Breaking A Warranty Band And Lose Consumer Rights

PatchAsh

I purchased an Xbox One S in December 2016 from Sainsbury's. 14 months later and it has developed a fault. I expressed my Consumer Rights with Sainsbury's and after two weeks of battle and many different reasons why they don't have to deal with me, Sainsbury's have recognised my consumer rights and requested an engineers report and based on that they will finally take action. But when I've looked into getting an engineers report, all the games repair services say that I shouldn't break the Warranty Band on the Xbox. Doing so would invalidate any rights with Microsoft. I've questioned this with Sainsbury's and they have just come back and said that I will have to return the Xbox to Microsoft for repair myself or, and this is the part I'm confused about, I will have to break the Warranty Band to get an engineers report, and this will invalidate any rights I have for repair or replacement with Sainsbury's. Surely this is a get out of jail card for Sainsbury's? Does anyone have any experience in these matters or have any advice? I'm very confused by Sainsbury's responses and they seem to be constantly contradicting the advice I've had from this site and Citizens Advice. Thanks in advance.

cono1717

Why do you need to break the band for the report? The engineer should be looking at it independently without your input to remove bias.

What's the problem that has occured?

bris

cono1717 wrote: »

Why do you need to break the band for the report? The engineer should be looking at it independently without your input to remove bias.

What's the problem that has occured?

Because you can't open it up without breaking the seal.


If it's out of warranty anyway then that won't matter any more as it's not a warranty issue now, it's a consumer rights one.


You need the report to prove you case against the retailer not the manufacturer. The report needs to state the fault is inherent at time of purchase. Just being faulty isn't enough, it's why it's faulty that counts. Not many people can tell why complicated components fail so good luck finding someone that can.


But the main answer you're looking for is the retailer can't hold the broken seal against you where as the manufacturer can and void warranties for it.

DoaM

How long is Microsoft's standard warranty for the Xbox One S?

As above, if you're not looking to use any warranty offered by MS then breaking the warranty seal for an inspection report is irrelevant.

Note: The report needs to say along the lines of "in the opinion of the person making the report, the fault lies with XYZ component/item and such a fault, on the balance of probabilities, was inherent with this product unit". (Inherent means existed at the point of sale but only materialised as a fault later. For example a dry solder joint on a component).

unholyangel

Breaking the warranty seal can void your warranty, it can't void your consumer rights.

As a side note, wouldn't it have been easier to just repair under warranty with microsoft? Never used them myself but had friends and family who have and always had praise for their quick turnaround (they usually got a free game or gold subscription too) and that they picked up/dropped off to their door.

Consumer rights are good, but if you need a report then sometimes its better dealing under warranty - especially if they cover postage costs.