Am I entitled to any compensation?

fablad75 · 29 September 2009 at 6:02AM

The charger pack for my Samsung laptop died recently and I bought clone replacement for about a tenner incl. p&p from one of the eBay traders, as an original one costs about £60.

Plugged it in and everything worked fine, then a couple of hours later my laptop went completely dead, and I heard popping sounds from the charger. When I looked at it there was smoke coming out!

I quickly unplugged it, but now my laptop won't even power up anymore. As it is 15 months old, it is out of warranty already, so even bringing it into the shop is going to cost a bomb, and I dread to think of what else, once they figure out what is wrong with it.

The eBay trader has asked if I want a replacement or a refund. I know I do not want a replacement - I will NEVER buy replacement parts off eBay again - but am I entitled to any compensation from them for damage caused by a product they sold?

Any thoughts, opinions or information would be gratefully received.

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soolin · 29 September 2009 at 7:40AM

I think you would struggle with this but you could get proper advice via trading standards and see whether they think spending more money to go to small claims is likely to result in any compensation.

kprigg · 29 September 2009 at 7:51AM

We recently had a similar problem. Luckily my partner is a bit of a computer wizz & managed to fix it. Leason learnt I will never buy these things cheaply again.
As soolin says, your best bet would be to talk to Trading Standards. We didnt go down that route as after a whole weekends work my partner fixed it, but I would be interested to know you outcome.
I hope you can get it sorted.

kai666 · 29 September 2009 at 7:57AM

Similar thing happened to me with an old sony ericcson phone. Bought cheap charger. Plugged it in over night and bang, the phone had doubled in size by the morning.

I managed to claim off the phone insurence by being slightly economical with the truth as i suspect the insurance company would have not being interested had they known it was a unofficial charger off ebay.

I think there is probably a reason why one charger is £60 and the other is £10, and you found out the expensive way, like me.

Good luck though

fablad75 · 8 October 2009 at 10:15PM

Right, I've taken it to the shop and they're going to fix it, but it's going to cost me a lot of money.

Repair: £60
Motherboard: £190
3BG RAM: £30
Replacement charger: £50

Total cost: £330 - for a laptop that only cost £650 fifteen months ago. Unfortunately it was a pretty high spec laptop so it's not like I can just buy a new one.

I've emailed the eBay trader, who is based in China, and they want documentation that it was the charger's fault. I've asked the repair shop to provide this, and they're a little unwilling, as they see it as providing a legal document, and they'll have to put their name to it. They're thinking about it, and might charge me about twenty pounds to prepare this report.

This is turning into a major pain.

fablad75 · 8 October 2009 at 10:17PM

PS obviously I am not asking them to compensate me for the new charger, but I want them to pay for the repair, the motherboard and the RAM.

TurkishDelight · 8 October 2009 at 10:27PM

I know that it doesn't help you OP, but a lot of the laptop psu's on ebay come with unfused leads- it's always worth using your own kettle lead if it is that kind of adapter, if not then maybe go elsewhere.

If it is a unfused lead then you could well have a case since it isn't legal to sell them like that in this country.

Good luck!

mikey72 · 8 October 2009 at 10:40PM

How do you take a chinese supplier to court though, and as you bought it from china, and dealt with customs, are you deemed to have imported it into the EU yourself?

fablad75 · 8 October 2009 at 10:50PM

Turkish Delight: The power pack came without the half that connects to my laptop - it's just the box and the bit that plugs into the wall socket.

Mikey72: I don't think I can take them to court - I wouldn't know how, and I don't think it'll be worth the money. But I'll definitely try to report them to eBay and maybe Trading Standards (the chargers are distributed here in the UK) as they're clearly defective and dangerous, as if I hadn't been there to unplug it when it started smoking, it could have burnt my house down!

sequence · 9 October 2009 at 12:13AM

Try taking battery out and leaving it overnight. Then try it with a (real) charger. Has worked for me in the past. Sometimes laptops die for no logical reason though, could be a fault in the laptop that blew the adapter as well.

fablad75 · 20 October 2009 at 10:24AM

My laptop has been repaired, and the authorised service centre has provided me with a letter stating that in their professional assessment, the damage was entirely caused my the defective charger.

I have scanned this, along with the invoice and job sheet which shows all the parts that needed to be replaced to them.

They have come back to say that the compensation is too much, and they don't believe the damage could have been caused by their product.

I know I can report them to Ebay, but where else? The seller is based in China.

Am I entitled to any compensation?

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