Defective electronic past warranty

Racxie

Hi all,

I had purchased a Microsoft Band 2 from Amazon in December 2015 which had developed a well known manufacturer defect. From what I understand going by an MSE article and a few searches, this should be covered up to 6 years under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 if I can prove that it is as a result of a manufacturer flaw.

In this case the issue is well known as it was reported on by news outlets and by many owners in various online forums, and I believe it is something Microsoft themselves were aware of as they had tried to improve later iterations of the product.

Due to suffering from long-term depression (for which I have medical evidence) it took me awhile to contact Microsoft about this issue (I believe sometime last year but cannot find the email with the support conversation) and was told that they will not deal with this as the warranty has expired. I've only just now been able to face trying to deal with this again, and realised I would need to contact Amazon as they were the seller.

I've just now received a response from Amazon advising me that as I purchased the product roughly 37 months ago with no reported fault until now, they believe me to have had "satisfactory use" of the product, and as a result they are unable to offer me a repair, replacement, or refund of the replacement value. However as a measure of goodwill they have applied £30 to my Amazon gift card balance.

One issue with this is that they didn't ask me when the fault occurred, which admittedly did happen probably roughly 6-12 months ago (more or less shortly after the 1 year warranty cut off point). So it is my fault for not having reported sooner, but as mentioned above my depression hasn't made this easy - something I had not mentioned either in my conversation with Amazon. The other issue is that it still costs £140 brand new on Amazon (through a marketplace seller), and this is especially a lot of money as I'm currently not working so would be unable to replace it myself (finances are tight enough as it is without any income).

So I would like advice as to whether it's worth trying to take this further by:

• explain to Amazon about it breaking sooner and that I haven't reported until now due to my depression (and offer to provide medical evidence to back this up)
• even if the above is not mentioned, whether 2 years would be considered a reasonable length of time for it to have lasted (for anyone that doesn't know, the Microsoft Band 2 is essentially a fitness tracker like Fitbit)
• seek further advice from Citizens Advice Buereau
• look to taking this to a small claims court to argue my case (although I'd rather avoid this if possible because it would just add extra pressure/stress which I'm not sure I could cope with)
• if I should just accept that the £30 goodwill gesture is the best that I will get and accept it as a loss

Any help/advice would be very much appreciated. I'd also be happy to post the transcript of the conversation & the response I've received from Amazon (and the Microsoft one if I can find it) in-regards to this if anyone here believes it will help at all.

Thank you in advance

marliepanda

Edit to add: Is it 2 years or 37 months? December 2015 is just over 2 years ago, 37 months makes this much more reasonable.... The below is based on 2 years, if its three then, I'd bite their hand off...

1. I am very sorry to hear about your depression, but it doesnt change anything

2. As far as they know, you have had use for over 2 years, and you do not get that 'for free' a 25%ish refund does not seem that bad for your usage.

3 Definitely don't compare it to a fitbit as mine lasted about 5 minutes!

4. If you did prove an inherent fault (forums don't really count) they could still provide a proportionate refund. Whether that would be much more than £30 I dont know.

Racxie

marliepanda wrote: »

Edit to add: Is it 2 years or 37 months? December 2015 is just over 2 years ago, 37 months makes this much more reasonable.... The below is based on 2 years, if its three then, I'd bite their hand off...

1. I am very sorry to hear about your depression, but it doesnt change anything

2. As far as they know, you have had use for over 2 years, and you do not get that 'for free' a 25%ish refund does not seem that bad for your usage.

3 Definitely don't compare it to a fitbit as mine lasted about 5 minutes!

4. If you did prove an inherent fault (forums don't really count) they could still provide a proportionate refund. Whether that would be much more than £30 I dont know.

Thank you for your quick response.

That's a very good point! My Amazon order history states "Ordered on 28 December 2015" - that would make it only just under 25 months? I'm not sure where he's managed to obtain an extra 12 months from...

Thank you for your symapthy, although I don't mean for it to sound like an excuse. I know that Martin is campaigning for mental health to be taken into consideration with things like shopping & financial products, so I wasn't sure if it'd help here in anyway (not being able to follow through with simple things like this due to my state of mind), but thank you for confirming it's unlikely to.

I offered to provide links to news articles (along with forums as extra evidence that it is a widespread issue) to the representative I originally spoke with, who then passed it onto their specialist warranty team (or something along those lines). But so far this hasn't been asked for so I haven't provided it yet. I'm not sure if it's worth pushing this, especially if it might make a difference to the amount they've given me so far.

I didn't realise Fitbits were that poor quality! This is honestly a very good fitness tracker aside from the glaring strap issue, and it's something I was using to try help my recovery, but that stopped after it broke. I'm trying to get back on my feet again which is I'm trying to finally get it sorted.

Racxie

I have just responded to their email mentioning the time difference error as well as offering to provide evidence that it is a manufacturing fault. I did also mention I've not been able to report it straight away due to health reasons (in the hope that they take this into consideration too) while letting them know I stopped using it as soon as the issue became apparent to avoid making it worse.

I then stated that I don't agree that £30 is sufficiently proportionate for the reasons above, especially as it was offered as a goodwill gesture rather than directly in relation to the issue. I will update again once I receive a response.

JJ_Egan

How do you intend to prove its a manufacturing report ??
Reports on the web are not evidence .
You would need to pay for an independent engineers report .
Its not covered for up to 6 years under CR .
It gives you 6 years to take the item to court .
One you get a report proving a manufacturing defect and get the cost back plus a refund discounted for two 37 months use .( what's a 3 year old unit selling at circa £30 ??)
Two the report finds no manufacturing defect and you are down around £60 for the cost of the report .

Racxie

Update: I missed a call around an hour ago as I was having dinner with my family (so had my phone on silent) and in turn had received an email from Amazon's Executive Customer Relations team letting me know it was them that had tried to call.

They apologised for upset caused and the incorrect calculation by their colleague, and have offered me a 50% refund of the original purchase price (equivalent to £74.99) to my card which I just responded to saying I'd accept as I believe this is closer in like with my understanding of the CRA 2015.

My maths isn't great, but after sending the email I thought the figure seemed a little off, so I looked back at my original invoice and I had paid £169.99 for this at the time, which according to my calculator, 50% off that is £84.99 and not £74.99 (can no one at Amazon count or use a calculator? These errors are worse than mine!), so I've just emailed them again pointing this out and asking if they can confirm whether they will refund me £84.99 (the 50% stated) or £74.99 (the figure stated).

Thank you marliepanda for pointing out the initial error and giving me the confidence to question it

JJ_Egan wrote: »

How do you intend to prove its a manufacturing report ??
Reports on the web are not evidence .
You would need to pay for an independent engineers report .
Its not covered for up to 6 years under CR .
It gives you 6 years to take the item to court .
One you get a report proving a manufacturing defect and get the cost back plus a refund discounted for two 37 months use .( what's a 3 year old unit selling at circa £30 ??)
Two the report finds no manufacturing defect and you are down around £60 for the cost of the report .

As far as I'm aware if there is a (incredibly) large number of users reporting a common fault then it is incredibly likely to be a manufacturing fault as opposed to a wild coincidence. I don't think anyone paid for engineers reports but there have also been people explaining why the issue started to happen after looking into it further.
Not only this but Microsoft had started to replace them under the manufacturer's warranty after the issue became widespread amongst consumers, despite the result of the flaw being physical damage - something not typically covered by a manufacturer's warranty so I understand this could be seen as an admission of the flaw despite not direct announcement. I could potentially have tried to contact Microsoft again to see if they would confirm it.

marliepanda

Many people reporting a fault means very little. Let’s just say 1000 people reported a fault. That’s a lot! But if 100,000 units of the item were sold, that number becomes very small...

Racxie

marliepanda wrote: »

Many people reporting a fault means very little. Let’s just say 1000 people reported a fault. That’s a lot! But if 100,000 units of the item were sold, that number becomes very small...

In that sense it does sound like you have a fair point, but according to this Which? article, it states:

If a fault develops after the first six months, the burden is on you to prove that the product was faulty at the time of delivery.
In practice, this may require some form of expert report, opinion or evidence of similar problems across the product range.

So going by that even 1,000 should be a figure where it could likely be brought into question if not strong evidence (although I guess it would be up for the courts to decide).

I've not heard back from Amazon yet as to the £74.99 vs the £84.99, although going by the number I was called from earlier their team is based in Ireland so unlikely to hear back now until tomorrow earliest.

If there is anything I have learned from this experience so far, it's definitely to go through the seller first (even if the company has a warranty scheme of its own, although it could mean registering yet another device if I'd en up with a replacement), and no matter how low or a poor state of mind I'm in to try and push through and deal with it asap.

stuartJo1989

Any chance that your £169.99 price includes postage costs? If so, you may not be entitled to the postage costs back as they fulfilled that element of the sale. (delivery of the item to you).

Racxie

Amazon got back to me and pointed out that there was £20 knocked off the RRP due to me having bought it during a lightning sale - D'oh! We all make mistakes after all :embarasse

As I had originally paid for it fully in gift cards, they refunded me the £75 (so got an extra penny too) to my Amazon balance in addition to the £30 goodwill gesture, so I effectively got a £105 refund which is pretty good considering, especially as they didn't even ask for proof of the fault (which I said I was happy to provide) so that is kind of surprising as I could have been lying! (Not that I was of course).

No wonder people say Amazon's customer service is so good

Thank you again for all your help, and I guess that means that this thread can now be closed. Now just to get a replacement and start to get back on my feet

stuartJo1989 wrote: »

Any chance that your £169.99 price includes postage costs? If so, you may not be entitled to the postage costs back as they fulfilled that element of the sale. (delivery of the item to you).

It did not as it was originally directly from Amazon, so free postage was included. I may even had had a Prime trial at the time. But that definitely would have made sense for it not to have been included if there had been a postage cost.

Shaka_Zulu

Just remember your card will now be marked and if Amazon feel you are claiming too many times you will lose your account. So play carefully for a few years.