{"id":391680,"date":"2026-04-10T14:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T14:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/391680\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T14:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T14:06:07","slug":"rathwood-home-and-garden-world-says-it-will-issue-refunds-to-consumers-after-watchdog-investigation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/391680\/","title":{"rendered":"Rathwood Home and Garden World says it will issue refunds to consumers after watchdog investigation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rathwood Home and Garden World<\/a> has signed legally binding commitments with the consumer watchdog<\/a> and said it would issue refunds to consumers who bought products on its website before cancelling the orders over delivery delays.<\/p>\n

The Carlow-based retailer\u2019s legally binding undertakings follow an investigation which found them in breach of consumer protection legislation.<\/p>\n

Easons.com<\/a> and Very.ie<\/a> (formerly Littlewoods Ireland) also signed legally binding commitments to comply with sales pricing legislation following CCPC investigations into the use of price reduction announcements during the 2023\/24 winter sales period.<\/p>\n

Additional fixed payment and compliance notices were issued by the watchdog to five retailers across the State as a result of inspections and investigations carried out by CCPC officers.<\/p>\n

Rathwood has been operating from premises on the Wicklow-Carlow border for more than 30 years and grew into one of the biggest outdoor living retailers in the State, expanding in recent years with concessions in other retail outlets as well as a significant online presence. <\/p>\n

Last year, it emerged that customers who had bought products, including garden furniture and firewood, through its website had been left waiting months for orders to be delivered, with many rescheduled on multiple occasions. <\/p>\n

It initially blamed delivery issues on the closure of a key supplier and said it was restructuring its supply chain. However, the problems continued throughout last winter with many impacted customers contacting the CCPC to highlight delays in delivery and difficulties in making contact with the company.<\/p>\n

The CCPC said it accepted the retailer\u2019s commitment to issue refunds to customers who had terminated contracts between the start of October 2024 and the end of September last year. Rathwood further committed to provide written notice to the CCPC \u201cwith details of consumers affected by the issues contained in the undertaking\u201d by the middle of this week. <\/p>\n

A SuperValu <\/a>on Aston Quay in Dublin 2 was issued two fixed payment notices for failing to display correct prices while Mr Price outlets in Midleton, Co Cork and Killarney, Co Kerry were issued with six fixed payment notices for failing to display the unit price of certain products in their stores <\/p>\n

An Applegreen<\/a> station in Athlone, was issued a fixed payment notice for failing to display the price of a product in the forecourt shop. <\/p>\n

Compliance notices were issued to the Munster Tech Centre and Coco Boutique websites over listings that the CCPC said \u201cwould be likely to deceive or mislead consumers as to their statutory cancellation rights\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers have very strong rights and the CCPC is here to uphold them,\u201d said the consumer watchdog\u2019s chairman, Brian McHugh. \u201cThese latest enforcement updates arise from CCPC inspections of supermarkets, petrol stations and other retailers, as well as investigations opened on the back of consumer complaints to our helpline.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that in addition to its regular in-store and online inspections and ongoing investigations, \u201cCCPC officers are closely monitoring trader compliance with the legally binding commitments published today. Failure to adhere to the terms of these commitments will result in enforcement action.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rathwood Home and Garden World has signed legally binding commitments with the consumer watchdog and said it would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30734,72,11756,173551,61,60,173552,28993,26450],"class_list":{"0":"post-391680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-applegreen","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-competition-and-consumer-protection-commission-ccpc","11":"tag-eason","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-rathwood-home-and-garden-world","15":"tag-supervalu","16":"tag-very"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}