Out of Guarantee items and Sale of Goods Act.

There have been several post on the Forum about the "six year warranty" on goods under the Sale of Goods Act, so I thought I would share my experiences with you.

In September 2007 I purchased a 17" LCD computer moniotr from a well know elecrtical store called C*****. It worked fine until the middle of this year when it started to play up, taking ages to come on. Eventually it stopped working altogether. I tried all the usual tests: another monitor - that worked OK; connected my monitor to another PC - still dead. So I took the monitor back to the shop where I bought it and explained the problem. Iwas told that as it was out of warranty, I would have to get in touch with our customer service dept. I did this by email.

A week later I received a reply saying that I would have to get an independent engineers report saying what was wrong whith the monitor. It took me a long time to locate a firm to do this -most PC repair shops said they didn't/couldn't repair LCD monitors, it would have to go back to the manufacturer.

Eventually I located a firm which specialized in repairs to all types of monitors so I contacted them and explained what I wanted. They could do a report for £25+VAT and if they repaired the monitor the test cost would be deducted from the repair cost. So I packed them monitor up and sent it off. Two weeks later I received a report saying that the power supply had overheated due to lack of ventilation.

Meanwhile I had contacted Consumer Direct and set up a case with them and asked their advice. When the report came through Consumer Direct told me to send a copy of the report to the supplier by Recorded Delivery, giving them seven days to reply. I did this and waited two weeks but no reply.

Consumer Direct told me to write again enclosing the first letter and the report and giving them a further seven days and advising that I would take action in the court. The letter was headed "Letter before Action".

Consumer Direct also told me that, as the monitor cost over £100, I could also involve the Credit card company used to pay for the monitor. (As an aside, you dont' have to pay the whole cost through your credit card, a deposit would be enough. It's the value of the goods which is important).The credit card company said they would not do anything until the retailer refused to act.

At the beginning of this week I emailed the retailers customer service attaching copies of my earlier letters. Yesterday morning I received a letter from customer services saying that they had been trying to get in touch with me but couldn't find a phone number! Not surprising as I did not put it on my letters and I am ex-directory. They asked me to phone them, which I did today.

And now, after all that history, the good news. They agreed to pay the cost of the repair and the postage and packing cost to and from the repairer. Not only that, they said they would make an immediate BACS payment into my bank account.

I have contacted the repairer and expect the montor back at the beginning of next week.

The six year rule does work, but you have to be patient and persevere.

PS I have borrowed my son's laptop while the monitor has been away, so I am using that to write this.

 

Nobody messes with the Hailsham!

One up for the little guy. Well done Sir.

 

Pleased to hear it.

As you say it takes an age to get these companies to act according to the law, which it shouldn't.

They all know the law so should just abide by it but it, obviously, saves them time and money to fob the public off with some tales of out of date warranty.
I reckon that there should be somewhere where these shops can be reported and then taken to court (not for your money back or action) and be fined £Ks for contravention of the trading laws. They would soon make sure that all their managers and staff knew (and abided by) the Law.

dave

 

Here, Here, as B posted well done for perseverence, as I understood this euro guarantee you have to prove fault out of manufactureres warranty period which you achieved, well done, opens a can of worms methinks for retailers?

 

Erm, by definition, Tranding Standards is responsible for this. But they rarely "test" the rules themselves (like they do with alcohol sales etc)

 

I don't think it's the six year rule applying here. It is the Eurowide guarantee of TWO years and you just pipped in .. well done.

 

After 3 years the plastic covering on the front of my kitchin doors started to depart from the mdf. Phoned head office, told The gauarantee was 1 year but I was covered for 6 years by law.

They replaced my doors gave me a spare just in case, and the store was
B & Q.

Now that is good service, but before I phoned head office spoke to store and told 1 year, so it pays to always go to the top.

 

spiv, yours isn't really relevant here. One would actually expect such an item to last at least 10 years in normal use.

Whereas a modern telly, we'd be lucky to get 5 years from it due to the cr&ppy / cheap manufacturing techniques used nowadays. The thread is all about challenging this - we shouldnt have to put up with this shoddy life cycle of such expensive products. Most of the time, faults that would occur after such time are due to a fault in the manufacture. Products should not simply just go wrong, and us have to fork out.

Before we bought our toshiba 24"CRT in 1995, we had a TELETON colour set from the mid-late 70's that my mum inherited off my grandma when we moved into this house in 1986. Things were built to last back then, why aren't they now? I have no doubt that if we still had the teleton, it would still be working!

My mum had a panasonic microwave that was older than me, scrapped it in 2004, at the grand old age of 21 (huge thing it was, dont make them like that now). There was nothing wrong with it, just a hideous colour. My mum had done the kitchen up, wanted matching appliances. The next one rusted internally, had to be scrapped. Then we had one whose turntable stopped turning.

 

''spiv, yours isn't really relevant here. One would actually expect such an item to last at least 10 years in normal use'' quote

When MFI was arround see if you were able to get a replacement after a year and a day. The answer is no way, it all comes under the same act.

 

Just to clarify, Consumer Direct told me that the six year rule applies in the UK. The UK Sale of Goods Act gives better protection than the European directive, which just lays down a minimum of 2 years.