Currys, Blackberry & sale of goods act

Shimrod

vyle wrote: »

By taking it in under warranty, then changing your mind to SOGA half way through, you're effectively telling someone you want a green Tshirt, then insisting you asked for blue.

Either you're invoking your warranty (potentially faster resolution), or you're invoking SOGA (could take a while). Not both at once.

When I returned it to the shop, I was hoping to persuade them do to an exchange as I was due to go on holiday and wanted to take it with me. They took it in for repair, but then left a message the following day saying I had to come into the store to speak to Blackberry. Annoyingly, you can't phone a Currys store direct so I had to drive down there to talk to them.

bod1467

vyle wrote: »

If you have taken it to Currys to be repaired under warranty, they're quite within their rights to ask you to speak with BB.

I suspect OP is like 99%+ of consumers - he has taken a faulty product back to the retailer for a remedy. He won't have mentioned the BB warranty at all - it will be Currys being @rsey not the OP changing his mind.

rs65

Shimrod wrote: »

I've been through all the options from the internet including stack charging and buying a rapid charger pod. I noticed the problem when the battery was still at 36%. Even though it showed it was charging, the battery was still going down. I've been away for a week, and now the battery is completely depleted - it will show the 'I need power before I can boot' icon, but it just won't charge.

Sounds a different problem to me. I only had the problem at battery empty. Wait until red light goes off, unplug, plug in - repeat about 30 times. Eventually it had enough charge to start and then charged no problem.

vyle

bod1467 wrote: »

I suspect OP is like 99%+ of consumers - he has taken a faulty product back to the retailer for a remedy. He won't have mentioned the BB warranty at all - it will be Currys being @rsey not the OP changing his mind.

I'd say if it's been taken into a shop for a remedy, it's fair to assume that they're looking for a remedy under the warranty.

But that being said, whoever accepted it back should have checked the returns procedure before sending OP away, and rung BB on their behalf while they're there. That's what I do where I work.

Shimrod

vyle wrote: »

I'd say if it's been taken into a shop for a remedy, it's fair to assume that they're looking for a remedy under the warranty.

I did as suggested on the Currys website here: http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/returns-cancellations-1043-theme.html

"Most products come with at least a 1 year guarantee, so if your product develops a fault after 21 days and within the remaining guarantee period we will firstly offer you a prompt repair service. If a repair service isn’t available for your product will offer you a suitable replacement. How do I return my product?

Store: You can return the product to one of our stores with proof of purchase"

On my first visit I did not mention warranty or SOGA.

vyle

Shimrod wrote: »

I did as suggested on the Currys website here: http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/returns-cancellations-1043-theme.html

"Most products come with at least a 1 year guarantee, so if your product develops a fault after 21 days and within the remaining guarantee period we will firstly offer you a prompt repair service. If a repair service isn’t available for your product will offer you a suitable replacement. How do I return my product?

Store: You can return the product to one of our stores with proof of purchase"

On my first visit I did not mention warranty or SOGA.

Indeed, that's why I can't blame them for assuming that by default that you were talking about the warranty -- after all you were following their warranty return instructions.

I don't know what Currys' procedure is, but where I work our returns policy for warranty goods is to return it to us, and we fill in the paperwork and act as an agent of sorts between the customer and the repair agent.

In some instances (Tom Tom and Nintendo being two) they will not, under any circumstances talk to us, so in those cases, before the customer goes, we ring up the manufacturer, hand them over to take the details, and then finish the job. I would expect that currys would (or should) do the same thing in those cases, such as with Blackberry.

However, when you mentioned:

My argument was that under the sale of goods act Currys should repair, replace or refund and I shouldn't have to talk to Blackberry

They had started warranty procedures. I don't know of anywhere that ever asks for clarity as to whether youre doing things through one channel or the other, so they're saying, "[under warranty] you need to speak to RIM."

You pretty much replied: "I don't want to do that, and you shouldn't ask me to because I want to exercise my rights under SOGA now... and you should have known my consumer rights and preferences for legal action and acted on those, rather than thinking that we were continuing on the warranty route."

It muddies things a bit is all I'm saying, because you're arguing against the warranty -- which you were inadvertantly using -- in favour of something else entirely.

As I said, Curry should have dealt with the phonecall issue there and then, and they slipped up there, but it doesn't help matters when you're trying to use the warranty, then decide you'd rather use the SOGA.

In the few instances where I've used the SOGA, I've always done so by letter to head office rather than taking stuff into branch, because it's better to have a documented paper chain rather than assuming on the branch's in store knowledge of the law.