Tesco statutory rights on phone chargers

Jvj24601

I’ve been advised by Tesco, from several representatives at several levels of seniority, that phone chargers (this is specifically relating to chargers bought alone, not with a phone) only come with six months warranty. If they stop working after six months it’s basically tough luck, unless you are prepared to spend time and stress contesting this until they offer a gesture of goodwill.
Surely only six months is not a reasonable amount of time to expect a phone charger to work? 

JJ_Egan

They can put any terms on WARRANTY .

Warranty is an extra its not the law your Consumer Rights against the vendor is the law .

Uptown_Boy

And said consumer rights say that (up until 6 months from purchase/delivery) any fault is assumed to be inherent and the seller is obliged to provide a remedy (repair, replace, or refund in full). After 6 months the burden of proof falls to the consumer to prove that the fault was inherent and not caused by the consumer's use of the goods.

tl;dr ... their 6 month "warranty" aligns with consumer rights.

Aylesbury_Duck

Jvj24601 said:

I’ve been advised by Tesco, from several representatives at several levels of seniority, that phone chargers (this is specifically relating to chargers bought alone, not with a phone) only come with six months warranty. If they stop working after six months it’s basically tough luck, unless you are prepared to spend time and stress contesting this until they offer a gesture of goodwill.
Surely only six months is not a reasonable amount of time to expect a phone charger to work? 

Blimey, sounds like there's an intriguing backstory if you've escalated matters that far for a phone charger.

Sandtree

Jvj24601 said:

Surely only six months is not a reasonable amount of time to expect a phone charger to work? 

Which is why your statutory rights are not so prescriptive and say a reasonable life (or words to that effect) and just cap out at 6 years (E&W) or 5 years (Scot) due to law of limitations.

Warranties etc are in addition to statutory rights

Jvj24601

Okay so let’s use the term “statutory rights” rather than warranty.

So, I buy a charger, it stops working after seven months. I don’t think this is a reasonable amount of time. 

Tesco say get stuffed.

What are statutory rights? I don’t think any court would agree that seven months is reasonable. 

Jvj24601

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Jvj24601 said:

I’ve been advised by Tesco, from several representatives at several levels of seniority, that phone chargers (this is specifically relating to chargers bought alone, not with a phone) only come with six months warranty. If they stop working after six months it’s basically tough luck, unless you are prepared to spend time and stress contesting this until they offer a gesture of goodwill.
Surely only six months is not a reasonable amount of time to expect a phone charger to work? 

Blimey, sounds like there's an intriguing backstory if you've escalated matters that far for a phone charger.

Ha ha. I’m sick of taking chargers back to various places and getting nowhere.  I want to know the legal position. 

KatrinaWaves

I’m pretty rough on my chargers and I don’t experience the same failure rates as you. Are you buying branded chargers or Tesco own brand?

chargers on the whole go through a lot, we yank them out of the ports, we shove them in bags, we shove them about behind furniture etc. Like I said I’m pretty rough on mine but they don’t fail so quickly as 7 months. I do only buy the branded chargers tho for fear of fakes online

Jvj24601

KatrinaWaves said:

I’m pretty rough on my chargers and I don’t experience the same failure rates as you. Are you buying branded chargers or Tesco own brand?

chargers on the whole go through a lot, we yank them out of the ports, we shove them in bags, we shove them about behind furniture etc. Like I said I’m pretty rough on mine but they don’t fail so quickly as 7 months. I do only buy the branded chargers tho for fear of fakes online

I buy Tesco own brand or reasonably reputable compatible brands, such as Juice or Belkin. I don’t buy them online because you don’t know what you are buying or from whom. Regardless of the brand, one would expect a reasonable amount of durability from a charger purchased from Tesco or major retailer.

What I’m trying to ascertain are my legal rights, given the situation I described in my original post as I’m sick of arguing the toss at customer service if something goes wrong. 

I’m pretty sure that a court would agree that, under normal use (and I’m definitely less harsh with my chargers that you describe) 7,8,9 months, or even 18 months, is not an unreasonable amount of time to expect a charger to last.

I think part of the problem is that Apple try stop people using compatible chargers by introducing updates to stop them working. So you can buy a charger and a week later there is an Apple update that stops a compatible charger working. 

If this is the case then compatible chargers sold by Tesco should either state that on the packaging, in which case they would probably have to reduce the purchase price substantially (who would buy a charger that could potentially stop working after 7 months without suitable statutory rights or warranty) or they would have to account for this in pricing and statutory rights or warranty as its inherent to the product, not through usage.

As far as I’m aware there is no difference in warranty or statutory rights between an Apple branded charger or a Tesco branded charger. 

TLDR - it shouldn’t matter whether it’s compatible or OEM, 12 months or beyond is not an unreasonable amount of time to expect a charger to work and should be covered by statutory rights. 

A.) Is it? 

B.) Is Tesco tell me to go swivel what’s my next step? 

DiddyDavies

Jvj24601 said:

Okay so let’s use the term “statutory rights” rather than warranty.

So, I buy a charger, it stops working after seven months. I don’t think this is a reasonable amount of time. 

Tesco say get stuffed.

What are statutory rights? I don’t think any court would agree that seven months is reasonable. 

Just because it stopped working after 7 months doesn't in itself give you any right to a resolution under the Consumer rights act.
For goods that fail more than 6 months from purchase, the retailer has the legal right to insist that you prove that the failure wasn't down to misuse but occurred because of a manufacturing defect. This defect needs to be something that was present when you purchased the charger although it doesn't have to be apparent at that time. (it could be something such as poor assembly, low quality components etc).

If they ask for this proof and you are able to provide it, they should then provide a resolution which could be a repair (unlikely to be financially viable), a replacement or a refund (which can be a partial refund to allow for the 7 months use you had from the charger before it failed).

In reality, a reasonable retailer would simply provide a replacement charger rather then insisting on you show the reason for the failure.

bris

After 6 months you have no rights, unless you can prove you have, In other words the burden of proof  is on you to prove the charger was inherently faulty. Who can prove that though, there in lies the big question.

You buy cheap compatible chargers you get what you pay for, buy cheap buy twice (or in this case multiple times) as they say.

Buy original chargers and you will get a proper warranty, well a year at least.