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What costs does a retailer have to refund when they refuse to exchange item.....

13

Comments

  • Guardsman
    Guardsman Posts: 991 Forumite
    You would not be the first person to swear on their life that they posted something only to later find it had slipped out of the envelope or simply forgot to enclose it..
    Scan have no way of knowing if you put it in the envelope or not and while it remains uncashed neither can you prove that they received the cheque
    I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
  • majica8
    majica8 Posts: 15 Forumite
    Guardsman wrote: »
    You would not be the first person to swear on their life that they posted something only to later find it had slipped out of the envelope or simply forgot to enclose it..
    Scan have no way of knowing if you put it in the envelope or not and while it remains uncashed neither can you prove that they received the cheque
    They aren't saying they recieved something and the cheque wasn't there, they are flat out refusing to admit they even recieved a letter, which I know they did. I also know damn well the cheque was in the envelope. I put the letter in, slipped the cheque into one of the folds, and sealed it. There is no where it could have gone except straight to Scan.
  • majica8
    majica8 Posts: 15 Forumite
    For those that said I was wasting my time, Scan have agreed to refund the postage.
  • wealdroam
    wealdroam Posts: 19,180 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    majica8 wrote: »
    For those that said I was wasting my time, Scan have agreed to refund the postage.
    And do you have a different message for those who didn't say you were wasting your time?

    ;)
  • rtho782
    rtho782 Posts: 1,189 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    My thoughts here, bearing in mind IANAL, although I have worked for a major UK electronics retailer as the manager of the team dealing with SOGA complaints...

    Under SOGA, they would be required to offer you a remedy (be that repair, replacement, or refund) within a reasonable time frame and without undue inconvienience, assuming a fault was proven (either by being inspected by an engineer, or by being within 6 months from new where there is a reverse burden of proof).

    It would seem they initially got the item in to themselves, decided they had proven it non faulty (PSUs can be hard, because it may work fine at 10% load and die at 100% load), and therefore were satisfied that it was fine, at which point their obligation to you ended, so they were entitled to charge you for inspection/return/etc of the unit. You chose to do this via a cheque, and you chose to pay for a premium delivery service (rather than say, first class or second class). Concieveably, it would have been possible for you to have chosen to do this in other ways, that would also cause you costs, or caused you more costs. For example, you could have used a sameday motorcycle courier to deliver the cheque, or paid on a business credit card or a prepaid mastercard that had a transaction fee. All of these fees would be outside their control.

    You then sent the item to OCZ who confirmed it to be faulty and replaced it, and have a working PSU.

    Scan have refunded the £36 they charged you, leaving you out a grand total of £1.55.

    At this point, the only way to force them to pay you this £1.55, would be to take it to court. There is not a law that would cover this precise scenario, but you would have to consider the following:

    * A judge may well consider a claim for this amount to be frivolous, vexatious, and a general waste of his time.
    * Scan could argue that the unit was fine when they tested it, and may have become faulty on the way to OCZ. You'd need some sort of engineers report to confirm that the item was faulty and not just replaced as a goodwill gesture or similar in order to dispute this.
    * Scan could argue that the £1.55 was not incurred by them, and was a cost of yours caused by your decision to pay by cheque and send via recorded delivery.

    I would say that for you to waste your time dealing with this (you have a working PC, play some games on steam!!) is probably pointless. Your only recourse is court, which is a poor bet (lets be generous and say you have a 50% chance of winning, small claims will cost you what, £60, so you are getting odds of 60-1 on for something you have a massive chance of losing. You'd be better off going to the casino and putting £60 on black.)

    For them to be refusing to pay £1.55, you have probably either seriously annoyed them in some way (despite the fact that you were right to complain and had a legitimate problem, taking a negative attitude with company staff will usually leave them looking for ways not to help you), or they have decided you are attempting to defraud them or that you will keep coming back for more if they give in.

    As someone that has managed a team that is likely similar to the people you've been dealing with at Scan, in this situation I'd usually be thinking that £1.55 isn't going to pay for more than 10 mins of my staff's wages, so if it takes more than 10 mins to tell you no, I'm better off just giving you your £1.55. If they aren't doing that, they must have some reason as above.

    I'm trying to be balanced rather than attacking you, but I really think you are wasting your time here, as your only recourse is court, which is a silly plan for you.

    I hope this helps!
  • wealdroam
    wealdroam Posts: 19,180 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    rtho782 wrote: »
    My thoughts here, bearing in mind IANAL, although I have worked for a major UK electronics retailer as the manager of the team dealing with SOGA complaints...
    I guess you didn't you read post #28? :D
  • majica8
    majica8 Posts: 15 Forumite
    wealdroam wrote: »
    And do you have a different message for those who didn't say you were wasting your time?

    ;)
    No one said that, so no, I don't.
  • arcon5
    arcon5 Posts: 14,099 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Oh my, I can't believe so much time has been spent trying to get a whopping £1.55 back!! You should have done some paid surveys or something instead, maybe earned £3-£4..
  • majica8
    majica8 Posts: 15 Forumite
    arcon5 wrote: »
    Oh my, I can't believe so much time has been spent trying to get a whopping £1.55 back!! You should have done some paid surveys or something instead, maybe earned £3-£4..
    It was never about the amount! I felt like my basic consumer rights were being ignored.
  • wealdroam
    wealdroam Posts: 19,180 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    majica8 wrote: »
    No one said that, so no, I don't.
    Well I for one didn't say you were wasting your time... so I didn't read post #28, as it wasn't applicable to me.
    :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
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