Faulty flashgun

thegreenman1

I purchased a Pentax flashgun in Nov 2010 from curry's online. The flash was reduced from £245 to £99. It has since failed, at less than two years old, so I am less than impressed with it.

I have taken it back to currys, but they refuse to look at it and insist I contact pentax directly for a repair. Is this correct? I thought that for an item such as this, I should expect curry's to deal with it and have the unit repaired, or replaced. It is less than two years old after all.

I have e-mailed their customer services dept but have not received a reply yet. Is it worth persuing this, or should I just suck it up and buy another flash gun?

tia

shaun_from_Africa

Your rights under the SOGA are basically as follows.

All goods sold by a business are expected to be of a reasonable quality and have a reasonable life (the actual time isn't defined anywhere), and this time can take into account the price of the item.

You have up to 6 years to try to claim from the retailer (this doesn't mean that all goods must last 6 years), and after 6 months from purchase, you may be asked to prove that the fault was due to a manufacturing defect and not misuse.

If you are able to prove an inherrent fault (manufacturing defect), they can offer a refund, repair or replacement, and if they offer the refund, it doesn't have to be the full value paid as they can reduce this to take into account the use you have had from the item.

Even though your rights are with the retailer, you can still contact the manufacturer to see if they are willing to help, and there may well be a warranty that will cover a repair.

Hintza

Shaun is absolutely correct. So to avoid the possible expense of an engineers report (refundable if manufacturing fault) why not at least contact Pentax in the first instance and see what they suggest.

You must also realise that all manufactured things will have a fail rate, some will fail in a short space of time, most will fail in a number of years and the odd one will make it into a museum. You have probably been unlucky.