Argos - awful customer service

jamescu

Her indoors was given a leaving present from work last week - a necklace from Argos. She took it out of the box to try it on and the clasp broke. She had three colleagues there who will all say she didn't force it or catch it on anything. She went back to the shop who told her they would not exchange it unless she could prove it had broken due to a manufacturing fault.

I phoned up the next day and pointed out to them that following recent amendments to the Sale of Goods Act in the first six months after sale the burden of proof was on the retailer to prove that the goods had been manufactured to an acceptable standard, not on the consumer to prove they hadn't. The lady on the phone said, "She didn't know anything about that." I asked her if this meant Argos employ customer services staff who don't know what their customers' rights are under the Sale of Goods Act. This led to a long embarrassed silence at the other end.

Leaving the legal niceties aside I asked her if she would be happy if she bought something from a shop and it broke the first time she used it and this was how the retailer dealt with the problem. She admitted that, no, she wouldn't be happy.

Finally, after 29 minutes (at 6p a minute) on the phone, she agreed to send us a gift voucher for the price of the necklace. So, if you're buying jewellery this Christmas, be prepared for plenty of hassle if you have to take it back to Argos.

setmefree2

Hi James,

That's a disgraceful way to treat a customer - glad you got a new necklace and you didn't give up. :money::TNot good enough though.