Raw Deal: Claire turned to Littlewoods to avoid Christmas catastrophe, but paid dearly

CLAIRE MCLAUGHLIN was in a sweat when her cooker conked out just before Christmas.

The grandmother, from Househillwood, Glasgow, was due to rustle up a big festive dinner for her family.

To get a new oven in time for Christmas Day, she bought an Indesit model for about £430 through her account with Littlewoods catalogue on a buy-now, pay-later deal. That was in December 2015 – and it should have been paid off within 12 months.

But more than two years later Claire, 63, was still paying for the appliance – in fact, she had paid for it more than twice over.

“I made four payments to cover the cost of the cooker and had asked Littlewoods to clear my balance on it,” Claire said.

“But I also have other balances on my account and they somehow failed to target my payments directly to reduce the balance for the cooker.

“They kept charging me interest on it that I was never due to pay. I kept getting statements asking me to pay a minimum of between £36 and £40 a month, which I did. So I believe I paid more than £1,000 for a £400 cooker.”

Clair said she phoned and wrote to Littlewoods a number of times.

“I’ve been a customer for 22 years but was shocked how poor the customer care was. I just kept being advised to keep paying the minimum and no one seemed to understand their mistake,” she said.

“I was being charged interest on an item that had been paid off in full and on time but just couldn’t get anyone to recognise this.”

Claire turned to Raw Deal for advice. We contacted Littlewoods and asked the company to investigate.

Last week Claire received a letter from the company apologising for its error.

The firm acknowledged she made sufficient payments in 2016 to clear the balance. “We always aim to resolve issues at the first point of contact and any promised adjustments to your account should be carried out,” said Edward Barrie, from the customer service department.

“Clearly this has not been your experience on this occasion and I would like to assure you that we will use your experience to provide feedback so that we can improve our service in the future.”

In addition, the company agreed to refund Claire £656, including £619.13 of interest she had overpaid on the cooker plus an amount for distress and inconvenience.

“Thank you to Raw Deal for sorting this out,” she said. “I had spoken to umpteen people at Littlewoods for nearly two years about this but no one seemed to want to listen.”