[jermin]

failed to get tea and coffee stain from carpet,customer is now suing me.

[Steven Lawrence]

Bummer!  Did you not xplain your success rate may not be 100%

[davep]

Suing for what?  Did if look worse after?

What did you try?

[Simon Gerrard]

They can only sue you if you gave them a cast iron guarantee that you WOULD get the stain out, which if they were to pursue this in court it would have to be,  if you did, you're mad, if you didn't, tell them to get stuffed, in the politest possible way, obviously.
Simon

[Griffus]

failed to get tea and coffee stain from carpet,customer is now suing me.

Suing you for what exactly?

If you have received a formal letter, don't get stressed, just pass it on to your insurance.

[Kinver_Clean]

Be careful of passing it to your insurance company, they will treat it as a claim and your premium will rise.
Have you had the papers yet, if not ignore their threats. They may get professional advice and they will tell them its a nono.

[Simon Gerrard]

My son is a Litigation Lawyer so I put the question to him
Question
A carpet cleaner is being sued because he didn't get a coffee stain out of a carpet, can a customer do this? Could they do it if his website or other material suggested that he would?

Answer
Without knowing what the material said/what was agreed with the customer, I'd say it would be a bit harsh to be honest.

They can't claim negligence as they didn't cause the actual damage. They might be able to claim breach of contract/misrepresentation but realistically I can't see a court entertaining that sort of thing.

Best thing to do is just take a commercial approach and give the customer the money back for the job.

There you go, free legal advice.Goo d this forum, innit?

Simon

[Simon Gerrard]

I'd like to know the outcome of this one.

Simon

[Kev Loomes]

Sounds like spot on advice from your son Simon. Would like to know more details of the 'suing' from this client and what was said about stain removal though.

It does remind me of some marketing I occasionally see where 'guaranteed stain removal' is mentioned  :

Whats the situation Jermin?

[Craigp]

failed to get tea and coffee stain from carpet,customer is now suing me.

This is a joke right?

You guaranteed to remove it !?

[Hilton]

Nah, I dont believe it either

[Paul Redden Countryfresh]

Did it go purple or something?

[Mattt]

Why dont you offer to dye the fibres to match the rest of the carpet?

[Jim_77]

Or dye the rest of the carpet to match the stain?  Would only cost you a few cups of coffee