Am I covered under Sale of Goods Act?

NoddyDog

On the 28th of Dec I ordered a laptop online at Dabs. I was staying at my parents over Christmas so arranged to have the laptop delivered to my next door neighbour so that I could pick it up when returning home on the 4th Jan.

From using the laptop out of the box I noticed it was doing some funny things relating to the integrated graphics. I thought about sending it back straight away but realised I was outside the 7 day cooling off period for the Distance Selling regulations. So I left it a few more days to see if it was just a case of the odd Windows 7 software glitch or something more problematic.

Over the following days more and more issues arose until last Thursday I emailed Dabs with a list of issues asking for a replacement. I waited three days without a response from them. So two days ago I sent them a reminder. After no response again I decided to telephone them today. After waiting a long time to get through I spoke with a lady who wanted me to contact Lenovo (the laptop manufacturer) directly and she was happy to give me their details.

I pointed out that Dabs was the retailer and the contract was with them. Then she said that I could send it back to them and they would send it off to Lenovo who would test it. The whole process would take 10 days. I told her I wasn't happy with that option and I wanted either a replacement or a refund. She said the terms and conditions on their website didn't allow this and all I could do was send it back to them or contact Lenovo.

I have a suspicion that my consumer rights give me more options than this.... but I'm not 100% sure.

Whilst I did pay on credit card and could evoke Section 75, it seems pointless to complicate things.

Can someone give me advice on how to proceed. Ideally I just want a replacement since I once had a bad experience of a PC going back to the manufacturer for 'fault finding' and all that happened was they formatted the hard drive reinstalled the operating system and sent it back. The issue was still there and eventually I lost the will to keep going around in circles.

For anyone who is a bit computer savvy here is a list of the issues I've notified Dabs about:

1. The very first thing I did when the laptop arrived (and after going through the initial system set-up wizard) was to run the 'Windows Experience Index' to acquire the base score for this laptop. After completion of the programme and subsequent scores being displayed I immediately ran the process again since I was curious to see if the scores would vary. On this second attempt the computer brought up a window stating it was running the 'Direct3D Aero Assessment' and then after a few seconds a dialogue box appeared that read “The Windows Experience Index for your system could not be computed. Cannot complete assessment. The assessment of other operation did not complete successfully. This is due to an error being reported from the operating system, driver or other component.” No matter how many times I ran this programme the same result occurred thereafter.
2. Within a day of the issue described above the Windows 7 Aero preview feature (showing thumbnails of open browsers) stopped working. Only when I ran the 'Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects' feature was this problem corrected. However it has occurred (and has been repaired) twice in the last week
3. Over the last week I have noticed a reoccurring problem. Many times when attempting to enter characters in a field, e.g. the Windows 7 Search field, the first one or two characters are registered and then the remainder are missing despite being typed on the keyboard. You then have to retype them for them to register on the screen.
4. On one occasion I was trying to create a new text file inside a folder by right clicking and selecting 'New' followed by 'Text Document'. Normally this process produces a text document icon with the naming field highlighted ready to complete. In this particular case nothing happened so I repeated the process 4 times. In final desperation at not seeing any new text documents appearing inside the folder I closed the folder and reopened it. Only then did all four new text documents appear.
5. A few days ago when using Internet Explorer suddenly multiple versions of IE9 started opening followed by a windows 7 error message. On various other occasions IE9 has also unexpectedly crashed producing error messages.
6. If you go into Media Centre and try to play any of the videos available there a dialogue box comes up with 'Video Error'.
7. Today the worst issue occurred which has prompted me to you now. At one point when the laptop was left alone it went into standby mode, as it is meant to under the current power management settings. However thereafter whatever button was pressed the screen remained black. I even pressed the start button but the screen still remained black. Since I had unsaved work on the desktop I didn't want to reboot the laptop and as I was trying to work out what to do next the screen suddenly went blue with a significant amount of text on it. The information remained there for a few seconds and the only things I recall was an error message, a lot of numbers and characters and something about dumping memory. Then the screen went black and the system rebooted into the start up option screen with safe mode, boot normally, etc.
8. Sometimes a dialogue box specific to a running application will pop up, but the message that normally appears in the middle of said box is missing.... so you don't know what it is asking you to do.

neilmcl

You have the right to a repair, replacement or refund (partial) and ultimately it'll be down to whichever is less costly to the retailer and as long as the remedy doesn't cause a significant inconvenience. So you can't insist on one remedy over the other.

arcon5

After 'reasonable' time you are deemed to have 'accepted' the goods. Before this elapses you can reject it for a full refund. After this you are entitled to a remedy. Repair, replacement or refund -- it's effectively their choice also.

So considering you purchased it 3 weeks ago, i'd say you have accepted the goods and therefore entitled to a remedy only.

Although your rights are with the retailer, it may be easier to cut out the middle man (them) and go straight to the manufacturer.

Equaliser123

I really don't think that after less than 3 weeks you can be deemed as having accepted it. I think you will still have the right to reject and claim a refund.

mancitychick

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/understanding-the-sale-of-goods-act/your-rights/

According to this you have 3 to 4 weeks tops, to reject depending on what you bought.

arcon5

Equaliser123 wrote: »

I really don't think that after less than 3 weeks you can be deemed as having accepted it. I think you will still have the right to reject and claim a refund.

Although it's very subjective, personally i'd consider 14 days+ to have accepted the goods.

CoolHotCold

It's very gray area, it depends exactly when it was purchased and exactly how many days ago that was. Start with Section 75 anyway straight away under as the longer you leave it the harder it becomes to reject the goods for a full refund.

bod1467

Bear in mind, with such a short period, any refund would be FULL - the "partial" consideration doesn't really come into effect until after 6 months (anecdotally).

bod1467

Hit that reformed-meat button people.