Sale of goods act - Proportionate Refund

Shadoe

I purchased a headset for my son through Ebuyer last March for £21.50 with a 2 year warranty, by November they had become faulty with the mic not working, but being busy i didn't get around to reporting them until the middle of December. They arranged to pick them up at the end of December and a few days later informed me that they could not repair them.

They arranged another order to replace them, which they then cancelled as they do not stock them anymore, but giving me no feedback on what would happen next. I raised and e-note ticket with them to ask what was happening and received a note back to say that they were now going to refund me, but only £18.81 which i queried and they cited the sale of goods act and proportionate refund, which i cannot really dispute, but there lay the rub as they claimed i had, had use of them for 304 days which equated to a refund of £18.81, but when i pointed out that they had miscalculated and i had only actually had them from delivery to fault report for 275 days, they then claimed that it was still £18.81?

I asked them to furnish me with the formula that they had worked this out with just so i can be happy that this is correct, which they have refused to do and have now refunded my money without resolving my query or offering any other options, is this right? Do we just have to take their word that they have worked the figures out correctly and i have to take it regardless?

I know that this is just a matter of a few pounds and pennies, but my son has also just purchased a £500 computer from them and this could well come back and involve much larger amounts in the future.

Any thoughts or comments would be welcome.

CoolHotCold

Personally, if a company offered a pro-rata refund within the 1st year, I'd no longer use them. There are far better companies to use who look after customers better than ebuyer.


As far as the formula, no you have no right to confidential business equations, it's akin to asking google their search ranking formula.

You essentially have three options.

Ask for more money
Accept it
Dispute it and follow it through with the small claim court.

JJ_Egan

You are getting away with it ten months use for a couple of quid .

Shadoe

CoolHotCold wrote: »

Personally, if a company offered a pro-rata refund within the 1st year, I'd no longer use them. There are far better companies to use who look after customers better than ebuyer.


As far as the formula, no you have no right to confidential business equations, it's akin to asking google their search ranking formula.

You essentially have three options.

Ask for more money
Accept it
Dispute it and follow it through with the small claim court.

That is probably where i am struggling a little, as i fail to see how this is some huge secret?

They are quoting the sale of goods act in their favour, which i accept is their right to do so and as you have said it is also my choice to now take my business elsewhere. I have worked in and around retail for over 25 years now and never worked in a company that for the sake of customer relations would enforce that rule with an item under warranty, but there we are. The concern is that although they enforce that right, they will not tell you how they enforce it or how they calculate that enforcement, so for all we know they can spin a wheel in the office and pick a random figure out of the air, how are we to know?

CoolHotCold

Shadoe wrote: »

That is probably where i am struggling a little, as i fail to see how this is some huge secret?

They are quoting the sale of goods act in their favour, which i accept is their right to do so and as you have said it is also my choice to now take my business elsewhere. I have worked in and around retail for over 25 years now and never worked in a company that for the sake of customer relations would enforce that rule with an item under warranty, but there we are. The concern is that although they enforce that right, they will not tell you how they enforce it or how they calculate that enforcement, so for all we know they can spin a wheel in the office and pick a random figure out of the air, how are we to know?

Doesn't matter. The SoGA doesn't stipulate how it has to be worked out. You either accept the figure or not.

McKneff

I just couldn't be bothered.....


In time its costing you more than that typing all this on here.


I would just move on which is exactly what I am going to do now x

Shadoe

CoolHotCold wrote: »

Doesn't matter. The SoGA doesn't stipulate how it has to be worked out. You either accept the figure or not.

I understand that there is no set formula, otherwise i would not ask them to provide it, what i am saying is why is it such a huge secret if it is their standard practice to enforce this law.

I work with a finance firm currently and if we refund someone we have to detail exactly how that refund is worked out for the sake of clarity and also up front our contracts detail exactly what a customer is entitled to in return should they pull out of that contract at a particular point, we cannot have 'secrets' from our customers.

I am not asking for the code to unlock the crown jewels, i just paid 'x' amount for an item, they are offering 'y' in return which is their right and all i want to know is how they arrived at that figure?

The other point that i made in my original post is that they have not waited for me to accept or not, they have already made the refund anyway regardless knowing that i am unlikely to take them to small claims over a matter of a few pennies.

vuvuzela

Shadoe wrote: »

I understand that there is no set formula, otherwise i would not ask them to provide it, what i am saying is why is it such a huge secret if it is their standard practice to enforce this law.

I work with a finance firm currently and if we refund someone we have to detail exactly how that refund is worked out for the sake of clarity and also up front our contracts detail exactly what a customer is entitled to in return should they pull out of that contract at a particular point, we cannot have 'secrets' from our customers.

I am not asking for the code to unlock the crown jewels, i just paid 'x' amount for an item, they are offering 'y' in return which is their right and all i want to know is how they arrived at that figure?

The other point that i made in my original post is that they have not waited for me to accept or not, they have already made the refund anyway regardless knowing that i am unlikely to take them to small claims over a matter of a few pennies.

As you say, they don't have to tell you as they're not a finance company, and every company will run its own formulae on different items.
However from the figures quoted, they've deducted 1/8th of the value, therefore looks like they think the headphones should have lasted 8 years. Which is probably overstating things a touch...

I totally agree with those who say that even though they can deduct during the first 12 month warranty period, it is an extreemely shoddy way of doing business and I will certainly think twice before using them again.

gik

They've deducted 12.5% from the refund for the nine months use your son had.

Shadoe

Reading some of the replies, my apology if i have upset you or wasted your time, but i was just genuinely curious as to how a law can be enforced without actually detailing how that law is being enforced, it just seems weird to me in these days when transparency seems to be the buzzword when it comes to dealing with customers.

To those that have offered some thoughts and comments, thank you, they are appreciated.

wealdroam

As has been said, how they work it out is their business.

If we assume a linear 'cost of use' of the life of the product, then it appears that the expected life of the thing might be between six and seven years. That's probably about right for a £21 headset.

However, others might suggest that the value of technology items decrease at a very high rate during the earlier years.
If Ebuyer took this view, they could possibly decide a third or more should be deducted for the use you have had.

I too think that a less than £3 deductions is 'ok'.

I also agree with CoolHotCold where he says:

CoolHotCold wrote: »

Personally, if a company offered a pro-rata refund within the 1st year, I'd no longer use them. There are far better companies to use who look after customers better than ebuyer.