Elderly Man has a problem

amagicdrag0n

My father-in-law (78 years old) went to a local store to buy a Kindle e-reader, as I have one and he quite fancied it. The shop that he went to didn't sell Kindles, but the assistant told him that they sold a much better type. This is a Sony PRS-T1 @ c£150.
When he got it home he found that he needed to charge it using a computer...he doesn't have one (it would seem that he can purchase an adaptor, though he wasn't told this at the time).

He brought it to me to charge it up via my PC, which I did. When I looked at the machine I noticed that the instruction booklet and 2 other books supplied with the machine were in Dutch.
I connected it to my wi-fi and found that I couldn't access the online store, just getting a message saying 'coming soon', this was the same when I tried to authorize the Adobe Acrobat DRM. This means the only way he can purchase e-books is via a computer (which he doesn't have)
If he had purchased a Kindle for around the same price he could access Amazon straight away via 3G for no extra cost.

Now my question, is he entitled to a refund as I feel that he has been mis-sold this item

Thanks
Dave

HappyMJ

I would say so. No harm in giving it a try. If that doesn't work then sell it on ebay for him for about £80 and get the Kindle.

DVardysShadow

I would say that he is entitled to a refund. He asked for a Kindle and was sold the other thing as an equivalent, in reliance upon the shop.

whatmichaelsays

I'd say that you couldn't necessarily use the charger thing as a point for return and the "the assistant didn't mention it" defence probably wouldn't go far - it wouldn't be unreasonable for a shop assistant to assume that someone looking for an eReader would have regular access to a PC and an assistant wouldn't be expected to point out every draw-back of the product without being prompted.

As for the other stuff, the argument is whether the device sold suitably meets what the customer requested.

ThumbRemote

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

it wouldn't be unreasonable for a shop assistant to assume that someone looking for an eReader would have regular access to a PC

If the buyer had gone into the shop asking for a specific model I would agree. But this one has been recommended by the sales assistant, who has given an unsuitable recommendation.

mo786uk

If you can show there has been a misdescription or misrepresentation - yes.

might be difficult tho.

mum2one

The point that just jumped out at me, was Sales of Goods Act - unmerchanside quality and unfit for purpose.
Something so simple as the instructions and the books being in Dutch, therefore the product brought is unsuitable for a non-dutch person to set up.

Therefore - you can avoid, the sales upsold me I wanted a Kindle, or they didn't tell me there wasn't an adaptor.

we had a very similar problem with a sat nav from a very big retail store, basically the Sat Nav was in a foreign language, wasn't even picking up our location, and when we had mine (brought my father the idential model) we were on M5 in Somerset, and the sat nav had us up in Scotland.

After a few calls, our local paper, soon got my money back,

Hintza

How does the instruction book in Dutch turn something into unmerchantable quality? Instruction books are readily available.

The only thing the OP has here is the the lack of books. POerhaps this might help

http://www.sony.co.uk/discussions/community/en/community/reading/buy_ebooks

Zandoni

Hintza wrote: »

How does the instruction book in Dutch turn something into unmerchantable quality? Instruction books are readily available.

The only thing the OP has here is the the lack of books. POerhaps this might help

http://www.sony.co.uk/discussions/community/en/community/reading/buy_ebooks

There was the major point about the buyer not having a computer.

Take it back and tell the shop that there recommendation was totally unsuitable and you would like a refund.

custardy

a lot of talk here
lets simplfy
whats the store and whats their returns policy?

somethingcorporate

mum2one wrote: »

After a few calls, our local paper, soon got my money back,

Seems a bit drastic but if it did the trick!