Fault with my 16-month old £400 HP laptop - do I have any rights?

CoolHotCold

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

It is the retailer (Curry's) who is in breach of the SOGA and your redress is with them.

http://whatconsumer.co.uk/returning-damaged-or-faulty-goods/

There has been no breach whatsoever so far.

Toxteth_OGrady

CoolHotCold wrote: »

There has been no breach whatsoever so far.

Your point is?

cit_k

MarkBargain wrote: »

£15 is for a US keyboard, a UK one is £35. Plus I am not that confident in installing a laptop keyboard.

Its also quite possible its not a fault with the keyboard itself, it could be a fault on the motherboard, say a dodgy keyboard connector socket.

Or even software related in some way.

MarkBargain

CoolHotCold wrote: »

It would be direct with Currys.

Like I said previouslly, contact them they will decide if its worth offering a partial refund or repair to get fixed without a engineers report done.

Sorry, when you wrote contact KnowHow before I didn't connect them with Currys.

MarkBargain

cit_k wrote: »

Its also quite possible its not a fault with the keyboard itself, it could be a fault on the motherboard, say a dodgy keyboard connector socket.

Or even software related in some way.

That is possible, meaning I would have wasted £35 on a new keyboard and gone to that trouble for nothing.

It's strange, but looking online there are several reports of people with the same problem (key n returns n6 and b b5). They seem to have decided the keyboard was faulty.

johnnyboyrebel

I had the good old "blank screen" issue with my HP Pavilion Tablet laptop. It was perfect with no issues for 12 months then a couple of weeks after this (the warranty was 12 months) it suddenly stopped. Have had a good mess with it and made many adjustments (this would have knackered my warranty anyway but hey ho) and had it working on and off for a month or so but now it is officially dead.

I wish HP would pull their finger out of their backsides and stop producing sub standard crap that inevitably lasts as long as the warranty then dies, millions of people have the same problem with all different models of various HP gear. I have never had an issue with any HP desktops, it is just the laptops that screw up.

And people keep saying how PC's are so reliable ahead of macs when a trusted brand such as HP produces such utter crap, its ridiculous. stop kidding yourself and get over to the macland (this is very much tongue in cheek as I know there is another thread on this subject already)

Seriously though, just avoid HP laptops whatsoever.

MarkBargain

We use business level HP laptops at work (around £650 with a 3 year care pack) and they are very reliable, but is seems the consumer level laptops are much less so.

asbokid

MarkBargain wrote: »

It's strange, but looking online there are several reports of people with the same problem (key n returns n6 and b b5). They seem to have decided the keyboard was faulty.

The symptoms strongly suggest liquid ingress into the keyboard. Most modern PC keyboards use a keyboard switch matrix[1] which is susceptible to these types of problem.

The liquid ingress need not necessarily be water or another potable liquid. Perhaps there has been a leak of bodily fluids? Do you have an elderly tomcat or OAPs in your household?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_technology#Keyboard_switch_matrix

MarkBargain

There has been no liquid on the keys at all and it was working fine a couple of nights ago, then suddenly the errors started occuring when typing on a document.

I emailed KnowHow (Currys) about the Sales of Goods act and their response was:

Thank you for your recent contact with us. I have noted your complaint, regarding an out of warranty HP Laptop. As a company we do understand our obligation to repair products outside of the 12 month warranty period provided with the goods. I do appreciate that defects may not manifest themselves until after the initial warranty period has expired.

In view of this and in order that we may consider your request, we would like to inspect your product to diagnose the cause of the fault. With this in mind, we will require a payment of £50.00 for us to pick up the product and assess the unit at our repair centre. Should our workshop discover a manufacturing fault with the product, your assessment charge will be refunded and your product repaired at no cost.

Please can you call us on 0844 561 0000, option 1 and quote the reference number above, so that we can discuss this in further detail. We are open 9am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm on Saturday, 10am to 5pm on Sunday.


As Asbokid wrote, they would probably take my £50 and then give me a quote on top of that for an expensive repair so that sounds far too risky. What would others do?

CoolHotCold

Aside from that being very illegal and the bad press if caught out would be far too high. Its a case of risk vs reward for the retailer, doing dodgy paperwork on any system (might be a reporter trap or a TV program doing research to see if KnowHow rip people off.

In this case, the risk is high and the reward is low, because If it is a manufactering fault then it would cost very little (KnowHow control everything from the call center, pickup, repair, redelivery) and the price to repair out of guarantee would be <£20.