Monica Vinader lost my ring when it went in for repairs

DullGreyGuy

tightauldgit said:

DullGreyGuy said:

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/public/for-public-visitors/resources/glossary

Compensation - recompense for loss, injury, or suffering.
Damages - an award, typically of money, paid to a person or organisation for loss or injury.

Damages and compensation are basically interchangeable but some here seem to think that compensation is an amount above and beyond your losses.

tightauldgit said:

Jumblebumble said:

bris said:

tacpot12 said:

If you have home insurance, check to see if you have legal expenses cover. If you do, call the Insurance Helpline provided by your insurer and ask them if there is a legal basis on which you could get compensation for how you have been treated.

If there isn't, you will only be able to get a refund for what you paid for the ring. I think I would buy from somewhere else in future. 

There is no legal basis for compensation, law covers losses not compensation.

Technically the loss is a £100 ring, that was the cost of the ring, anything else is just at the customer services dept discretion

Legal compensation such as airline delays are written into law, a lost ring is not.

OK so I buy a classic E type Jag in 1970
Are you seriously suggesting that if a garage lost it today then they would only be liable for the 1970 cost ?

Technically the 'loss' is the market value of the item at the time it was lost so of course an E-Type Jag would have a book value which you could claim. The issue is that for most consumer items they don't typically increase in value and if the item was bought relatively recently for £x then it's going to be difficult to argue that it's worth more than that unless you have good evidence. 

If you could show the ring was e.g. being regularly sold on Ebay for £250 you might have an argument that the actual value of it was £250. But in general the value of the item is going to be based on what you paid for it, less whatever its depreciated rather than some number plucked from the air. 

And none of that changes that 'compensation' is generally not something that is awarded or considered for a lost ring. 

It's much more than that, most consumer items plummet in value the second you walk out the shop with them. Jewellery in particular is rarely worth much more than its scrap value unless its by Cartier etc 

As above, compensation is certainly considered for a loss ring where the company has been negligent... as you said in the first paragraph it'd be the market value of a secondhand ring. 

Agree that most consumer items are technically worth buttons if you attempt to resell them but legally the question is what can be evidenced and established in terms of value. If you buy something for £100 on the 1st of June then I think a court would be likely to assume that it's value is still very close to £100 on the 2nd of June unless you can provide a more compelling valuation. 5(?) years later then its probably scrap value unless you can provide a more compelling valuation and then between that its a bit of a grey area of who can make the best case. 

You can see rings regularly selling on Ebay for reasonable prices (i.e. more than scrap value) but providing any kind of accurate valuation is difficult. One thing is for sure though - it's generally not going to be worth more than you paid for it, even if you bought it in a sale. 

As for the 'compensation' thing the reason I put it in quotes is because generally when people are asking for compensation they are looking for something over and above the value of the item. 

We dont know how long the OP has had the item, all they said is that they damaged it and claimed under a 5 year warranty. That could have been the very next day or years later.

Having dealt with third party motor claims we get a reasonable number of claims for jewellery where people say items were damaged in a crash by banging against the steering wheel or rings had to be cut off etc. Same with phones or laptops that were on the seat and bounced into the dash when our insured rear ended them. Certainly if it was a day old then we probably would look to settle at retail/what they paid. I cannot say we ever had a definitive cut off date but certainly have settled 6 month old items at market value rather than retail/paid and had many such offers accepted by their solicitors. 

The principle of indemnification is to put you back in the same financial position as you were immediately before the incident and if you had a 2021 TAG Heuer watch you bought 6 months ago that's the cash value of a TAG Heuer 2021 watch... thankfully watches are easy enough to price as they explicit model numbers so you can see what secondhand shops sell for as well as what private sales are closing on on eBay etc. The person can then buy a secondhand watch in principle identical to their irreparably damaged one or keep the cash because the replacement wont be the one their wife/husband bought them for their 40th. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

Agree that most consumer items are technically worth buttons if you attempt to resell them but legally the question is what can be evidenced and established in terms of value. If you buy something for £100 on the 1st of June then I think a court would be likely to assume that it's value is still very close to £100 on the 2nd of June unless you can provide a more compelling valuation. 5(?) years later then its probably scrap value unless you can provide a more compelling valuation and then between that its a bit of a grey area of who can make the best case. 

You can see rings regularly selling on Ebay for reasonable prices (i.e. more than scrap value) but providing any kind of accurate valuation is difficult. One thing is for sure though - it's generally not going to be worth more than you paid for it, even if you bought it in a sale. 

As for the 'compensation' thing the reason I put it in quotes is because generally when people are asking for compensation they are looking for something over and above the value of the item. 

We dont know how long the OP has had the item, all they said is that they damaged it and claimed under a 5 year warranty. That could have been the very next day or years later.

Having dealt with third party motor claims we get a reasonable number of claims for jewellery where people say items were damaged in a crash by banging against the steering wheel or rings had to be cut off etc. Same with phones or laptops that were on the seat and bounced into the dash when our insured rear ended them. Certainly if it was a day old then we probably would look to settle at retail/what they paid. I cannot say we ever had a definitive cut off date but certainly have settled 6 month old items at market value rather than retail/paid and had many such offers accepted by their solicitors. 

The principle of indemnification is to put you back in the same financial position as you were immediately before the incident and if you had a 2021 TAG Heuer watch you bought 6 months ago that's the cash value of a TAG Heuer 2021 watch... thankfully watches are easy enough to price as they explicit model numbers so you can see what secondhand shops sell for as well as what private sales are closing on on eBay etc. The person can then buy a secondhand watch in principle identical to their irreparably damaged one or keep the cash because the replacement wont be the one their wife/husband bought them for their 40th. 

However insurance would be different to the rights afforded under the CRA, as we know it permits a full refund within 6 months and a deduction for use after that, market/second hand/whatever value doesn't come in to play.

You could argue their loss is market value but if the consumer is entitled to more than market value under the legislation then that is their loss IMO.

(I understand on this occasion the OP is talking about warranty rather than consumer rights which is obviously different).

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Agree that most consumer items are technically worth buttons if you attempt to resell them but legally the question is what can be evidenced and established in terms of value. If you buy something for £100 on the 1st of June then I think a court would be likely to assume that it's value is still very close to £100 on the 2nd of June unless you can provide a more compelling valuation. 5(?) years later then its probably scrap value unless you can provide a more compelling valuation and then between that its a bit of a grey area of who can make the best case. 

You can see rings regularly selling on Ebay for reasonable prices (i.e. more than scrap value) but providing any kind of accurate valuation is difficult. One thing is for sure though - it's generally not going to be worth more than you paid for it, even if you bought it in a sale. 

As for the 'compensation' thing the reason I put it in quotes is because generally when people are asking for compensation they are looking for something over and above the value of the item. 

We dont know how long the OP has had the item, all they said is that they damaged it and claimed under a 5 year warranty. That could have been the very next day or years later.

Having dealt with third party motor claims we get a reasonable number of claims for jewellery where people say items were damaged in a crash by banging against the steering wheel or rings had to be cut off etc. Same with phones or laptops that were on the seat and bounced into the dash when our insured rear ended them. Certainly if it was a day old then we probably would look to settle at retail/what they paid. I cannot say we ever had a definitive cut off date but certainly have settled 6 month old items at market value rather than retail/paid and had many such offers accepted by their solicitors. 

The principle of indemnification is to put you back in the same financial position as you were immediately before the incident and if you had a 2021 TAG Heuer watch you bought 6 months ago that's the cash value of a TAG Heuer 2021 watch... thankfully watches are easy enough to price as they explicit model numbers so you can see what secondhand shops sell for as well as what private sales are closing on on eBay etc. The person can then buy a secondhand watch in principle identical to their irreparably damaged one or keep the cash because the replacement wont be the one their wife/husband bought them for their 40th. 

However insurance would be different to the rights afforded under the CRA, as we know it permits a full refund within 6 months and a deduction for use after that, market/second hand/whatever value doesn't come in to play.

You could argue their loss is market value but if the consumer is entitled to more than market value under the legislation then that is their loss IMO.

(I understand on this occasion the OP is talking about warranty rather than consumer rights which is obviously different).

What's the CRA got to do with it? The OP returned an item under a warranty and it was lost. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

However insurance would be different to the rights afforded under the CRA, as we know it permits a full refund within 6 months and a deduction for use after that, market/second hand/whatever value doesn't come in to play.

You could argue their loss is market value but if the consumer is entitled to more than market value under the legislation then that is their loss IMO.

(I understand on this occasion the OP is talking about warranty rather than consumer rights which is obviously different).

What's the CRA got to do with it? The OP returned an item under a warranty and it was lost. 

Hence the last line in the post you quoted However we don't know the timeframes nor the issue so the OP may well still have a claim under the CRA. 

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

However insurance would be different to the rights afforded under the CRA, as we know it permits a full refund within 6 months and a deduction for use after that, market/second hand/whatever value doesn't come in to play.

You could argue their loss is market value but if the consumer is entitled to more than market value under the legislation then that is their loss IMO.

(I understand on this occasion the OP is talking about warranty rather than consumer rights which is obviously different).

What's the CRA got to do with it? The OP returned an item under a warranty and it was lost. 

Hence the last line in the post you quoted However we don't know the timeframes nor the issue so the OP may well still have a claim under the CRA. 

Nor who they bought the item from given all we know is they sent it to the manufacturer under warranty. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

However insurance would be different to the rights afforded under the CRA, as we know it permits a full refund within 6 months and a deduction for use after that, market/second hand/whatever value doesn't come in to play.

You could argue their loss is market value but if the consumer is entitled to more than market value under the legislation then that is their loss IMO.

(I understand on this occasion the OP is talking about warranty rather than consumer rights which is obviously different).

What's the CRA got to do with it? The OP returned an item under a warranty and it was lost. 

Hence the last line in the post you quoted However we don't know the timeframes nor the issue so the OP may well still have a claim under the CRA. 

Nor who they bought the item from given all we know is they sent it to the manufacturer under warranty. 

Indeed, merely general discussion on the topic of an item's value under varying circumstances since we don't have the full picture  

tightauldgit

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Agree that most consumer items are technically worth buttons if you attempt to resell them but legally the question is what can be evidenced and established in terms of value. If you buy something for £100 on the 1st of June then I think a court would be likely to assume that it's value is still very close to £100 on the 2nd of June unless you can provide a more compelling valuation. 5(?) years later then its probably scrap value unless you can provide a more compelling valuation and then between that its a bit of a grey area of who can make the best case. 

You can see rings regularly selling on Ebay for reasonable prices (i.e. more than scrap value) but providing any kind of accurate valuation is difficult. One thing is for sure though - it's generally not going to be worth more than you paid for it, even if you bought it in a sale. 

As for the 'compensation' thing the reason I put it in quotes is because generally when people are asking for compensation they are looking for something over and above the value of the item. 

We dont know how long the OP has had the item, all they said is that they damaged it and claimed under a 5 year warranty. That could have been the very next day or years later.

Having dealt with third party motor claims we get a reasonable number of claims for jewellery where people say items were damaged in a crash by banging against the steering wheel or rings had to be cut off etc. Same with phones or laptops that were on the seat and bounced into the dash when our insured rear ended them. Certainly if it was a day old then we probably would look to settle at retail/what they paid. I cannot say we ever had a definitive cut off date but certainly have settled 6 month old items at market value rather than retail/paid and had many such offers accepted by their solicitors. 

The principle of indemnification is to put you back in the same financial position as you were immediately before the incident and if you had a 2021 TAG Heuer watch you bought 6 months ago that's the cash value of a TAG Heuer 2021 watch... thankfully watches are easy enough to price as they explicit model numbers so you can see what secondhand shops sell for as well as what private sales are closing on on eBay etc. The person can then buy a secondhand watch in principle identical to their irreparably damaged one or keep the cash because the replacement wont be the one their wife/husband bought them for their 40th. 

However insurance would be different to the rights afforded under the CRA, as we know it permits a full refund within 6 months and a deduction for use after that, market/second hand/whatever value doesn't come in to play.

You could argue their loss is market value but if the consumer is entitled to more than market value under the legislation then that is their loss IMO.

(I understand on this occasion the OP is talking about warranty rather than consumer rights which is obviously different).

Does the CRA even apply to lost items, though? If it was faulty or defective then maybe but even then surely the 'deduction for use' would be sense-checked against the market value of the item? If 5 year old rings were regularly selling for 80% of their new value second-hand then I think it would be a hard sell to say that the deduction for use should be 75%. 

DullGreyGuy

tightauldgit said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Agree that most consumer items are technically worth buttons if you attempt to resell them but legally the question is what can be evidenced and established in terms of value. If you buy something for £100 on the 1st of June then I think a court would be likely to assume that it's value is still very close to £100 on the 2nd of June unless you can provide a more compelling valuation. 5(?) years later then its probably scrap value unless you can provide a more compelling valuation and then between that its a bit of a grey area of who can make the best case. 

You can see rings regularly selling on Ebay for reasonable prices (i.e. more than scrap value) but providing any kind of accurate valuation is difficult. One thing is for sure though - it's generally not going to be worth more than you paid for it, even if you bought it in a sale. 

As for the 'compensation' thing the reason I put it in quotes is because generally when people are asking for compensation they are looking for something over and above the value of the item. 

We dont know how long the OP has had the item, all they said is that they damaged it and claimed under a 5 year warranty. That could have been the very next day or years later.

Having dealt with third party motor claims we get a reasonable number of claims for jewellery where people say items were damaged in a crash by banging against the steering wheel or rings had to be cut off etc. Same with phones or laptops that were on the seat and bounced into the dash when our insured rear ended them. Certainly if it was a day old then we probably would look to settle at retail/what they paid. I cannot say we ever had a definitive cut off date but certainly have settled 6 month old items at market value rather than retail/paid and had many such offers accepted by their solicitors. 

The principle of indemnification is to put you back in the same financial position as you were immediately before the incident and if you had a 2021 TAG Heuer watch you bought 6 months ago that's the cash value of a TAG Heuer 2021 watch... thankfully watches are easy enough to price as they explicit model numbers so you can see what secondhand shops sell for as well as what private sales are closing on on eBay etc. The person can then buy a secondhand watch in principle identical to their irreparably damaged one or keep the cash because the replacement wont be the one their wife/husband bought them for their 40th. 

However insurance would be different to the rights afforded under the CRA, as we know it permits a full refund within 6 months and a deduction for use after that, market/second hand/whatever value doesn't come in to play.

You could argue their loss is market value but if the consumer is entitled to more than market value under the legislation then that is their loss IMO.

(I understand on this occasion the OP is talking about warranty rather than consumer rights which is obviously different).

Does the CRA even apply to lost items, though? If it was faulty or defective then maybe but even then surely the 'deduction for use' would be sense-checked against the market value of the item? If 5 year old rings were regularly selling for 80% of their new value second-hand then I think it would be a hard sell to say that the deduction for use should be 75%. 

If the item had been returned under the CRA rather than warranty there certainly is an argument that they were worth original price less use if that is higher than market value. 

The problem is that high street jewellery is just grossly over priced... looking at a big name brand for a solitaire ring and they are claiming its £6,250 marked down to £4,750 in the current promotion. Look at the same grade of ring and diamond on somewhere like BlueNile and it's £1,555 if a "good" cut or £1,665 on an "ideal cut"

The other issue is that how to calculate "use" isnt prescribed by law. Personal experience on electronics has been a flat depreciation to 0 over 6 years which wasn't great but not totally out the Q... for jewellery much flatter line

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

tightauldgit said:

Does the CRA even apply to lost items, though? If it was faulty or defective then maybe but even then surely the 'deduction for use' would be sense-checked against the market value of the item? If 5 year old rings were regularly selling for 80% of their new value second-hand then I think it would be a hard sell to say that the deduction for use should be 75%. 

If a consumer returned something under their rights and it was then lost their rights still apply, the retailer should then replace, if they can't/won't/it's too expensive the right to reject is the consumer's next option (or a price reduction but that's no help if the trader lost the goods). 

In terms of use it's hard to say, it's been suggested here before that cars are easy to value on rejection as their depreciatio is a common measurable concept, however, as an extreme, if you drove off the lot in a brand new car and it fell apart 5 metres down the road I don't think it would be suggested that the large "drive it off the forecourt" depreciation would be a fair value to place on use (motor vehicles are exempt from the no deduction within 6 months rule).

With TVs, washing machines, etc they generally have a lifespan to measure against, with everything being oh so smart these days some can probably keep a record of how long they've been used for to compare against a potential manufacturer statement.  

With a ring it's hard to say, I don't think the mark up on high street jewellers really affects the depreciation (as a percentage) in the same way if you pay £1000 for a TV that happened to be on sale for £500 somewhere else wouldn't. 

A £250 ring to some people should last a lifetime, to others it's a kinder egg toy, very subjective really. 

Your example of "selling for 80% ... hard sell to say that the deduction for use should be 75%" is interesting but I've purchase many things that are worth more than I paid as they are collectable once no longer manufactured but I don't think I'd be entitled to claim more than I paid if rejecting the goods so I don't think IMHO market value has much to do with use really.  

tightauldgit

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

tightauldgit said:

Does the CRA even apply to lost items, though? If it was faulty or defective then maybe but even then surely the 'deduction for use' would be sense-checked against the market value of the item? If 5 year old rings were regularly selling for 80% of their new value second-hand then I think it would be a hard sell to say that the deduction for use should be 75%. 

If a consumer returned something under their rights and it was then lost their rights still apply, the retailer should then replace, if they can't/won't/it's too expensive the right to reject is the consumer's next option (or a price reduction but that's no help if the trader lost the goods). 

In terms of use it's hard to say, it's been suggested here before that cars are easy to value on rejection as their depreciatio is a common measurable concept, however, as an extreme, if you drove off the lot in a brand new car and it fell apart 5 metres down the road I don't think it would be suggested that the large "drive it off the forecourt" depreciation would be a fair value to place on use (motor vehicles are exempt from the no deduction within 6 months rule).

With TVs, washing machines, etc they generally have a lifespan to measure against, with everything being oh so smart these days some can probably keep a record of how long they've been used for to compare against a potential manufacturer statement.  

With a ring it's hard to say, I don't think the mark up on high street jewellers really affects the depreciation (as a percentage) in the same way if you pay £1000 for a TV that happened to be on sale for £500 somewhere else wouldn't. 

A £250 ring to some people should last a lifetime, to others it's a kinder egg toy, very subjective really. 

Your example of "selling for 80% ... hard sell to say that the deduction for use should be 75%" is interesting but I've purchase many things that are worth more than I paid as they are collectable once no longer manufactured but I don't think I'd be entitled to claim more than I paid if rejecting the goods so I don't think IMHO market value has much to do with use really.  

If I was a car dealer (which luckily I'm not) I'd probably argue that if someone drove their new car to the end of the street and it fell apart then I'd be within my rights to replace it with another one that had a couple of miles on the clock rather than having to order something brand new from the factory. Of course it gets more complicated because you've got the issue of it potentially having been registered previously which might affect the value. As a consumer I'd probably see it differently of course.

On the other hand if it was a limited edition Ferrari which i had paid £400k for but was changing hands for £1m then as the consumer I would be arguing that I have lost a £1m asset not a £400k one.

When it comes to loss then I think it can only be market value that is relevant - say you had sold the ring on Ebay for £250 and the courier lost it, would they be able to argue that you only paid £100 for it so you're only getting £100? I don't think so. But as with everything it comes down to evidence, and in most cases of consumer goods it's hard to evidence what the actual market value of something is. Which is why I think they use heuristics like 'discounts for usage' to approximate it. Plus of course a court would apply some logic to things to see if they seem reasonable.