I purchased a large round rug from Litfad www.litfad.com on 21/11. I paid $384 and it came with free shipping.
When the rug arrived it was definitely not what I was expecting. It looks like the image has been digitally printed on the fabric to start with, and the image has been blown up so much it’s blurred and distorted the pattern.
I contacted the company and was initially offered 10% refund but after several emails I was given this final offer:
A. if you keep the item, we will refund 35% of the product price excluding freight or freight insurance to you;
B. Or you can send the item back and provide us with corresponding valid tracking number - this would be at MY cost and I would not be compensated at all.
I took the 35% refund as the cost to ship this back to China was over $200.
I am still unhappy with this outcome as I feel this listing is deceptive in its description; the rug is terrible in appearance due to the blurry image and it is not fit for purpose.
Should I go back now to the company and see if I should push for a full refund?
Hi @missdaksie welcome to the community. Your post shows the challenges of buying online sight unseen.
It is unlikely that it will not be fit for purpose. If the rug functions as a rug and it is only the printing which you are unhappy with, then it will more likely fall under ‘change of mind’ rather than ‘not fit for purpose’.
A analogy would be buying a dress where one doesn’t like the screen printing on the material - while the dress can be worn, it is one choice that they don’t like the dress.
The above assumes that the rug itself is of reasonable quality and can be used as a rug.
This is possibly why they offered you A and B. They had addressed your concerns as a ‘change of mind’. Their return and change of mind policies are also explained on their website:
It looks like they have followed their policies when making an offer to you.
The only other avenue to explore under the ACL is that 'A product sold to a consumer must be of acceptable quality. Acceptable quality means the product has an acceptable appearance and finish’. This assumes that the quality of the digital printing is very poor and less than that a reasonable person would expect. While one can explore this, see below as it is unlikely you will get any resolution under the ACL - see below.
This does pose challenges of exercising your rights under the Australian Consumer Law when buying from a foreign business and in effect, importing products into Australia. It is unlikely the business will provide resolutions under the ACL and unfortunately there is much that can be done about it. This is recognised by the ACCC:
You could go back to the company, but they are likely to point to their return/change of mind policy and say again that the offer they made was final.
The other dilemma you face is you accepted their past offer of the 35% refund. This indicates that you were reasonably satisfied with this outcome (why you chose it otherwise you wouldn’t have) and on reflection have changed your mind. This also makes taking the issue further harder as it in effect has been resolved and agreed between you and the business.
The non solid edge of the blue portion also appears in the suppliers product illustration. That product marketing illustration also clearly shows variation in colour across each pattern, similar to a rough hand brushed character. At least that’s how it appeared on the iPad screen.
It’s unfortunate there is no further detail on how the product is produced. It’s a reasonable assumption from the nature of the pattern it has been direct printed or spray dyed.
Well I must say that the picture of the rug on the Website looks like what you would likely get if you gave some kindergarten kids some paint and brushes and said go for it.
