Faulty Tesco Technika TV

AlexisV

I'm trying to get this situation rectified for my dad.

• He bought a Technika TV/DVD player 18 months ago for £179
• It is rarely used and is in a spare room
• It has become faulty
• He contacted the store or said to contact customer services. After filling in a form they wrote back to offer £79 in store credit, citing he'd had the use of it for 18 months.

• We wrote back requesting a full refund, quoting the Sales of Goods Act 1979 and EU Directive 1999/44/EC. A newspaper report was included showing another Tesco customer who's Technika TV failed after 18 months and how Tesco refunded him under the EU Directive (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/may/23/tesco-consumer-guarantee

• They have written back refusing, saying the £200 credit is sufficient (big typo as the TV is worth £179 and they have given credit for £79).
• They say their options are partial refund or repair and that repair would not viable for them. Their partial refund is credit, not cash. It has not been used in store.
• They state the Sales of Goods Act takes into account the time used and so the value is now £79
• They have dismissed the EU Directive and stated the Sales of Goods Act applies instead. They say the EU applies for only 2 years and Sales of Goods Act for 6 years. The relevance is not clear as the TV is 18 months old.
• They say they have not received an engineer's report

Any ideas where to go from here?

stugib

Apart from being in store credit rather than cash, and haggling over the amount, their resolution sounds legal and fair.

Ignore the EU directive. Search the forum if you want to know why.

wealdroam

Let's look at your bullet points in turn...

AlexisV wrote: »

• They have written back refusing, saying the £200 credit is sufficient (big typo as the TV is worth £179 and they have given credit for £79).

Ignoring the typo, they are offering you 44% of the purchase price.
They are allowed to reduce the refund taking into account the use you have had of the thing.
You have had 18 months use (forget the bit about he has hardly ever used it), they are assuming the tv will last a bit over three years.

AlexisV wrote: »

• They say their options are partial refund or repair and that repair would not viable for them. Their partial refund is credit, not cash. It has not been used in store.

Nothing wrong with that.
What does your last sentence mean?

AlexisV wrote: »

• They state the Sales of Goods Act takes into account the time used and so the value is now £79

As above.

AlexisV wrote: »

• They have dismissed the EU Directive and stated the Sales of Goods Act applies instead. They say the EU applies for only 2 years and Sales of Goods Act for 6 years. The relevance is not clear as the TV is 18 months old.

Rightly so.
The EU directive is incorporated into English law as Sale of Goods Act.
The EU directive does not give an absolute two years guarantee.
In simple terms, all it offers is two years for you to complain that the thing hasn't lasted long enough.
Soga offers that for up to six years.
SOGA offers much more than the EU directive.
That's a great over-simplication.

AlexisV wrote: »

• They say they have not received an engineer's report

After six months from purchase, it is for you to prove that the product has an inherent fault.
This can often be done by getting an engineer to report as such.
As Tesco have accepted the thing is faulty and have offered a partial refund, all they are doing here is noting that you have not supplied an engineers report.

AlexisV wrote: »

Any ideas where to go from here?

OP, you might try to argue that the sum offered isn't enough.
Maybe write saying that in your opinion the thing should last for (say) five years, so you would be happy to consider a 70% refund (£125.30).

AlexisV

Thanks. The point about credit is that they have enclosed a store credit card, not cash, and that the store card has not been used.

Sounds like it would be worth pushing them on that fact they admit they only expect their televisions to last 3 years and go for £123.50 in cash.

Obviously proving a fault would cost substantially more than the value of it's current value.

Anyway, seems stupid of Tesco since none of the family will ever buy any electronics from them ever again.

wealdroam

AlexisV wrote: »

The point about credit is that they have enclosed a store credit card, not cash, and that the store card has not been used.

Ok, I get it now.

AlexisV wrote: »

Sounds like it would be worth pushing them on that fact they admit they only expect their televisions to last 3 years and go for £123.50 in cash.

You choose what figures you plug in, depending on your view of how long a Tesco own brand tv should last.

AlexisV wrote: »

Obviously proving a fault would cost substantially more than the value of it's current value.

But the cost of that report would be refunded too... if it confirmed the fault was inherent.

AlexisV wrote: »

Anyway, seems stupid of Tesco since none of the family will ever buy any electronics from them ever again.

Don't be too hasty with that.
There are some good bargains to be had there.

You are actually getting a somewhat better deal than a lot of retailers would offer without any substantiating report.

T_T_2

£79 seems more than reasonable in this instance. I would settle on that and consider buying a TV of better quality in the future.

Outpost

For what it's worth I think even the cheapest TV should last significantly longer than 18 months.

wealdroam

Outpost wrote: »

For what it's worth I think even the cheapest TV should last significantly longer than 18 months.

I think we all agree on that, Outpost.

Including Tesco. ;)

real1314

If it was £179 18 months ago, what's the current selling price for an equivalent product?

Less than £130?

You'd only have to put £50 to it if that guess is reasonable. Effectively you'd have got over 60% of the replacement cost, giving an effective life of 3 years and 9 months. :cool:

asbokid

AlexisV wrote: »

Anyway, seems stupid of Tesco since none of the family will ever buy any electronics from them ever again.

Too right.. we had a similar experience with a widescreen TV from Tesco that failed a few weeks after its 1 year warranty had expired. We were refused a refund, too. It turned out that the model of TV had a very short MTBF rate.

Tescos is usually okay for cabbages and perhaps carrots, but the quality of its AV kit and the support that Tescos offers on it is shockingly poor.

The reluctance of Britain's biggest retailer to 'do the right thing' and refund or replace high price items means that you might just as well buy from cost-cutting discount retailers, or even online-only retailers.

Oneday77

Part of the thing here is all goods have a Mean Time Before Failure.
The general rule of thumb, to a degree is the higher the price the better the components, resulting in a longer MTBF.
Personally I would say expecting an Own brand rpoduct to last 3 years whereas a Panasonic\Sony item could be expected to last 5years.

All simplified but that is how it would typically be treated.
As annoying it is that it has gone faulty I think they are being reasonable and you should accept.
Things breakdown and unfortunately most of it is down to luck.