Return without box

Cooper18

Hi All,

I recently bought a piece of exercise equipment from a shop on the Amazon website (ie not Amazon itself).

The equipment arrived 4 days later with a part missing that rendered it unusable. Another part didn't work. I contacted customer services and they said they would post a spare out to me. A week later nothing had arrived so I contacted them again and they said the same thing, and that the first one must have got lost in the post. Now another week has passed and still no part, and this lump of a machine is collecting dust. I would like to return it for a refund.

It was actually a present for my OH so I'm annoyed and a little embarrassed! Problem is I chucked out the box because it was the size of a small coffin and I had no room for it. I've checked the site for details of returns but it doesn't appear to suggest I have to use the original box. Does anyone know different? Any advice before I contact customer services again? It's £400 gone with nothing to show for it.

frugal_mike

No, you do not need to return it in the original packaging. Tell the seller that you are rejecting the goods under the Sale Of Goods act.

What's more, if you reject the goods you may not even be required to return them at all. What do the terms of sale state?

36 Buyer not bound to return rejected goods.

Unless otherwise agreed, where goods are delivered to the buyer, and he refuses to accept them, having the right to do so, he is not bound to return them to the seller, but it is sufficient if he intimates to the seller that he refuses to accept them.

Also note that if you paid by credit card then as the goods cost more than £100 you are covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. Your credit card has equal liability to the seller in giving you a refund and you can claim against them if you want. I would contact the seller first though.

Cooper18

frugal_mike wrote: »

No, you do not need to return it in the original packaging. Tell the seller that you are rejecting the goods under the Sale Of Goods act.

What's more, if you reject the goods you may not even be required to return them at all. What do the terms of sale state?



Also note that if you paid by credit card then as the goods cost more than £100 you are covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. Your credit card has equal liability to the seller in giving you a refund and you can claim against them if you want. I would contact the seller first though.

Thanks Mike, that's interesting! If nothing has turned up by 5pm tonight I'll start constructing my email to them! I have no problem returning it (somehow!) because I'm sure I can find a box in work but the whole inconvenience of it puts me off. The thing weighs a tonne.

artbaron

frugal_mike wrote: »

What's more, if you reject the goods you may not even be required to return them at all. What do the terms of sale state?

That's rejection of delivery, not of the goods post-delivery.

I'd double check they're sending the replacement to the correct address and that there's no miscommunication on their part, i.e. the part not being in stock but the seller not notifying Amazon of this. It's also possible the seller is lying to Amazon. If Amazon have the correct info they're normally very quick and efficient with returns. I returned something yesterday (not in its original box) and the replacement arrived this morning. Before that I rejected an item and its replacement arrived 18 hours later, before I'd even packaged up the old one (that was a £400+ value item too).

frugal_mike

artbaron wrote: »

That's rejection of delivery, not of the goods post-delivery.

Is it? That's not how I read it. Section 36 specifically uses the verb 'accept', and the previous section is all about defining acceptance. It would be very confusing of the author(s) if after all that definition they used the phrase 'refuses to accept [the goods]' to mean just refusing delivery.

And section 37 is all about the buyer refusing delivery of the goods, and it doesn't talk about not accepting the goods but rather talks about refusing delivery and lists the penalties to the buyer when he does that, so I took section 36 to mean acceptance of the goods, not just the delivery.

Also it would seem a bit redundant to have a term that said that if you don't take possession of the goods then you don't need to return them.

Cooper18

Just to update - I got the missing part, installed it, and OH used the machine for 20 seconds before realising it doesn't actually work.... So it's definitely going back! I've started the returns process with Amazon (never done that before so bit clueless) so fingers crossed this gets resolved ASAP. And that I don't need the original box. And that I don't need to hump it to the post office!! Lol!

Going to say "I told you so" to my OH who should have allowed me to buy the machine I wanted to buy her in the first place, which we can buy from an actual shop, with actual people in it. Though its almost 3 times the price....but hey, she's worth it!:p