Ebuyer partial refund under warranty

MonsterKraken

Yes, I understand this i standard practice from ebuyer where they can get away with it.

However, in this case I bought a Toshiba internal hard drive (with 2 year warranty) from them just under 2 years ago. The drive went crazy (SMART errors galore) and I looked into a warranty repair / replacement.

Toshiba's guidance on this is clear:

h**ps://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/eu/product/storage-products/warranty-support.html

"If you bought the Toshiba Hard Disk Drive from a shop, then guarantee claims can only be made with the shop which sold you the drive. The contents of the guarantee comply with the legal regulations in the country, in which the product was purchased."

They do not offer an end-user warranty, and all warranty claims must be made via the original vendor.

So I raised and RMA with ebuyer (being clear I was making a claim under warranty) and once the item was received back I got the standard:

"As per our terms and conditions and in line with the Sale of Goods Act 1979, as this item is over 6 months old you will only qualify for a proportionate refund of the original purchase price. Therefore we are unable to issue a replacement as initially requested."

I challenged them on this, as I was not making a claim under SOGA. They said:

"To confirm, a return was accepted for the drive due a warranty fault. It has been tested and confirmed to be faulty. If the fault was repairable we would have returned it back to the manufacturer for repair but I'm afraid that it wasn't repairable. As such you have been refunded a partial amount. This is in line with the Sale of Goods Act due to the purchase being before 1 October 2015. If a faulty item cannot be repaired or replaced you are entitled to your money back, minus an amount for the usage you've had of the goods. "

Is this right? Can I challenge them to pass the drive on to Toshiba for their own testing? This just feels like them using their standard SOGA response regardless of this being a warranty return (via them) to Toshiba.

dj1471

If the drive can't be repaired or replaced, as eBuyer are stating, what other resolution are you looking for?

What does the warranty say you're entitled to in the event of a drive failure when a direct replacement isn't available?

shaun_from_Africa

If it was me, I would contact Toshiba directly and tell them what has happened and ask what is the point in them providing a 2 year warranty if retailers are free to override this.
There is a very good chance that they don't know what is happening.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that ebuyer have returned the faulty drive to Toshiba and they will be given a new replacement which they will then sell at the full retail price.

shaun_from_Africa

dj1471 wrote: »

What does the warranty say you're entitled to in the event of a drive failure when a direct replacement isn't available?

The warranty states that the driver will be repaired or replaced with an equivalent spec item.

This Warranty covers the costs of service parts and labour required to restore your hard disk or SSD to full working order. Toshiba will, at its option, repair or replace any defective hard disk or SSD or parts thereof covered by this Warranty with new or factory-refurbished parts or hard disk or SSD that are equal to new products in performance. A hard disk or SSD or part that is repaired or replaced under this Warranty shall be covered for the remainder of the original warranty period applying to the hard disk or SSD or part.

MonsterKraken

dj1471 wrote: »

What does the warranty say you're entitled to in the event of a drive failure when a direct replacement isn't available?

The drive is actually still available to buy at ebuyer too, so a direct replacement is available.

h**p://***.ebuyer.com/481473-toshiba-3tb-3-5-sata-desktop-hard-drive-dt01aca300

dj1471

Fair enough, eBuyer don't have a defence in that case.

Quote the warranty to them and see if Toshiba will help as suggested. Does the warranty actually say you need to go to the retailer or was this Toshiba fobbing you off? Seems odd to me that they don't offer warranty service directly to the customer.

DoaM

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised to find that ebuyer have returned the faulty drive to Toshiba and they will be given a new replacement which they will then sell at the full retail price.

This is almost certainly what is happening. Ebuyer are well-renowned for such charlatan-like actions.

MonsterKraken

Well, I've gone back and forth with them all afternoon on eNote, and they've finally got the hump and told me no:

"I am sorry that you remain unhappy with this but the RMA has been processed in accordance with our return policy and in line with the Sale of Goods Act due to the purchase being before 1 October 2015."

I've contacted Toshiba (by email, their phone line is constantly engaged) to see what I can try next.

CoolHotCold

Unfortunately you sent your hard drive to ebuyer and they processed your claim in accordance to your consumer rights.

If you wanted to claim under Toshiba Warranty, then you should have followed the Toshiba Warranty processes, which is explained Here (PDF Warning)

Which takes you to http://www.externalhdd.storrepair.de


Sorry, but ebuyer are within their rights to process your claim in the most cost effective manner to them.

bris

Ebuyer would have tried to have this repaired as the first option is always better than a refund to them even it is it is partial.


Toshiba will have said uneconomical to repair so deal with it and in line with their obligations they did just that.


Ebuyer is simply following the law, they owe you nothing more than that. The bad guy here will be Toshoba as it them who are supposed to fix or replace warranty returns.


If you think any of the big computer set ups are any better then sadly this is not the case, my blacklist is with them all apart from Scan and Ebuyer as, as yet I haven't actually had to return anything to them yet.

MonsterKraken

Contacted Toshiba:

" the warranty process for these drives is not handled directly by Toshiba, therefore we do not have any process to possibility to grant a repair or replacement.

Furthermore if your drive was already sent to your dealer, you have to contact him and claim your rightful warranty directly from him."

back to ebuyer then.

This isn't going to get resolved of course. Headline here is, don't buy a internal Toshiba HDD if you're expecting the warranty to be honoured.