A UNION has reimbursed students hundreds of pounds after making a deal with a homeware company that has not delivered items.

Oxford Brookes Student Union has paid £750 to 13 students who ordered items from Steventon’s KitchPack and did not receive them.

The firm agreed to give the union £5 for every sale made in exchange for advertising through union materials like welcome packs.

The firm said courier problems meant some items were not delivered and a problem with its online payment system meant refunds were not paid.

A total of 44 students did not get packs of items like bedding and kitchenware on time, the union said, but 31 have since received received items.

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Charlotte Sproule, 18, moved to Oxford from Moira, Northern Ireland, in September, expecting a bedding pack to be waiting for her when she arrived.

The English and film student said: “I arrived and the university said they hadn’t turned up. It was supposed to be a duvet, a pillow and sheets.

“The university gave me some bedding to use and said it would turn up the next week, but it never did.”

Miss Sproule’s mum, Elaine, paid £33.49 for the kit, and has still not received a refund almost two months later.

She said: “It’s not a huge amount of money to us but it’s the principle. KitchPack have been full of excuses.”

KitchPack director Jose Macedo told Mrs Sproule in an October 9 email that a courier fault was to blame and pledged a refund.

Mrs Sproule, 61, said: “That never happened. I got in touch with them again and they said it would be the next week, but then that never happened either.”

Student union chief executive David Whittingham said: “Despite much effort on our part, our communication with KitchPack has been limited.

“For those students who still have not received a resolution from KitchPack we are offering to make a goodwill payment to cover the cost of their original order.”

KitchPack director Josh Riddett said the company – which launched in February – is not taking new orders until it has found a new courier service.

He said online payment service PayPal “put barriers on our account because we sent so many transactions in a short space of time”.

He said: “We are working on refunding people, but it will take a while. None of us are getting paid until we’re sure these problems are sorted.

“We’re not proud of this, we want to apologise to anyone affected.”

PayPal did not respond for a comment when we went to press.

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