John Lewis ripping me off: please help.

gyzmo

That is unfortunate.

the problem now is whether you want to accept their reduction, or risk the cost of issuing a claim and possibly losing.

I admit that I am surprised at Consumer Direct's response. Writing to head office is a good idea, but CD should be assisting you more than simply writing a letter. Contact the CAB who will provide help in drafting your letter, and may also be able to provide further assistance.

pigeonpie

Think CD are overwhelmed with people being ripped off! I see in the Guardian that a new agency is being set up. Someone needs to look at online co's ignoring or breaching distance selling regs: JLD is one of the biggest in Britain.
I'll try the CAB. My OH thinks small claims court is the way to go.

zappomatic

pigeonpie wrote:

JLD say that they will deduct £105 from my refund as a gesture of goodwill, offer valid 14 days! They say that they will have to resell the item in store as used at a discount. Has anyone ever seen a discounted item like that for sale in any of their shops cos I haven't?

I'd still like to know who is chief honcho of JLD if anyone knows please. Think their address is Chelsea.

I've seen (and bought) customer returns sold at a discount many times.

George Todd is head of customer service at John Lewis Direct. Phil Hullah is the managing director.

pigeonpie

Are those 2 gentlemen at the SW3 address, do you know please?

zappomatic

pigeonpie wrote:

Are those 2 gentlemen at the SW3 address, do you know please?

Yes, they are.

pigeonpie

Well they are getting a letter from me. The manager who specialises in aggressive emails sent me another fanmail this am. She now says that I am allowed a cooling off period (before she said they don't do returns: period) but I have to return the item exactly as it was delivered ie you can't open up the box to inspect it or turn it on to see if it works. Plus she shortened her ultimatum/threat to 'generously' only deduct 15% of the cost to c.o.b. today, having previously said 31 October.

How do I get hold of the Small Claims Court to lodge a claim? I am fed up with being ripped off by big companies that don't respect the Distance Selling Regs and then try to bully the little people into submission.

withabix

JLP aren't ignoring the DSR, they are following the regulation as far as I can see.

It is reasonable for you to open the packaging and inspect the goods.

It is NOT reasonable for you to operate the laptop and create user account(s).

I would recommend that:

a) you accept the 15% restocking charge, which is fairly standard.
or
b) you sell the laptop on eBay or similar.

stugib

I had an idea about this last night, but will depend on your laptop. We (our company) bought a laptop from a JL shop recently. Came with Windows XP home but we needed to put XP Pro on it. Halfway through the upgrade it crashed and we later found out that brand of laptop didn't support upgrading the OS. Therefore needed to return it but it was effectively unusable as it wouldn't boot.

Luckily we'd created the restore CDs which returned it to its out of the box state. It might be worth looking around the installed software to see if it can create a restore CD - run that (usually boot from it) and restore Windows and hopefully that should clear any usernames etc you've put on it.

Assuming that works, then you'll at least be back to arguing that you had to open the box to see it. I'm pretty sure the DSR allows you to open a box to examine it and see if it's what you expected.

pigeonpie

withabix wrote:

JLP aren't ignoring the DSR, they are following the regulation as far as I can see.

It is reasonable for you to open the packaging and inspect the goods.

It is NOT reasonable for you to operate the laptop and create user account(s).

I would recommend that:

a) you accept the 15% restocking charge, which is fairly standard.
or
b) you sell the laptop on eBay or similar.

You don't work for them, do you?!
It is not a restocking charge as this is not in their famous T&Cs.
The Windows OS does not let you 'in' to a PC without creating the names. Ergo you can't try the goods to see if they are ok, faulty, etc without doing this, unless you can divine from a blue start up screen that a computer is fine.
Computers are not exempt from the DSRs.
Nor do they say that you may not use the product at all before returning it.

Any company that regards its T&Cs as above the law is in breach of that law. JLD say "for your statutory rights, see our T & Cs". Cart before the horse.

Know of at least 1 company - Toye Computers, who sell Lenovo - who have changed to conform with the DSRs, having had this type of 'breach' T&Cs before. I wish I had ordered from them, but their PCs were a lot more expensive. But all power to those who behave reputably.

Now can anyone answer my question about the small claims court please?

pigeonpie

Stugib, when I turned it on and loaded the user acs, it did prompt me to make restore CDs to enable the PC to revert to factory settings, but I didn't do it as it was only on for those few mins originally; now I am too scared to as they will deem it as further 'use' and use it against me. I'm not sure how to do it anyhow (get it back to factory settings) but it makes me mad as I know they know how and am pretty sure that that is what they would do....
Wish I'd seen your post before contacting them as sounds like a perfect solution! It's an HP btw.