argos repair for the nintendo ds

Taloola78

Sorry to hijack your thread but maybe some of the kind folk in here could help me?
My kid got one of these at xmas and it was fine up until about 5 weeks ago. She opened the game as usual but when she did we heard a loud crack and the screen started going all distorted. We returned to argos who said they would send it for repair and that it would definitely be back in 3 weeks. It's now about 5 weeks and I am starting to get annoyed. I see a lot of you are saying Nintendo are backlogged but to be quite honest that really isnt my problem. As far as I'm concerned I gave Argos £120 for equipment that is faulty and now I have nothing except the promise it will be here as soon as it can be reapired.
5 weeks may not seem long, but to me it's the principle of the thing.
What you think I should do? give them another couple of weeks or go and ask to speak to a senior member of staff.
Any help appreciated.

coopers12345

Taloola78 wrote: »

As far as I'm concerned I gave Argos £120 for equipment that is faulty and now I have nothing except the promise it will be here as soon as it can be reapired.

As the fault has only materialised after this amount of time it is unlikely that it was faulty when purchased and the fault has occurred due to something that has happened to it since then.

That said, there is nothing to be lost by going into the store and asking to speak to a senior member of staff

Enterprise_1701C

Taloola78 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack your thread but maybe some of the kind folk in here could help me?
My kid got one of these at xmas and it was fine up until about 5 weeks ago. She opened the game as usual but when she did we heard a loud crack and the screen started going all distorted. We returned to argos who said they would send it for repair and that it would definitely be back in 3 weeks. It's now about 5 weeks and I am starting to get annoyed. I see a lot of you are saying Nintendo are backlogged but to be quite honest that really isnt my problem. As far as I'm concerned I gave Argos £120 for equipment that is faulty and now I have nothing except the promise it will be here as soon as it can be reapired.
5 weeks may not seem long, but to me it's the principle of the thing.
What you think I should do? give them another couple of weeks or go and ask to speak to a senior member of staff.
Any help appreciated.

Argos should have offered you a replacement, assuming you bought it within the last 6 months - anything that goes wrong in under 6 months should be assumed to have been suffering from a manufacturing defect at purchase and replaced. I would go and say that as it went wrong in under 6 months, and have been waiting very patiently for a repair that should not have been offered in the first place, you would like the replacement that they should have offered in the first place. Be very nice about it (it never costs to be nice and the staff might put themselves out a bit more for you). It might be a problem as you agreed to the repair (albeit not knowing you should have a replacement) and I am not entirely sure where you stand now, but they are asking you to wait rather a long time and might be willing to replace it now.

Good luck

Stockie

Has there been a change in law in the last few days jane? Last time i checked the SOGA there was nothing in it saying that retailers were forced to offer replacement's for the first 6 months. Yes the onus is on the retailer to prove the goods did conform to contract (e.g. were not inherently faulty) in the first 6 months and a repair or replacement should be offered. If there has been a change in law please let the DTI know as they are still showing the current SOGA on their website.

Stockie

Taloola78

Thanks for the link it has helped me a lot.
I am going to wait another week and then go and see them, now that I know some things from that website I will be armed with some nice jargon.

'An item only needs to last as long as it is reasonable to expect it to'
I got this from the website and hopefully they shouldnt be able to say a DS only lasts about 6-7 weeks.
Thanks for the help folks.

Enterprise_1701C

Stockie wrote: »

Has there been a change in law in the last few days jane? Last time i checked the SOGA there was nothing in it saying that retailers were forced to offer replacement's for the first 6 months. Yes the onus is on the retailer to prove the goods did conform to contract (e.g. were not inherently faulty) in the first 6 months and a repair or replacement should be offered. If there has been a change in law please let the DTI know as they are still showing the current SOGA on their website.

Stockie

Apologies - I was going by what is now normally offered. I've got rather used to insisting on a replacement if electronic goods go wrong in the first 6 months!! (I normally get one too!!)

artic_fox_2

i got ds a blue nds for xmas and he has managed to break the hinge i took it to argos last week and was quite expecting nothing(but my moto is if you dont ask you cant get a yes) as i had not brought their warrenty but to my surprise the cs person didnt bat an eyelid and has sent it off for repair hopefully it wont be too long but reading here i wont keep my hopes up for a phone call in the near future

RufusA

Stockie wrote: »

Last time i checked the SOGA there was nothing in it saying that retailers were forced to offer replacement's for the first 6 months.

Don't forget the ammendments to the SoGA provided by The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002 - catchy title. It is in this legislation that the "6 month" rule was established and:

48A) (3) - ...goods which do not conform to the contract of sale at any time within the period of six months starting with the date on which the goods were delivered to the buyer must be taken not to have so conformed at that date.

48B (1) If section 48A above applies, the buyer may require the seller (a) to repair the goods, or (b) to replace the goods.

So my reading of this is that if the goods are faulty within the first 6 months, the buyer can require the seller to replace them. Unless of course it is disproportionately expensive to do so, or the seller can prove that the goods did not have that inherant fault at the time of sale.

For those having problems it may be worth printing out the above legislation as it clearly states:

....within a reasonable time but without causing significant inconvenience to the buyer;

Rufus

Stockie

It's still very patchy as a law (aren’t they all). Repair is always listed before replacement and how do you know whether a replacement or a repair is going to be proportionately or "disproportionately costly" when stood at a customer services desk? Need tiding up in my opinion and change reasonable time to two weeks max (excluding holidays) to speed things up a bit.
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Argos the worst? Argos mentions on the website that they do replacements in certain circumstances. Currys, Comet, Woolworths and Tesco don't even mention it, and best of all no daft Return Authorisation Number rubbish to deal with (Ebuyer I’m talking about you!)
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<rant>What annoys me is when people come in uninformed of the law and start making it up on the spot (yes I know this happens both ways on occasion), but having people take the !!!! and not back it up with anything is annoying as hell. </rant>
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The repairs on the DS's have died down somewhat in my store and turnaround is back to normal. The service centre just replace them 9 of 10 times anyway. I wish that Nintendo would just trust the staff to do a replacement in store anyway or do as Sony or MS do with their consoles and do in-home replacement.
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By the way - Trading Standards are lovely people. If you get any major retail problems I’ve found that they are always fair and impartial.

Stockie