Dell and sale of goods act

jinxsi

I purchased a dell pc in January 2007. It has never been functioning properly but I casually failed to report it as faulty within 21 days. Dell have a returns policy based upon 21 days. I have been in contact with dell support regularly over the last 82 days, this has taken up many many hours of my time. So far, in their efforts to put things right dell have updated drivers and bios, replaced some leads, 2 graphics cards and 3 motherboards. Last week the engineer called to fit the third motherboard and declined because it was again faulty and he rang dell support himself and ended up arguing with them. I am left with a machine that is totally unusable.

I have asked dell for a refund and they have declined, they will only replace like for like, but I have lost faith in the components used in this particular machine (XPS 710) and I don’t want another one. I would accept a credit but that’s not acceptable to dell either.

Am I entitled to my money back?

Jinxsi

yummymummy79

Regardless of what Dell policy says, and what they would like to think the law says, your options are repair, replace, full or partial refund. Now repair has been tried and failed, so that;s that one done. Replacement could be OK, your argument against this will have to be that you've lost faith, no reason why you couldn't ask for alternative of similar value although it is normally like for like replacement. Refund is something you could ask for, I would think that full refund would be reasonable in your case rather than partial as you have hardly had any decent use out of it along with all the inconvenience.

Another thing in your favour is that if an item develops a problem within 6 months of purchase, then the fault is said to have been there from the time of sale and it is down to Dell to prove otherwise. This could be difficult for them as if the PC was OK, it wouldn't have needed all these repairs in it's short life.

So in a nutshell, the answer to your last question is a big fat YES!

deanos

The trouble with Dell is you will get through to Mumbai most of the time and rightly so they have no grasp of UK LAW, i would write to the UK office or try and talk to the Irish call centre

Crabman

Did you buy it on a credit card? If so you always have that additional avenue by obtaining a refund through your credit card company. However you'd first need to show that you've reached deadlock with DELL and also copy all correspondence (incl. invoice) to the credit card company.

Maybe you've already seen it, but here it is anyway: Consumer rights: how to make 'em play fair

Echo deanos re: contacting the uk staff by letter... hope you're not using the 0870 number to call them and earn them more money from your troubles!

Crabman

dangeroussports

Trouble with Dell computers is thier computers and laptops.

They should not sell such second class workmanship.

They are really useless.

mrbnewc1

Surprised by Dell's poor customer service here. We had a problem with our PC and they sorted it out without any bother at all.

Having recently had reason to contact trading standards about a similar situation, i'd say that you are most definitely entitled to a refund. I think you have been more than reasonable with them in terms of attempting repair several times, therefore i think they should be reasonable with you and refund you.

Let us know how you get on.

:beer: