refund refusal

schnodders

I recently bought a pair of shoes for a wedding, I put them on and set off walking to the cathedral, when the heel tip came off (30 minutes after putting them on for the 1st time!) I was 8 hours drive from home and there was no cobbler and I had no other suitable shoes to wear, so I was forced to carr on wearing them so the heel is wrecked as well now. I have sent them back to the shop and they have offered to repair them and give me £20 voucher, the shoes have been reduced by £20 since I bought them! I have asked them for a refund but they have refused. Am I entitled to one?

ecombo

schnodders wrote: »

I recently bought a pair of shoes for a wedding, I put them on and set off walking to the cathedral, when the heel tip came off (30 minutes after putting them on for the 1st time!) I was 8 hours drive from home and there was no cobbler and I had no other suitable shoes to wear, so I was forced to carr on wearing them so the heel is wrecked as well now. I have sent them back to the shop and they have offered to repair them and give me £20 voucher, the shoes have been reduced by £20 since I bought them! I have asked them for a refund but they have refused. Am I entitled to one?

I bet your only annoyed cause they have been reduced and you want a refund cause of this reason.

What is wrong with a repair and the £20 voucher?

schnodders

Because it was my best friends wedding, I spent hours planning my outfit, yes I may be a bit sad but I have 2 very small children therefore don't get chance to dress up very often, I felt a million dollars until it happened then like a scruff! I am not annoyed about the £20 reduction, more a point that they are not really giving me a voucher at all!

neilmcl

The very fact that you continued to wear them after discovering the original fault, means you would be deemed to have accepted them and therefore wouldn't automatically be entitled to a refund. A repair plus £20 voucher seems pretty reasonable to me, I can't see the problem.

frugal_mike

Well the sale of goods act allows you to reject faulty goods for a full refund if 'acceptance' has not occurred. There are several factors that determine this, including whether a reasonable amount of time has passed and whether you have done anything inconsistent with the sellers ownership of the shoes. It could be argued that acceptance has not occurred in your case since they broke on your first use, depending on how long it is since you bought them.

If acceptance has occurred then the retailer is allowed to pick either a refund, repair or replacement, whichever is cheapest.

hollydays

neilmcl wrote: »

The very fact that you continued to wear them after discovering the original fault, means you would be deemed to have accepted them and therefore wouldn't automatically be entitled to a refund. A repair plus £20 voucher seems pretty reasonable to me, I can't see the problem.

How could she not continue to wear them, or have I missed something? She wore the, on the day only as I read it.
I think the offers pretty reasonable as things go, and these little heels do get caught very easily in paving stones when walking.

little_miss_muppet_face

Do you still have the receipt.. I'm sure you can get the price you paid if you do if they are faulty ..

vuvuzela

ecombo wrote: »

I bet your only annoyed cause they have been reduced and you want a refund cause of this reason.

What is wrong with a repair and the £20 voucher?

Please ignore this person. They were banned a while back and have now returned to dole out yet more poor advice and insults.

arcon5

Since much of SOGA is based around the test of reasonableness then couldn't op argue it is unreasonable to expect her to walk around bare footed for the rest of the day, thus exposing herself to a level of personal harm.

I suspect a defense of 'she should have taken them off and walked without shoes to avoid further damage' would be rejected by any judge with an ounce of sense.

Op says they was bought "recently" - for me it would come down to how recently? If within the last week for example then you'd probably have a right to reject them. If a few weeks ago then you'd be entitled to a remedy rather than a refund specifically.

bod1467

Arcon5 makes a valid point ... "acceptance" (through time) isn't deemed from when you first use an item (at least not usually, though there are some exceptions), it is deemed from when the purchase was made. If the shoes were bought a few weeks ago then it doesn't matter that they broke on the first wear - that first wear could (and should) have been before the day in question - the time of ownership will mean the shop is fully within their rights. In fact they didn't even need to offer a £20 voucher - a repair is all they were obliged to offer.

A tangent - I don't understand why people buy shoes for an event (which likely means wearing the shoes all day), yet don't try out the shoes to see if they are even suitable for wearing for that length of time. Yet these same people are usually the first to complain about their feet hurting.

frugal_mike

I definitely agree that expecting OP to walk around bare foot should be deemed unreasonable and hopefully wouldn't be taken as acceptance by a judge. As for the reasonableness of the length of time, its a difficult one. I think if the shoes were of a style that they would be expected to be worn only for special occasions then the reasonable time should be longer than for everyday shoes. A heel falling off may take an hour or more of wear so would be difficult to predict from a quick test run of the shoes, and is a pretty catastrophic failure of the shoe.