Currys refused refund - advice

bs7

eVOLVE wrote: »

When I mentioned that it was only the manufacturer's guarantee that covered him, I was referring to the fact that 4 months is clearly well beyond a reasonable period of time so the sale of goods act wouldn't cover a refund/replacement of the item... basically you're just down to your manufacturer's 'warranty' period as to how the item would be dealt with.

Infact, as BS7 mentioned... not all shops would even give you 28 days before considering the goods accepted, although if something was for a gift, we'd always try and write it (and the birthday etc. date) on the receipt in case when it was opened it was faulty, and the goods hadn't been checked in time. Equally, most shops (ours included) will operate a similar thing around Christmas, whereby anything bought after November or so can be brought back up until mid January if there is anything wrong. This is to avoid any issues to do with defining a reasonable period of time to assess the goods.



I will repeat myself in mentioning that if someone comes into the store and shouts at me for their product breaking as if it was my fault, then starts ranting conspiracy theory about the fact that their item has broken in a month and a half rather than within 28 days, you can understand my unwillingness to break standard procedure and bend the rules to try and help. It's not about caring about customer service, but caring about the customers, and the majority of stores will only care about customers if the customer gives them a reason to, rather than the way it should be, which is caring for them unless they have a reason not to. (I'm proud to say with minimal exception that was our store).

The Sale of Goods Act does cover replacement - so that shouldn't be grouped with 'refund'. Although from what you're saying, it would suggest that whether the store offers to replace or repair an item will depend on the agreement with the manufacturer, rather than the discretion of the store.

rizel23

This makes me laugh, i used to have the unpleasantness of haven't to working in Curry's whilst i was studying, and customers such as yourself really made my day, 4 months after you bought it you bring it back for a refund? Do you not wonder why there are helplines in your manual in case of a problem with he unit?

eVOLVE_3

BS7: Yup. That's the way it works. The procedure is already in place, and for the items that generally get repaired (white goods and the more expensive brown goods) the store doesn't actually have any leeway without going through the manufacturer. Normally what the store will do if there's a fault or anything is contact the manufacturer and they'll organise the engineer to visit. Asking them to simply replace an item can work on rare occassions (such as if the manufacturer is preparing a recall/fix) but in any normal situation, will never work. The engineer has to visit to try and repair it, and only if he can't (or it's not cost effective) will he then agree to replace the whole item... naturally then the store has to do it, but only with the specified authorisation number.

Here's something interesting to know... if you contact the manufacturer yourself trying to get a problem fixed (exactly the same as going through the store - but I'd recommend doing it through the store, simply because they often have more direct numbers and they'll be paying for the phone call) you're hoping to get an 'uplift number'. With the uplift number, a store can just swap over the items (it's basically the authorisation to replace rather than repair) but again, it has to come through the manufacturer.

If the store chooses to replace an items without going through the repair route first, then more often than not they'll be stuck with a broken item stuck in the back of the store until they can either write it off (at full loss - and bear in mind that isn't cancelled out by 'selling' the new one, since the margin is normally between 10-20%, so they'd still take a loss of 60-80% of the full price) or try to get an engineer to visit the store to repair it, then sell it as pre-owned ex-repair stock... and if the item is previously sold, an engineer won't visit the store to fix it.

merlin48

Sulli, you seemed to have disappeared from the dicussion but if I may just ask, how long do you expect the internal battery to last?

sco0ter

angieb1606 wrote: »

please can i just ask the question as to what ipod ya brought

It was an IPOD NANO.

vaio

merlin48 wrote: »

Sulli, you seemed to have disappeared from the dicussion but if I may just ask, how long do you expect the internal battery to last?

My mio 168 lasts 3 hours on a full charge and is still fine after three years

Sounds reasonable

sco0ter

Yup my sainsburys Micromaxx (MIO 168) PPC works for 3 hours runing TOMTOM no problem and thats just under 3 years old

looby-loo_2

I use Curry's only for researching when I wn to have a look before buing from elsewhere. Then I tell the asistant why I'm not buying from them and politely say bye-bye!
I tried to return a broken alarm clock after 3-4 days. It was their own make and they said 'it might not be ours' the they implied that I may have stolen it. Never bought anthing else from them

looby-loo_2

Sorry - multiply post happened

looby-loo_2

and again - sorry