No receipt for my broken Homebase Spade!

andycharger

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anyone has some consumer advice on my situation.

In January/February this year, I went to Homebase to spend my National Garden voucher on a new spade for the garden.

Wanting "something to last" I decided on a Homebase spade with a 5 year guarantee. My logic being "If its supposed to last 5 years under their guarantee, it must be built to last!"

How wrong can I be.
I went to use it yesterday and it snapped. It looks like brand new as its hardly been used. I also bought a hoe at the same time, also with the 5 year guarantee.

Thinking that I could just take it back, I walked into Homebase yesterday morning and told them the situation. Ive had the 5 year guarantee spade for 8 months and its broken. I dont have the receipt, I bought it with my garden voucher so there is also no details of purchase on my bank card statement.

I was told by the manager that there was nothing she could do as she could not claim her money back from the supplier (er, its clearly a Homebase spade!) and without the receipt I could not have a replacement.

As I said to her, obviously they change the models and styles from time to time and you can see it is the current model and not an old spade. It looks brand new!

Again she said the appearance or condition would not wash with the supplier.

I then left stating "that does not help me out does it?"

So my question is this:

What are my consumer rights on the 5 year guarantee without proof of purchase?

Should I write to head office with my grievance as how many other people would keep their receipt on a spade for 5 years?

There must be sonething a company like Homebase can do to replace it and check the model as its clearly a newish model?

I felt that if i had known more about consumer rights, I could have been more firm with them.

I look forward to your replies and hopefully getting somewhere with my broken spade!

Andy

Esqui

You will need some proof of purchase - you'll find this is the case under the guarantee and the Sale of Goods Act.

How do they know it wasn't stolen from the store?

shaun_from_Africa

I felt that if i had known more about consumer rights, I could have been more firm with them.

Unfortunately, without some form of proof of purchase you don't have any way to enforce the consumer rights that you do have.

It might well be worthwhile forgetting about the store and writing to the customer services dept of their head office.
Explain exactly how you came about getting the spade, and mention that it's is in extremely good condition (apart from the handle), and ask if they would be able to check what that particular model first went on sale, and if it was less than 5 years ago, would they be able to replace it under their 5 year warranty.

It might help if you send a good quality photograph as well.

deanos

if you tell them the exact day and sort of time purchased they can look it up on there computer, they have done this for me in the past without a receipt

ThumbRemote

Buy a new spade.
Take the faulty spade back with the new receipt and get it replaced.
Give the duplicate spade to a loved one as a Christmas present.

Zandoni

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Buy a new spade.
Take the faulty spade back with the new receipt and get it replaced.
Give the duplicate spade to a loved one as a Christmas present.

Or better still get a refund.