Another massive Homebase rip-off

Well, those rip-off merchants at Homebase have really excelled themselves this time! You'll perhaps recall that I bought a kitchen from this shonky outfit a year ago, in the dying days of their December sales. I put off delivery until the spring for obvious reasons - I didn't want to be fitting the kitchen in the depths of winter for one. It duly arrived, I took a week off work, and the mrs was promptly rushed into hospital. One thing led to another, and I wasn't able to do the work as planned. Bear in mind there were several thousand bits to this kitchen, including all the appliances, some of which were put into a shed for safe keeping. One of those was the double-oven - still wrapped in its polystyrene protective casing, and to all intents an purposes looking in perfect condition. Because of the way the kitchen went in the oven was virtually the last appliance to be fitted, and to my horror, when I eventually took the outer covering off I discovered the glass in the top oven was smashed and the entire thing squashed, obviously by having been at the bottom of a pile of heavy items. Homebase refused to accept any responsibility and as a consequence I was £700 worse off.

The kitchen was bought with nothing to pay for 12 months, so I simply put the money in the bank and waited for the bill. Each month they sent me a statement which read "payment due £0.00". That's what my last statement read too, so I assumed I had to wait for one that said "£4,000 now due". To my horror, this morning I received the statement, but instead of £4,000 it said over £5,000, as I hadn't paid in full by the end of December! They've added well over £1,000 interest, and say it's my fault because I didn't read the small print. Yet again I find myself having been ripped off by this company, with nothing I can do about it. The kitchen itself, while adequate, is nothing to write home about, and instructions for putting it all together were the worst I've ever seen. Having trawled the Internet I find plenty of horror stories regarding this company, which I believe is linked to Argos, and I can only add my voice to the many saying "Don't deal with them!"