Frustrating ARGOS 30 Days return issue (Computer monitor)

Manxman_in_exile

As I said in my post before your last one, call customer services one more time and quote the regulations I lnk to.  If you are confident and assertive you may just succeed straight away.

I hate to say it (I spent a year as a trainee Trading Standards Inspector in the 1980s) but Trading Standards are now  useless - and they were absolutely awful in the 1980s...

Manxman_in_exile

I just re-read your original post.  You may have snookered yourself by trying to return it under their 30 day "guarantee".  No - you are doing it under the statutory regulations I linked to above - it's nothing to do with their 30 day guarantee.

Make that clear!

ThumbRemote

If it was faulty, eg the fuse in the plug had blown, you'd be able to return it for a full refund. 

Gorecki

Manxman_in_exile said:

Don't give up!

The legislation you need to quote to them is contained in s28 - 34 of The Consumer Contract (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges)Regulations 2013, here:  The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (legislation.gov.uk)

Basically you can cancel a distance purchase within 14 days of receipt of the goods for a full refund.  The retailer can deduct an amount of money (up to 100%) from that refund only if you have handled (ie used) the goods more than is necessary  "... to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods... ".  (s34 of the Regulations)

I would argue that if all you have done is turned the monitor on and tried it out to see what it is like, then you have not handled it beyond what is necessary to establish the characteristics and functioning of the monitor.   Plus you would also expect to see it turned on and in use in a shop before you decided to buy it, so if you only turned it on to see how good it looked, you should be OK.

As others have said, remind them that you are cancelling the contract and returning the goods under the above legislation, NOT under their own returns policy.

[EDIT:  if you send a letter of complaint to Argos HQ pointing the above out, I'd be surprised if they didn't give you your money back straight away.  But I'd try speaking to customer services one more time.  Quote the above regulations to them.]

You aren't just complaining to the store where you collected it from, are you?  I don't think that technically you bought it from the store if you bought online.  In-store staff may not know about the rules around cancelling distance sales.

If you paid by credit card, do a s75 claim.  Tell them to make a s75 claim and not to do a chargeback.

Thankyou.

- Visited store, tried to return, told no, said about distance selling, told no, asked to escalate, given number to customer services.
- Carpark of store, rang customer services, told no, said I'm sure I'm allowed to and there's no way of me seeing the item before purchase, told I could have requested the box was opened, said that wouldn't have worked as need to see it working.
- Went home frustrated. Researched more. Rang again, mentioned distance selling and CCR (thanks to the above!), agent said "Personally I would have accepted the return, but we have no ability to override a store decision) to be honest I got the general impression the customer services team were quite tier 1 with no realy ability beyond call handling.
- Rang store one more time and spoke to the manager I'd seen on the day. She was professional but voice tone very much that I shouldn't be calling and I was a nuisance to her. I very clearly said "I'd like to return under CCR rules within 14 days as stated on your website".
She said they were invalid as I'd turned on the item.
I told her that was wrong and there were only specific exemptions (personalised items etc), and offered to read what was on the site, but she said no.
She also said she'd rang customer services after my first call and spoken to the person who'd spoken to me and she'd said not to give a refund?

There's a lot of very calm explaining and detailing between these (I work in project/programme management and sometimes involved in support so know how to be firm but friendly/respectful), but it was genuinely a complete shut door, no support experience, really suprising...

I've detailed a complaint to post to head office and will hope for the best, but mad this can't be resolved easily without resorting to this.
The crazy thing is the box/monitor really is in an immaculate re-sellable condition and I'm trying to give them MORE money!

I do appreciate all your kind words and help (and re poster above, yes I bought the 1080 version of the 27 inch monitor based on the description/reviews, but it has awful black lines around all the pixels/shocking picture, so trying to buy the next resolution up)

Jenni_D

but it has awful black lines around all the pixels

What? That doesn't sound like a bad picture - it sounds like a fault. I have never seen black lines around a pixel. My TV (32") is 1080 and gives a decent picture from a full HD (1080 source) and has nothing like what you describe.

Gorecki

Jenni_D said:

but it has awful black lines around all the pixels

What? That doesn't sound like a bad picture - it sounds like a fault. I have never seen black lines around a pixel. My TV (32") is 1080 and gives a decent picture from a full HD (1080 source) and has nothing like what you describe.

If I'm honest, I don't think it's faulty, just a combination of a really poor design making the pixels very noticeable and slightly too low resolution for a big monitor (you're obviously a little closer to monitors than TVs so pixel borders are more obvious).

Even if it was faulty, I really wouldn't like to go back to that shop and try to argue it now I've said I just want to return it (I really don't think the online customer services can do anything).

The more I think about it, I think I'm just going to send this letter (it's very detailed, includes the section numbers mentioned above, screenshot of the argos webpage about returns etc) and try to forget about it/think of it as an expensive lesson not to use Argos again.
It's just such a shame as they were so good when I was a kid!

Sincere thanks for all your help on this.

Ectophile

Jenni_D said:

but it has awful black lines around all the pixels

What? That doesn't sound like a bad picture - it sounds like a fault. I have never seen black lines around a pixel. My TV (32") is 1080 and gives a decent picture from a full HD (1080 source) and has nothing like what you describe.

If I look really closely at an HD screen, I can just sbout see the gaps between the pixels on the screen.  Being short sighted helps in doing that.  But it's not something you should be able to see in any normal usage.

SteveVy

powerful_Rogue said:

Let me guess, 1080 @ 27 inch? I made the same mistake. Luckily it was with Amazon so picked up and refunded. Purchased a much higher res monitor.

Thing is, you want to return this under your consumer rights, not the Argos 30 day return policy. Did you make that clear?

going slightly off topic..

I can confirm I also made this mistake a few years ago, I purchased 3 iiyama 27" 1080P Monitors online from a different seller. I had to pay a 25% restocking fee to and P&P to send them back....was a pain

I then purchased a set of Asus 24" 1080P monitors unpacked them all only to realize they are not VESA Compatible! This time I ended up selling them on Ebay and finally the 3rd set of monitors I purchased were fine!

170534

Do you have a different branch locally you could take it to and try there?

neilmcl

ThumbRemote said:

If it was faulty, eg the fuse in the plug had blown, you'd be able to return it for a full refund. 

It isn't faulty so why mention this.