Great 'How to make an effective complaint' Hunt

Aphra

Re post by TOZER: The reason I specifically ask for a letter of refusal when claiming compensation is that it shows the other party that I am going to use it in some way - let them guess how.

scottishlizzie

July 07 bought tv from Currys store for mother. Cost £449. Almost exactly a year to the date of purchase it broke. Had to fight to get it looked at under warranty. Eventually they agreed, took it in to workshop, could find nothing wrong with it. It then worked fine at my mum's for about another 2 months and conked out again. I asked for refund and was told that as now out of warranty I would have to get an engineer's report showing that it was faulty at manufacture. The engineer said the LCD panel was faulty and provided a report along with estimate of repair costs at £259. Curry's have now written to me saying that they accept my claim and are offering a £269.09 gift card(plus the cost of the engineer's report). This is on the basis that it is out of guarantee and that all they are obliged to offer is a repair or a partial refund. We don't want a repair as we have already bought my mum a new tv and they would not offer a repair anyway due to the age of the TV (!) making it uneconomical.

I can't understand the rationale for a partial refund or the basis of the amount. Should I hold out for a full refund or would I be wasting my time with Currys? I have spent a lot of time on sorting this out and part of me wants to give up and accept but the other part of me thinks, hang on, we forked out £449 for a tv that stopped working after 14 months - why shouldn't we get all our money back.

Any advice and comments would be greatly apreciated.

GLEKA

Wot no complaints on MSE since dec 2008?

BFG_2

Dead simple process

Call and see if can get sorted.

Write telling them what you want to sort out the problem.

Write again 'Final Letter before Action'

Issue proceedings via cmall claims track of courts - do it online.

Do NOT waste your time trying to mreason or explain to them [after your call and first two letters]

The court proceeding will focus their minds [costs about £30-50 but you get costs back if successful].

HTH

GLEKA

Hi all - given this is a complaint thread - thought you would like to know about NationalComplaintsDay.com on Friday 13 Nov 2009 - looks like they have a deal with Which to offer free legal advice to consumers on the day - you register for it on the website.

NAG_2

GLEKA wrote: »

Hi all - given this is a complaint thread - thought you would like to know about NationalComplaintsDay.com on Friday 13 Nov 2009 - looks like they have a deal with Which to offer free legal advice to consumers on the day - you register for it on the website.

yup - i saw this yesterday on twitter (http://twitter.com/COMPCOMM). Think its a limited offer so might need to get in quick. Had a look at the Which website and they seem to use proper lawyers not call centre bods with scripts (who might even be overseas - dont start me on that one again!).

yeh youre right - you put your complaint on the website and then they use that to give the legal advice.

looks like the event is the start of their christmas shopping consumer campaign - called Tis The Season.

might be worth a go?