to think they have priority.On being served, I had a feeling I had been overcharged but just couldn't see anything wrong When I got home, I studied the receipt, and say that the assistant, instead of scanning every item, had scanned one of everything and multiplied it by the amout (sic) - ie scan a bag of sugar and press x2.I had bought two x four packs of Princes Tuna Chunks, on offer at £1.50, but the assistant had scanned one, and entered x4. I presume her brain has seen "4 pack" and she had eneterd (sic) 4 instead of 2.Now that is a problem, because I wouldn't be going back for a month, and it would cost me £5 petrol to make a special journey. BUT, I had been cheated, and as a customer,I was pretty sure tesco (sic) would help put the matter right.I rang Tesco at Barnsley the next day, (0845 number grrrrrr!!!) and a very unhelpful customer services assistant said they could only put the matter right if I went back to the store. I suggested they either send me a £3 voucher or, simply put 300 points on my Tesco Clubcard. No way. I had to return, and not only that, during normal working hours so Customer Services would be open. Impossible. She relented a little and offered me the choice of travelling to any Tesco store and arguing the point there, but that also was difficult, I don't have a local Tesco. I said I would never visit Tesco again, was told "ok", and then asked for head office's number. The assistant quickly quoted it and hung up on me.Head office, well they were worse - they more or less accused me of trying to commit theft. Apparently it is MY responsibilty (sic) to check what the assistant puts on the receipt - I should stand at the till and check all 100 or so items before I move away. How do they know how many items I actually bought once I have left the store ! So, Tesco thieved (sic) off of (sic) me, and then accuse me of being the thief. After repeating my threat that I would never enter a Tesco store again, I was eventually offered a once only soloution (sic) of giving me 300 points. I accepted, will spend them, and that is it Tesco !I suggest anyone else stands at the till and checks every item before they leave. What happened to "the customer is always right". - KAC

Professional Complainer? 70 in 4 Years?
We thought about the "serial complainer" comment, and took a further look. KAC has made about 70 posts on Money Supermarket in less than four years. Most of these were complaints, although some appear to be simply agreeing with other people's complaints.
We have got better things to do than wade through them all, but a quick scan revealed complaints, some of them very bitter, about Tesco, us, Asda, Homeserve, BT, Prudential, NPower, Rover, Saga, Powergen, More Than Insurance, Barclays Home Insurance, Morrisons, Moneysupermarket, Royal Sun Alliance, an uninsured illegal taxi driver, the police, Hasting Direct, Highway, Carphone Warehouse, DABS, EDF, Tiscali, TV Licensing, National Grid, his neighbour, West Brom., Hargreaves Landsdown, TD Waterhouse, Halifax Share Dealing, Royal Mail, Britannia Building Society, Government agaencies (sic), people making sarcastic or malicious comments on every Forum (sic) (he) tried posting on before, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, his local church, AXA Heathcare (sic), his postman, Marks & Spencer, and Phoenix.

Comments Removed
When we tried to view KAC's comments in April 2011, it appears that the thread had already been removed, presumably because Money Supermarket had realised or suspected that some of the comments by KAC and others were defamatory.

Fair Comment or Defamation?
We believe in free speech, but it must be balanced by ethics and fairness.