This is long! Very LONG.
I shan't be checking in regularly to find out what everyone thinks, I just need to get it off my chest and put a flag in the ground for anyone else with such problems. I hope it helps.
Please also note that this is my understanding of the regs as worked out along the way. Don't take this as gospel- infallible. You'd best check it all out with people such as Which, National trading standards, CAB etc before taking action re any disputes/problems .
We had a 6 month battle with Samsung and Appliances Direct over a noisy fridge freezer.
I will never, ever, buy anything made my Samsung or through Appliances Direct, IMO they clearly do not give a damn about customer service.
New Samsung fridge freezer. £400 ish. Bought from Appliances Direct.
Plugged in, immediate high pitched noise coming from compressor. Decided to keep old fridge staggering on for a little while longer while we get the noisy one fixed.
Wife heard it, kids heard it. Open plan living area downstairs. It was noisy for about 80% of the time. Visitors would hear it and ask- 'what is that noise?!' It was not connected to opening of door., just a running noise. High frequency sounds (i discovered) seem to travel further and don't seem to be easily located. I.e. sitting on the sofa, maybe 15 yards away from the fridge, albeit around a corner, the noise is less loud, but sounds like it's 'everywhere'.
If you fancy a listen to 8khz, try this.
It was not as 'clean' as this sound, but you'll get the picture.
Anyway, obviously we've had fridges our whole lives, and they do make noises. But this was nothing like normal.
Downloaded an app to a tablet. 'Sound frequency analyser.' This showed a huge spike at around 8khz. You won't find 8khz coming from anything in your home I expect... It's not normal for environments that humans live in!
I called Appliances Direct who came across as being very 'on my side'. Dispensing almost excitedly the advice that we must not just accept this as 'OK' and that we should 'stick to our guns' by being firm with Samsun and their repair people- when they come out- and if we want to, we are within our rights (huge emphasis from AD) to refuse to accept the repair and send the item back. Basically, 'it was going to be fine'. I felt very reassured.
With hindsight i suspect this was a ruse by AD to push us beyond their duty of care and into the hands of Samsung. If we'd know our rights* at the time, we could have simply cancelled the order and had them take the fridge back. We'd we would have to pay for the return postage only which would have seemed like an injustice, but little did we know what was coming from Samsung...
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/n...d-13-major-stores-web-return-rights-are-wrong
*See above for details.
I believe AD knew their liabilities (of above kind) would have lapsed by the time the Samsung engineer had visited. Makes me cross that I fell for this and did not know better -hence this post.
Sure enough, it took about 5 week for an engineers visit - this with the fridge sat in dining area, empty, still never had anything put in it. Engineer is from an outsourced firm from about 15 miles away that Samsung contract in to fix things ( or deny faults?)
Off the bat, pretty dismissive, the chap said the noise was typical of the more modern style 'blown air fridges' that circulate cold air around the unit, rather and large volumes of cold liquid that older types of fridge use. He did not measure the sound levels (volume), nor the frequency. He stuck some earth tape to a cable around the back that was also vibrating a little and left us with a bit of paper that said- Not faulty!
Called AD, who said that there was nothing that could be done. AT ALL. It was now between us and Samsung.
And as far as Samsung are concerned, that's that!. Their job is done. Make a crap fridge, contract a firm to say it's fine, and the matter is done.
I called Samsung customer services. Phillipines. Virtually impossible to get anywhere due to language barrier and rigidly scripted routes of conversation.
After about and hour and 20 minutes on the phone either listening to music or not understanding them nor them understanding me, I had a pretty clear promise that someone from Samsung UK would call me back within 24 hours.
About 12 days later a lovely lady from Samsung called me and listened to my monologue with lots of sympathetic 'ooh', 'oh dear', 'of course, of course' only to say when I was done, and as if reading from a card, that they stand by their engineers report, that the matter is closed and I could do what I like trying to get the matter resolved or tell anyone I liked about how poor their service was. They do not care a jot that the unit pollutes the entire downstairs with an 8khz noise. She could not say whether they knew if the engineers had even tested the unit for sound but were quite happy that their contracted engineers were up to scratch and that our fridge was just dandy.
'Up yours', customer!
Phoned Trading Standards. Thankfully we paid by credit card.
This is where we make a claim to the credit card company -Sainsbury's Bank- under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Sainsburys Bank were fab all the way through.
They said we'd need an Acoustic Consultants report. (skip the few weeks of finding one). The boffin came over with computers, multiple microphones, and cameras to evidence his survey. He produced a giant report that looked like something from a PhD thesis but which clearly said the fridge was doing what we said it was. Interestingly (ha!? ...but if you've got this far then you must be going through something similar) he said that our fridge was not too loud- beyond the rated level 'as-sold', but, that the difference in volume between the specific frequency (8khz) and all the other noises it made, would qualify as 'annoying' under British Standards! In visual terms maybe, a patch of slightly different colour in a carpet would be permissible, as long as it was not greater than 'x' proportion of the whole carpet. It made sense to me...
This cost us over £200 which we had to pay up front. Sainsbury's promised they would reimburse us once the report was received. I did wonder what we were getting ourselves into, but friends and family were used to the fridge in the dining area and the constant updates on 'Fridge-gate' kept me motivated.
Sainsbury's got the report and within a week got all our money back. It took 6 months. I believe the money came from AD's pocket.
We got to keep the fridge in the end and sold it on (openly explaining the issues) to some lovely people that had their fridge in a smaller side room and did not mind the noise.
We bought a Siemens from John Lewis (who are excellent) which somehow (!?) has blown-air modern design just like the Samsung, but does not sound like a dog whistle?!?
So, it seems like for online orders, you can cancel your order for any reason 14 days after receipt. The online vendor may well try to get you to say you are asking for a refund under their terms and conditions, or that if the item is faulty that under the 'faults process' you have to do x, y and z, all of which take ages and suit them better than you. This is where they try to keep you in the contract and under which they operate in their stated mode. IF you make it crystal clear in writing that you are exercising your right under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2014 to CANCEL the contract, then all there is to do, is for them to charge you for the cost of return and return your money.
You can't send stuff back that you've damaged this way, as they are expecting to re-sell the item for the same value, given that you've cancelled the sale. If we'd packed up the fridge and sent it back by cancelling under the Consumer Contracts Regs 2014, we'd have been out of pocket to the tune of the return costs. By waiting for Samsung (to come and tell us there was nothing wrong), we drifted way out of reach of the Consumer Contracts 2014 period so could not use that route with AD.
Thankfully the Section 75 Consumer Credit act 1974 and Sainsbury's (with the help of the Acoustic Consultant), we got what we wanted in the end.
That's better!
Cheers!
I shan't be checking in regularly to find out what everyone thinks, I just need to get it off my chest and put a flag in the ground for anyone else with such problems. I hope it helps.
Please also note that this is my understanding of the regs as worked out along the way. Don't take this as gospel- infallible. You'd best check it all out with people such as Which, National trading standards, CAB etc before taking action re any disputes/problems .
We had a 6 month battle with Samsung and Appliances Direct over a noisy fridge freezer.
I will never, ever, buy anything made my Samsung or through Appliances Direct, IMO they clearly do not give a damn about customer service.
New Samsung fridge freezer. £400 ish. Bought from Appliances Direct.
Plugged in, immediate high pitched noise coming from compressor. Decided to keep old fridge staggering on for a little while longer while we get the noisy one fixed.
Wife heard it, kids heard it. Open plan living area downstairs. It was noisy for about 80% of the time. Visitors would hear it and ask- 'what is that noise?!' It was not connected to opening of door., just a running noise. High frequency sounds (i discovered) seem to travel further and don't seem to be easily located. I.e. sitting on the sofa, maybe 15 yards away from the fridge, albeit around a corner, the noise is less loud, but sounds like it's 'everywhere'.
If you fancy a listen to 8khz, try this.
It was not as 'clean' as this sound, but you'll get the picture.
Anyway, obviously we've had fridges our whole lives, and they do make noises. But this was nothing like normal.
Downloaded an app to a tablet. 'Sound frequency analyser.' This showed a huge spike at around 8khz. You won't find 8khz coming from anything in your home I expect... It's not normal for environments that humans live in!
I called Appliances Direct who came across as being very 'on my side'. Dispensing almost excitedly the advice that we must not just accept this as 'OK' and that we should 'stick to our guns' by being firm with Samsun and their repair people- when they come out- and if we want to, we are within our rights (huge emphasis from AD) to refuse to accept the repair and send the item back. Basically, 'it was going to be fine'. I felt very reassured.
With hindsight i suspect this was a ruse by AD to push us beyond their duty of care and into the hands of Samsung. If we'd know our rights* at the time, we could have simply cancelled the order and had them take the fridge back. We'd we would have to pay for the return postage only which would have seemed like an injustice, but little did we know what was coming from Samsung...
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/n...d-13-major-stores-web-return-rights-are-wrong
*See above for details.
I believe AD knew their liabilities (of above kind) would have lapsed by the time the Samsung engineer had visited. Makes me cross that I fell for this and did not know better -hence this post.
Sure enough, it took about 5 week for an engineers visit - this with the fridge sat in dining area, empty, still never had anything put in it. Engineer is from an outsourced firm from about 15 miles away that Samsung contract in to fix things ( or deny faults?)
Off the bat, pretty dismissive, the chap said the noise was typical of the more modern style 'blown air fridges' that circulate cold air around the unit, rather and large volumes of cold liquid that older types of fridge use. He did not measure the sound levels (volume), nor the frequency. He stuck some earth tape to a cable around the back that was also vibrating a little and left us with a bit of paper that said- Not faulty!
Called AD, who said that there was nothing that could be done. AT ALL. It was now between us and Samsung.
And as far as Samsung are concerned, that's that!. Their job is done. Make a crap fridge, contract a firm to say it's fine, and the matter is done.
I called Samsung customer services. Phillipines. Virtually impossible to get anywhere due to language barrier and rigidly scripted routes of conversation.
After about and hour and 20 minutes on the phone either listening to music or not understanding them nor them understanding me, I had a pretty clear promise that someone from Samsung UK would call me back within 24 hours.
About 12 days later a lovely lady from Samsung called me and listened to my monologue with lots of sympathetic 'ooh', 'oh dear', 'of course, of course' only to say when I was done, and as if reading from a card, that they stand by their engineers report, that the matter is closed and I could do what I like trying to get the matter resolved or tell anyone I liked about how poor their service was. They do not care a jot that the unit pollutes the entire downstairs with an 8khz noise. She could not say whether they knew if the engineers had even tested the unit for sound but were quite happy that their contracted engineers were up to scratch and that our fridge was just dandy.
'Up yours', customer!
Phoned Trading Standards. Thankfully we paid by credit card.
This is where we make a claim to the credit card company -Sainsbury's Bank- under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Sainsburys Bank were fab all the way through.
They said we'd need an Acoustic Consultants report. (skip the few weeks of finding one). The boffin came over with computers, multiple microphones, and cameras to evidence his survey. He produced a giant report that looked like something from a PhD thesis but which clearly said the fridge was doing what we said it was. Interestingly (ha!? ...but if you've got this far then you must be going through something similar) he said that our fridge was not too loud- beyond the rated level 'as-sold', but, that the difference in volume between the specific frequency (8khz) and all the other noises it made, would qualify as 'annoying' under British Standards! In visual terms maybe, a patch of slightly different colour in a carpet would be permissible, as long as it was not greater than 'x' proportion of the whole carpet. It made sense to me...
This cost us over £200 which we had to pay up front. Sainsbury's promised they would reimburse us once the report was received. I did wonder what we were getting ourselves into, but friends and family were used to the fridge in the dining area and the constant updates on 'Fridge-gate' kept me motivated.
Sainsbury's got the report and within a week got all our money back. It took 6 months. I believe the money came from AD's pocket.
We got to keep the fridge in the end and sold it on (openly explaining the issues) to some lovely people that had their fridge in a smaller side room and did not mind the noise.
We bought a Siemens from John Lewis (who are excellent) which somehow (!?) has blown-air modern design just like the Samsung, but does not sound like a dog whistle?!?
So, it seems like for online orders, you can cancel your order for any reason 14 days after receipt. The online vendor may well try to get you to say you are asking for a refund under their terms and conditions, or that if the item is faulty that under the 'faults process' you have to do x, y and z, all of which take ages and suit them better than you. This is where they try to keep you in the contract and under which they operate in their stated mode. IF you make it crystal clear in writing that you are exercising your right under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2014 to CANCEL the contract, then all there is to do, is for them to charge you for the cost of return and return your money.
You can't send stuff back that you've damaged this way, as they are expecting to re-sell the item for the same value, given that you've cancelled the sale. If we'd packed up the fridge and sent it back by cancelling under the Consumer Contracts Regs 2014, we'd have been out of pocket to the tune of the return costs. By waiting for Samsung (to come and tell us there was nothing wrong), we drifted way out of reach of the Consumer Contracts 2014 period so could not use that route with AD.
Thankfully the Section 75 Consumer Credit act 1974 and Sainsbury's (with the help of the Acoustic Consultant), we got what we wanted in the end.
That's better!
Cheers!
