UK sourcing agent did a bad job: what can I do?

Check whether this was a personal purchase

The consumer remedies below apply to an individual acting wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession. Buying stock for your business does not become a personal purchase because you used your own name or bank account. For a business purchase, start with the agreed contract and our guide to disputing a sourcing supplier's service.

Identify the UK company that supplied the service and separate its sourcing or inspection work from the factory's goods. Check the accepted quote and invoice against our guide to sourcing agent or seller. This guide concerns how the service was performed.

Match the promised work to the actual checks

For a consumer service, the trader must perform the work with reasonable care and skill. Build your complaint around specific omissions or errors: an agreed measurement left unchecked, photographs from a different batch, or a supplier shortlist that ignores the brief. Explain what the records show rather than relying only on the disappointing outcome.

Put the accepted inspection brief beside the report. Match the product version, batch, inspection stage, sampling method, required tests and reporting scope. Ask for original photographs, measurement records and an explanation of any missing checks. For sourcing work, compare the agreed selection criteria with the candidates and verification records supplied. Preserve qualifications and exclusions alongside the promises.

Ask for the work to be performed again

Where the service fails the reasonable-care-and-skill requirement, you can require the agent to repeat the work as necessary to meet the contract. The agent must bear the necessary costs and complete it within a reasonable time, without significant inconvenience to you. You cannot require repeat performance where completing the service properly is impossible.

Specify the missing work and the evidence you expect afterwards. For an omitted measurement, ask whether the same batch remains available for examination. Explain any shipment or intended-use deadline and ask for a written completion plan. If goods have already moved, explain why inspecting something else later may not fulfil the original purpose.

Know when a service-fee reduction is available

For this type of service failure, a price reduction becomes available if proper repeat performance is impossible, or you required it and the agent failed to provide it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience. The reduction must be appropriate and can cover the full service price where appropriate. Explain which work was unusable and what useful work, if any, remains.

If you paid more than the reduced price, the excess is refundable. The refund must be made without undue delay and within 14 days beginning with the day the agent agrees you are entitled to it. It must use the original payment method unless you expressly agree otherwise, and carry no refund fee.

Keep the service-fee calculation separate from the purchase price of defective goods. Where the quote bundles goods and inspection work, ask the agent to explain how the service element was priced rather than inventing an allocation. For the goods complaint, use goods that arrived faulty.

Send a request the agent can investigate

Write: “The accepted brief required the checks identified in the attached extract. The report and supporting records do not show those checks. Please explain what was done and provide the missing records. I require the omitted work to be performed properly. Please confirm the scope, arrangements and completion date.” Adapt this to the actual evidence.

If repeat performance is impossible or your request has not been met within the required conditions, explain that basis and request an appropriate service-fee reduction. Attach the relevant brief, report and correspondence, with your proposed calculation. Use the linked dispute guide for complaint handling and escalation. The same approach applies when complaining to Cambridge China Bridge.