{"id":444908,"date":"2026-05-12T12:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/444908\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T12:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:04:09","slug":"how-a-carlow-garden-centre-left-buyers-millions-out-of-pocket-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/444908\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Carlow garden centre left buyers millions out of pocket \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">When Irish Times consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope got an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2026\/05\/01\/rathwood-the-unravelling-of-one-of-the-most-complained-about-companies-in-ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2026\/05\/01\/rathwood-the-unravelling-of-one-of-the-most-complained-about-companies-in-ireland\/\">email last June from a reader<\/a> about the non-delivery of garden furniture, he couldn\u2019t have known that it would be the start of a deluge of similar complaints from hundreds of frustrated customers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">All had ordered from Rathwood, a family business, operating for more than 30 years that had grown into one of the biggest outdoor living retailers in the State. And all had received excuses about delays, supplier issues and new investors. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">It has now been estimated that customers are owed in excess of \u20ac2 million and that the company, now in examinership, is mired in debt. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">So how did this family business come to be the second most complained about company in Ireland after Ryanair? Now that it has entered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/your-money\/2026\/04\/25\/rathwood-goes-into-examinership-says-it-is-not-in-a-position-to-issue-customer-refunds\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/your-money\/2026\/04\/25\/rathwood-goes-into-examinership-says-it-is-not-in-a-position-to-issue-customer-refunds\/\">examinership<\/a> what does that mean for consumers who have already paid for a range of items from furniture to fuel? Do they have any chance of getting their money back? And what is going to happen to this once thriving business?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">Conor Pope outlines the experience of Rathwood customers over the past year and what they can now expect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph free \">Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced Declan Conlon and Suzanne Brennan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Irish Times consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope got an email last June from a reader about the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,42499,61,60],"class_list":["post-444908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-consumer-protection","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444908","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=444908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}