Consumer law from very

thehairyhobo

Hello

I am just after some advice about claiming against consumer law for a faulty iphone with very.

The phone was purchased in may 2020 and had the fault from the beginning but due to my wife not knowing she could pay in store with her phone she never used it until it was out of warranty, which has led me to claim under consumer law for a faulty phone.

Apple did a report and confirmed it needed to be repaired or replaced.

Very emailed me asking for a report, which is fine, but also mentioned about a usage fee.

If a refund or return is authorized, after we have received the report, then we will need to charge you 20% usage fee of the item as you have had the item for more one year.

0 - 12 Months = Warranty Period
13 - 24 Months = 20% Usage Charge
25 - 36 Months = 40% Usage Charge
37 - 48 Months = 60% Usage Charge
49 - 60 Months  = 80% Usage Charge
61 - 72 Months = 100% Usage Charge (No Refund Applicable)

Are they allowed to do this under the consumer law claim? I cant find anything about it to know if this is correct, so i was wondering if anyone had any advice or links to show if this is correct?

Thanks

CKhalvashi

What exactly is the problem with the phone?

If it's just that the payment system isn't working, this isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. My phone (not Apple) has this technology but I don't use it, as I'm sure many others don't.

It will be up to you at this stage to prove the phone had the defect at the date of purchase. I'd consider 5 years from a phone to be reasonable, so unless you can prove an inherent defect (which is quite a high bar to reach in a technical report), this situation does seem to exceed your legal rights.

It should also have been raised before the 20 month mark in reality if it was going to be a problem going through this term.

Sandtree

The law says that after 6 months they are entitled to reduce the refund to reflect the usage gained from the device before the fault was reported. The law doesnt say how usage should be calculated but their mechanism isnt massively out of line with others... JL for example do age in months/72 so would be 21/72 and so would be a 29% discount applied had you bought from them instead.

Obviously they may decide to repair it rather than refund in which case the usage is irrelevant.

born_again

Six months or more

If a defect develops after the first six months, the burden is on you to prove that the product was faulty at the time the goods were delivered to you.

In practice, this may require some form of expert report, opinion or evidence of similar problems or defects across the product range.

The retailer can also make a deduction from any refund for fair use after the first six months of ownership if an attempt at a repair or replacement is unsuccessful.

You have up to six years to take a claim to the small claims court for faulty goods in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and five years in Scotland.

This doesn't mean that a product has to last six years - just that you have this length of time in which to make a claim if a retailer refuses to repair or replace a faulty product.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-do-i-do-if-i-have-a-faulty-product-aTTEK2g0YuEy

thehairyhobo

CKhalvashi said:

What exactly is the problem with the phone?

If it's just that the payment system isn't working, this isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. My phone (not Apple) has this technology but I don't use it, as I'm sure many others don't.

It will be up to you at this stage to prove the phone had the defect at the date of purchase. I'd consider 5 years from a phone to be reasonable, so unless you can prove an inherent defect (which is quite a high bar to reach in a technical report), this situation does seem to exceed your legal rights.

It should also have been raised before the 20 month mark in reality if it was going to be a problem going through this term.

The chip inside the phone which allows you to pay in-store, via a card machine doesn't work.
Each to their own, but i think ive spent £800 plus on the iphone then all the features should work.
Plus having that on a phone means when my wife forgets her purse and not her phone, and she is standing at a till to pay for shopping, she has no reason to call me to deliver her purse

Yes, it's one of those things that would have been best sorting during the warranty period but with COVID and jobs and child and apple not being nearby, etc etc, you just can't always get things sorted in time.

I have managed to prove the issue, very accepted the claim, I just wanted to check the usage policy was correct as I've read some companies don't charge.

thanks for the reply

thehairyhobo

Sandtree said:

The law says that after 6 months they are entitled to reduce the refund to reflect the usage gained from the device before the fault was reported. The law doesnt say how usage should be calculated but their mechanism isnt massively out of line with others... JL for example do age in months/72 so would be 21/72 and so would be a 29% discount applied had you bought from them instead.

Obviously they may decide to repair it rather than refund in which case the usage is irrelevant.

Cool, thanks for the info