Being left disadvantaged after refund for faulty item

KatrinaWaves

In before a full refund, a brand new wetsuit and a hamper full of waves.

surfer91919

Bermonia wrote: »

Sorry, what?... as throughout this post, you’re not making much sense.

Because the information you were given was not what you wanted to hear does not in anyway make it incorrect! I will refer you back to my previous post, let you fb friends tell you how right and hard done by you are:rotfl:

Some memorable bits of "advice" and "useful information" from this thread have included:

"You deserve to have been charged for effectively hiring the wetsuit due to delaying dealing with the issue": Wrong according to T&C, the only time frame mentioned is the 12 month warranty.

"You have invalidated the warranty by not dealing with the issue right away": Wrong according to T&C as no mention of a timeframe between noticing an issue and sending it in is mentioned.

"You have irreparably damaged the wetsuit by using it a few times after noticing small leaks in the seam": Wrong, the leaks didn't get worse and the suit is cosmetically immaculate.

"A wetsuit should leak at the seams, letting cold trickles of water in"; Wrong, this is just a ridiculous suggestion.

"Stop whining as there is nothing you can do now, "game over""; Wrong , phoning the retailer and reminding them nicely that they said they would email me before taking action resulted in them agreeing to reversing the refund, confirming that the suit was still in cosmetically immaculate condition with just the original fault which I reported and as such allowing me to get the suit repaired by the UK distributor. All in all I have said sorry to them for wasting their time and they agreed they should have emailed me as promised. The refund reversal was just that, no extra costs though they said they could only send the suit back to me rather than directly to Xcel which I guess is a liability thing and fair enough.

I found this forum post about Xcel wetsuit repairs under warranty- some positive outcomes even for seams with pinhole leaks. Apparently there are a couple of ladies who work there who have been making wetsuits for 20 years and are expert at re-seaming and repairing xcel suits in house. People even had wetsuits which were out of warranty repaired there for free. This is very interesting as a mate of mine who recently gave up surfing gave me his Xcel infinti hooded 543. The panels are immaculate and not worn but almost every seam lets a lot of water in despite looking intact- might ask for them to quote me for re-seaming it (I wouldn't expect it free).

https://community.magicseaweed.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=36267

DoaM

Genuine question ... if the water doesn't come in through the seams, where is it supposed to come in? (This thread is about wet suits, yes? Not dry suits).

And no - I'm not being facetious.

surfer91919

KatrinaWaves wrote: »

In before a full refund, a brand new wetsuit and a hamper full of waves.

Nah, only what I wanted in the first instance- getting the suit repaired under warranty which is apparently too "entitled". In order to do that I apologised for wasting the retailers time (though I won't accept full responsibility for that as they said they should have emailed me before proceeding with a refund) and the wetsuit is being posted out to me today after them confirming it's still immaculate cosmetically and just has the originally reported faults.
I shall upload screenshots of the emails and in a few weeks the outcome of the manufacturer warranty Surf looks good on Monday!

surfer91919

DoaM wrote: »

Genuine question ... if the water doesn't come in through the seams, where is it supposed to come in? (This thread is about wet suits, yes? Not dry suits).

And no - I'm not being facetious.

No worries. Neoprene is a permeable material.... it lets water in slowly. This can easily be demonstrated by filling a dry wetsuit boot up and watching as the outer surface of the neoprene gradually becomes shiny with water. The job of the seams is to secure the separate panels of neoprene together without increasing the exchange rate of water. likewise there are seals against the skin on the neck, wrists and ankles which are designed to minimise water getting in or "flushing" into the suit. The exchange rate of water should be determined by the permeability of the neoprene and not the seams randomly leaking (especially not the panel seams which have no reasonable excuse to leak on a new or new-ish suit) or this will not meet the design spec in terms of keeping you warm. The seams are glued, stitched and taped... often glued as many as three times with a waterproof glue. As such, if a seam leaks it indicates a defect. You should never feel trickles of cold water coming through triple glued blind stitched and taped seams on a new suit.

The reason we use wetsuits for surfing is that a certain amount of flushing through the neck, wrists and ankles is inevitable even with the best fitting suit due to the violence of the waves and water speed/ impact etc. I've found myself plenty of times pinned to the sea bed (hopefully sand, though that gets forced in under your wetsuit too lol) by a wave and my wetsuit rolled up my legs and/ or arms by the force of the water. As such a dry suit is not suitable for this as you'd just end up waterlogged and freezing- a wetsuit which traps some gradually exchanged water against your skin which your body warms up is better.

My mate tried using his dry suit for surfing once, he ended up looking like my blobby or something.

JimmyTheWig

surfer91919 wrote: »

"Stop whining as there is nothing you can do now, "game over""; Wrong , phoning the retailer and reminding them nicely that they said they would email me before taking action resulted in them agreeing to reversing the refund, confirming that the suit was still in cosmetically immaculate condition with just the original fault which I reported and as such allowing me to get the suit repaired by the UK distributor. All in all I have said sorry to them for wasting their time and they agreed they should have emailed me as promised.

To play devils advocate, this is where you have benefitted from this forum.
You need to understand that they didn't have to do this. They did it as good customer service.
Probably the reason they did it was because you asked nicely.
If you'd phoned under the impression that you had a legal right to redress you may have not asked so nicely.

surfer91919

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

To play devils advocate, this is where you have benefitted from this forum.
You need to understand that they didn't have to do this. They did it as good customer service.
Probably the reason they did it was because you asked nicely.
If you'd phoned under the impression that you had a legal right to redress you may have not asked so nicely.

Yes I agree, I have benefitted from the forum and I credited Carrot for that as well as yourself, though it was carrots advice which got me on the right track IIRC. The majority of the other replies purporting to be "useful information" were factually devoid, unhelpful and at times gloating personal opinions which shouldn't belong on a page aiming to help consumers.

surfer91919

Obviously I've been emailing myself....:rotfl:

societys_child

Oh goody, but I'm bored and really don't care . .

surfer91919

Well it's all sorted- just thought I'd post the final outcome, even if no one cares as it might help someone hold onto their super sale price wetsuit in future.
I didn't get a hamper of waves, full refund plus a free wetsuit ....
But I did get a replacement wetsuit which is the new specification and has some nice channel flex neoprene on the upper body and some extra heat reflecting stuff on the inside, so a definite upgrade over the original one I bought which was more basic/ older model
Looks like their wetsuit repairer retired so they now send any warranty stuff to another repairer who leak tested it and found it hadn't been put together properly. Unfortunately the only way to sort issues like this, where the seam wasn't completed within the working time of the adhesive is to cut it out and entirely remake the seam which often makes the wetsuit too tight and isn't worth doing for a whole suit. No quibbles or questions about whether I used the suit a few times after noticing the leaks or that I'd sat on my laurels about doing anything about it for a couple of months- as per the warranty terms it's warranted for a year with no other stipulations which applied to my case. Thumbs up to the retailer for reversing the refund process, the distributer for testing the wetsuit and then replacing it and Carrot on this forum who filled me in on specifically claiming on the manufacturers warranty!