Our aim is to enable consumers to resolve problems themselves, we will do this by giving you practical information.
We can only do this
For complaints about goods and services bought within England and Wales, provided that the amount involved is below the limit for the small claims procedure of the County Court.
Where the complaint relates to the legislation we enforce
If we are unable to assist we will try to direct you to someone who can.
The following are common types of complaint that we are unable to help with:
Banking, insurance, finance and the utility companies who all have their own organisations to deal with complaints
Local authorities, including Southampton City Council, as they have specific complaints procedures
Disputes relating to land including the purchase of houses; you will have to seek advice from a solicitor
Personal injuries, accidents and losses; you will need to talk to a solicitor or your insurance provider
Landlord and tenant disputes; you will need to contact the CAB or a solicitor
Parking, clamping and related charges. For parking on the highway contact the relevant local council, for car parks contact the car park operator and for private land contact the landowner
Employment disputes; you will need to talk to your Trade Union, Job Centre Plus, CAB or a solicitor
If you have already spoken to someone else, such as a solicitor or the CAB, you should follow what they have told you. We will not provide 'second opinions'.
If you have already started a claim through the courts you will need to continue with this yourself.
Consumer Direct provides practical advice to consumers who are having problems. You should contact them first on 01622 626 520. They will take details from you and offer you advice. If the problem is complex or you need further assistance they will pass your details to us and we will be asked to contact you.
Consumer Direct also has a website at www.consumerdirect.gov.uk which contains useful information on a range of consumer issues as well as standard letters, pre-shopping tips and more.
You can email an enquiry to Consumer Direct at http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/contact
This service is generally only available where you are
a Southampton resident; AND
you have sought advice from Consumer Direct and have subsequently been referred to Trading Standards; AND
your dispute is clearly based on law relating to
a) contracts between businesses and consumers for goods and services under the law of England and Wales; AND
b) contracts where the value is lower than the small claims procedure limit of the County Court; AND
the subject matter is clearly related to the Trading Standards Regulatory role.
We aim to enable you to resolve the problem the problem yourself so even if we agree to help there will be some things that only you can do.
Sometimes you may feel you need our assistance to deal with your complaint but this is entirely at our discretion and we cannot always help everyone. We will consider the following points in deciding how much help to provide.
the reason for the complaint is related to the legislation we enforce;
you are at a disadvantage due to language, illness, disability, poverty or age;
there are good legal reasons to back your claim;
we are likely to be able to work with the people involved to achieve a good result;
we have an agreement with the business concerned;
it is deemed that you are unable to resolve the problem yourself;
you have attempted to contact the trader and have not had an appropriate response
However we will continue to work with you providing
you follow the advice given by us
there is a reasonable chance that the trader can be persuaded to sort the matter out
the trader is responding to our enquiries
the trader has not gone bankrupt or into liquidation
In order to help we will need to know quite a lot of information, the more we know about what happened the more we are likely to be able to help.
If you do not give us the information we might reasonably require in order to fully establish what happened we will not be able to help you.
We will therefore want to know the following essential information
your name, address and telephone number. An email address can be very useful
what it was you bought, when, where, how and from whom
how much you paid, and how you paid (cash, credit card, debit/switch or by a loan)
what went wrong
what the trader said when you spoke to them
Our aim is to provide a practical, quick and justified solution. Unfortunately this may not produce the outcome you desire. Quite often there are a number of options available and we will discuss these with you.
We will also tell you if we think that you do not have a justifiable complaint. We have a number of leaflets and factsheets and can give you addresses of websites which contain useful information.
If you haven't spoken to the trader about your complaint we will usually provide you with the information you need to talk or write to the trader yourself. We will not normally contact traders about complaints unless you have tried to do so first.
Please make sure you understand what we have said and that we have all the details we need to help you.
Generally it is reasonable for a business to take up to 10 working days to reply to a letter of complaint.
If you have followed our advice and not got a response or the result expected please let us know and we will advise further.
Even if we have offered to assist it can take quite a long time to resolve complaints but we will be as quick as we can and will try to tell you how long we think it will take. We will do our best to keep you up to date but sometimes we have to wait while other people make enquiries for us or while the business locates relevant records.
We will give you a reference number, this helps us keep track of our work, and it is useful to have this if you need to talk to us again about the same complaint.
No, only a court can do this so you may have to decide whether it is worth taking the trader to court.
We cannot go to court on your behalf, so if the trader refuses to resolve your complaint you will have to decide whether you want to go to court. Even if the court agrees with you there can still be problems if the trader has not got any money or refuses to pay.
The Buy with Confidence terms and conditions require that the business responds to consumer complaints fairly. We therefore expect that they will reply to your complaint quickly and say what they are willing to do. The full terms and conditions are on the website at www.buywithconfidence.gov.uk
If you have not spoken to the business about the complaint before you contact us we will provide you with information to help you do so. This may include the name of the person at the business to talk to.
If the business does not respond or we deem that the response is not reasonable we may then contact the business on your behalf.
Generally we expect Buy with Confidence business partners to respond fairly to consider complaints. We expect them to follow our advice but we are unable to require them to do so. We do not operate a formal arbitration process within the Buy with Confidence partnership but will do our best to resolve complaints. Complaints about Buy with Confidence members are always recorded and raised when the member is re-audited.
Businesses can be removed from the partnership if they commit substantive breaches of the terms and conditions of membership. The decision to remove a business from the partnership is the council's responsibility.
We have to deal with your complaint and the investigation of a possible criminal offence or breach of legislation as separate matters.
Some consumer complaints occur directly because a trader has failed to comply with legislation which the council enforces. In some cases this legislation will give us the power to take action to require the trader to comply with the law. However we have to use this type of power in accordance with our enforcement and prosecution policies and rarely directly use powers to resolve individual consumer complaints.
We will tell you what you can do to get your complaint resolved and what we have done to get your complaint resolved but we may not be able to say very much about any investigation of an offence. This is because in investigating an alleged offence we often have to ask businesses to produce information about how they operate. The Enterprise Act 2004 then requires that this information is not given to anyone else.
We ask that you treat our staff politely and with respect.
We recognise that you may be annoyed with the business but we cannot help you if you are abusive or aggressive.
You are welcome to contact us to ask about progress with your enquiry but please remember all of our staff will have a considerable number of enquiries to deal with at once.
If you have any complaint or comment about the services we provide please write to us or email trading.standards@southampton.gov.uk
You can also use the council’s complaints procedure; details are on the website at www.southampton.gov.uk or we can give you a leaflet.
We also like to know if you have been satisfied with the service we have provided and suggestions for improvement.
Southampton City Council
