Sold a used hard disk as new : what are my rights

Saeed

I bought a hard drive 6 months ago from an online retailer. It was sold to me as a brand new drive. It never performed correctly and I had to install XP several times as it got corrupted or would not boot up. I used Seagate tools to check the drive for errors and found that the drive was approx 3-4 years old and had been used previously for over 500 days (13000 hours) and it reported that the drive was faulty. When I returned to the retailer, they confirmed it was faulty and offered to get repaired. I didn't want this. I asked for refund and compensation of approx the price paid for the time and effort I had spent on it. When I got home and wrote to them, they offered me a store credit. I told them I didn't want this. When I told them that I knew the drive was used (which they probably didn't know I knew about), they backtracked and offered to give me a refund of the price paid as 'good will'. The model is 4 years old and it looks like they have sold upwards of 50 of these drives, I suspect that the rest were also heavily used as this had been. Do you think I should pursue this in the small claims court for the compensation element (they have offered a refund after 6 weeks of correspondence), also I think other members of the public have a right to know they have been used used items as new.

Would I win in a small claims court for the compensation element? Does anyone have experience of something similar? Is it worth it?

4743hudsonj

Saeed wrote: »

I bought a hard drive 6 months ago from an online retailer. It was sold to me as a brand new drive. It never performed correctly and I had to install XP several times as it got corrupted or would not boot up. I used Seagate tools to check the drive for errors and found that the drive was approx 3-4 years old and had been used previously for over 500 days (13000 hours) and it reported that the drive was faulty. When I returned to the retailer, they confirmed it was faulty and offered to get repaired. I didn't want this. I asked for refund and compensation of approx the price paid for the time and effort I had spent on it. When I got home and wrote to them, they offered me a store credit. I told them I didn't want this. When I told them that I knew the drive was used (which they probably didn't know I knew about), they backtracked and offered to give me a refund of the price paid as 'good will'. The model is 4 years old and it looks like they have sold upwards of 50 of these drives, I suspect that the rest were also heavily used as this had been. Do you think I should pursue this in the small claims court for the compensation element (they have offered a refund after 6 weeks of correspondence), also I think other members of the public have a right to know they have been used used items as new.

Would I win in a small claims court for the compensation element? Does anyone have experience of something similar? Is it worth it?

No there nothing in law allowing you to sue for time and effort, dont waste good money after bad chasing something that will never happen.