Currys warranty - pile of rubbish!!!!!

tintysteph

Sorry this is a bit of a long one!!

My friend bought a TV from Currys in August this year, after being pestered to take out extended warranty for five years(called "Whatever Happens" - at a cost of £269!!!!!!!!! http://www.currys.co.uk/store_doc/pdf/Whatever%20Happens%20Televisions.pdf he got the "Club" membership) it broke shortly after he bought it (early october), an engineer came out to take a look at the unit. After inspection, they decided it would need to be taken away for repair!!! They collected the unit on the 5th October, he was told it would take up to 21 days to repair. He rang up as the 21 days was coming to an end, to ask what was going on with the TV and was told the repair had not even taken place yet!!! :mad:

At the end of last week he called to chase again and was told it was a write off and they would be issuing him vouchers for the store within 48hours of the telephone call. After the 48 hours, he called to chase and was told that it could now take up to 5 days to issue vouchers!!! :mad:

What we are trying to understand, is why if he bought the extended warranty scheme thing at £269, nothing has happened yet!!! It has been 28 days and just seems like they are trying to fob him off, every time he calls them up, the people get more and more rude with him. Can anyone advise what we can do and if Currys are breaking any consumer laws?

Thanks in advance, and again, sorry for the length of this!

neilmcl

Warranty aside, legally they are obliged to repair, replace or refund within a reasonable time and not to cause significant inconvenience. This is a fairly wooly term but I'd suspect around 28 days would be seen as reasonable. I'd still be inclined to give it one more week.

What does your extended warranty terms state?

tintysteph

It says "Product will be fixed or replaced within 28 days" Yep, i agree with 1 more week, it is just frustrating for him!

neilmcl

When they say 28 days I'm pretty sure they mean business days so in reality they'd still be within this period.

tintysteph

oh god, so it could be a lot longer then!!!! yikes!!

DVardysShadow

neilmcl wrote: »

Warranty aside, legally they are obliged to repair, replace or refund within a reasonable time and not to cause significant inconvenience.

So without the warranty he is entitled to cash rather than vouchers.

neilmcl

It'll be down to the retailer. Usually it'll go repair, replace and then cash refund with the refund amount being based on how much usage the customer has had.

Esqui

The 28 days is 28 days, not business days. The vouchers are issued electronically to the store, you will get via post (or email, if you gave an email address) a claim number, which the store then uses to access the vouchers online.

And DVardySshadow, under the normal warranty, the customer would get the original price paid towards a new TV. Under WEH, the customer gets vouchers to the price of an equivalent specification TV..which could end up being more than the price paid.

tintysteph

Esqui wrote: »

The 28 days is 28 days, not business days. The vouchers are issued electronically to the store, you will get via post (or email, if you gave an email address) a claim number, which the store then uses to access the vouchers online.

And DVardySshadow, under the normal warranty, the customer would get the original price paid towards a new TV. Under WEH, the customer gets vouchers to the price of an equivalent specification TV..which could end up being more than the price paid.

Right, so is the issuing of vouchers quite easy? Apparently someone is working on this at the moment. We were also told that he would get the price of the TV now, rather than when he bought it originally - I think it is the same price or just a few quid less at the moment.

So, with WEH, the vouchers could be less OR more. He is really not happy with the service he was pressured into getting, how would he go about making a formal complaint about being pushed into the scheme and the aftercare he has been recieving? He also wants to cancel the service and get a refund for the extended warranty as he has had such a nightmare with this repair. Samsung would have sorted this straight away (I know from experience of friends and family!) Would they do anything? The poor guy feels like because of his nationality (Nepalese), he has been taken advantage of!
Sorry for the rant, just trying to get our head around this all!

smcaul

I would tell him to make sure he tells curry's that he is claiming under the Sale of Goods Act and NOT under the WEH policy, he will then get back what he paid for the TV as it was such a short time after purchase that it went wrong.

This WEH policy is a huge con that people seem to get sucked into.

Esqui

tintysteph wrote: »

Right, so is the issuing of vouchers quite easy? Apparently someone is working on this at the moment. We were also told that he would get the price of the TV now, rather than when he bought it originally - I think it is the same price or just a few quid less at the moment.

If the same TV is available, then the vouchers will be for that. Same for under normal warranty, he'd be offered the same TV.

He doesn't have to use the vouchers for the same TV if he doesn't want to, the "replacement product" is a suggestion

So, with WEH, the vouchers could be less OR more. He is really not happy with the service he was pressured into getting, how would he go about making a formal complaint about being pushed into the scheme and the aftercare he has been recieving? He also wants to cancel the service and get a refund for the extended warranty as he has had such a nightmare with this repair. Samsung would have sorted this straight away (I know from experience of friends and family!) Would they do anything? The poor guy feels like because of his nationality (Nepalese), he has been taken advantage of!
Sorry for the rant, just trying to get our head around this all!

Once he's made the claim, he'll get another voucher for the unused portion of the agreement. Which, technically is only to be used towards another agreement, but he could try and see if he could get a better TV with the extra.

To complain about them, there are details on the WEH policy documents. The best way is to write or email the customer service centre directly.