Comments: Of sheep, plaster and kitchens

We too fired up our woodburner the other evening, it was so chilly. It had only just been serviced. Our chimney man (who originally fitted the stove years ago) has been back working for some weeks. It was rather funny to see him going about his work in PPE!

Posted by Tim W on 14 June, 2020 at 3:18 PM

Whilst it might be 20 odd years since I stood on Coven Sud roof and fed a chimney lining over my shoulder and down the chimney, I am absolutely and definitely not 20 years older than I was then, no siree, absolutely not...15 perhaps.

Posted by MrBW on 14 June, 2020 at 8:16 PM

We lit the fire for several nights too. The Aga is still on, of course, but no other heating, though we did turn an electric fire on while we had dinner a couple of times. I trust we won't need extra warmth again this summer, though I remember that in the year after Russell died, when I was being very careful to comfort myself, I lit a fire at least once every month.

Posted by Z on 14 June, 2020 at 8:53 PM

I'm pretty sure you're already aware - but other commenters/readers may not be - but don't forget that S75 kicks in as long as you've paid a deposit of over the £100.

You don't have to pay the entire amount on credit card for it to be covered, as long as the deposit was over the amount.

Of course I assume that in your case you're using a card with some form of cashback as well, in which case it's still worth putting the whole amount on. :-)

Posted by Lyle on 17 June, 2020 at 9:15 AM

Thanks Lyle, you're right, I should have said more about S75 protection.

But -
I think that the rules cover any one item (not one sale of multiple separate items) costing in total between £100 and £30K (not that many people have credit cards with that sort of limit these days) and that provided the one item is over £100, if you pay even 1p on a credit card, I believe you are able to get the whole amount back from the credit card company?

Also, I am sure that many companies will be going bust in the next few months, so it is going to become a big issue, where people have paid deposits and not got items, or where they have bought online then sent things back and haven't got refunds at the company's insolvency date.

Chargeback can be used for items costing less than £100, and is at the bank's discretion, but usually they are sympathetic, provided you have a good paper trail.

Posted by Blue Witch on 17 June, 2020 at 2:02 PM

Yes, MSE clarifies it: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases/
but also reminds me that using a credit card via a processing company (eg Amazon or PayPal, or any other 3rd party system) will mean you won't be covered.

But, both Amazon and PayPal have their own systems that both MrBW and I have had to test recently (having made over 200 online purchases in the past 14 weeks, there were bound to be a few problems with suppliers/quality). They work well, provided (again) that you have a paper trail, and have tried to solve the problem with the retailer yourself in the first instance.

Posted by Blue Witch on 17 June, 2020 at 2:13 PM

Ah, cool re the deposit thing - I'd always understood it was still liable to that minimum £100, so it's interesting to know I'm wrong! :-)

I believe also that S75 issues can reflect badly on a company's credit-worthiness, and can result in it being downgraded. (An unguarded comment from a person at one of the card companies I was dealing with)

I've certainly noticed a couple of places where the threat of going through S75 has bucked their ideas up and pushed them to do a refund without going through that route.

Posted by Lyle on 17 June, 2020 at 7:05 PM

That makes sense Lyle - it's probably like the Ombudsman - companies are judged according to the numbers of cases that are unresolved by the company, so end up with the various Ombudsman services.

I wonder if companies have to pay a charge/fine for S75 cases as they do for every Ombudsman case?

Posted by Blue Witch on 18 June, 2020 at 7:47 AM

And - thinking more - different companies pay different % transaction fees to credit card companies. If they have S75 cases, the % probably increases - could be what your source at the cc company meant?

Posted by Blue Witch on 18 June, 2020 at 7:50 AM

Could be - I just don't know, and she clammed up after saying it cost them more (another example of talking to people enough and they eventually forget you're a customer :-) )

Posted by Lyle on 18 June, 2020 at 1:26 PM