Advice please on a sale

motley

Hi folks, i can sort this out on this occasion but i need advice if this happen again or if the guy doesn't want to go along with my resolution.

Saturday a guy brings in a £1100 PC that is still under warranty. I was serving another customer, but one of my staff gets me to come over and he points on the warranty seal on the gaming PC has been broken. The lad had been having problems with the graphics card and had taken the pc apart and had obviously been trying to fix it.

I pointed out the seal and the best i could do was post the card back to the manufacturer for a replacement. He wasn't happy, he wanted another £200 card off the shelf. But this way, neither parties suffer a loss.

Anyway the interesting thing that complicates things is once they left, my employee reminded me who they were. They hadnt bought the computer from us, but second hand from the original owner about 10 months ago for £400 or £500, i cant remember exactly.

I can still send the card back, does the new owner have rights? if they don't have any rights can i say to them, ok i will send it back, but i want to you to cover the costs of sending it back. and charge a standard hours labour to sort it out for them. Its not like a computer has a massive profit in it nowadays so is it fair to cover my costs.

thanks

AJXX

If it was purchased 2nd hand from a private individual then the new owner does not have any such rights under SOGA (rights only apply when purchased from a business)

However a standard warranty would usually remain on the machine itself, not customer.

You say that the warranty seal was broken? Therefore you can't really charge a fee to send off the card/insert/remove it if you frown upon people opening the machine in the first place... that's a bit unfair.

Who put this seal on and what is its purpose?

motley

hi, we built the PC, we put a seal on the case. An anti tamper seal

bris

You owe them nothing, they have no warranty unless your terms tell them it's transferable.

motley

I do want to help them, and send the card back. Its only fair, I just wanted to know my rights. People can pressurise younger members of staff, and knowing where you stand is useful.

AJXX

motley wrote: »

hi, we built the PC, we put a seal on the case. An anti tamper seal

I think it would be fair in that case to say since the seal is busted we'll charge £X to diagnose the issue and get the card checked by the manufacturer. From a customer service point of view don't quote shipping as extra, that just seems petty.

For example just say £55 (or whatever you charge) for a diagnosis and manufacturer to examine the card.

unholyangel

bris is spot on.

You can decide the terms of your warranty (providing your terms are reasonable of course) and that includes whether the warranty can be transferred. You could also (in theory) charge an admin charge for the transfer of the warranty.

I take it you've seen the receipt from when he purchased it from your customer? If not, I'd ask to see this. For all you know he's purchased it as non-working for parts, found it/received it free of charge or possibly even stole it.

I can understand you want to provide a good service - even if they arent a customer of yours. But personally at the very least I'd be making it clear to the pc owner that they have no contractual/statutory rights with you and anything you are offering to provide is goodwill.

Just felt it might be useful to highlight that with you saying he wasnt happy and wanted a brand new one off the shelves.