Taking Amazon to court

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

TomB_on_the_Sax said:

I've tried doing a section 75, but since it is over 3 years ago, they won't deal with it either. Sorry if 3 posts turn up but they don't appear to be appearing.

If you paid with a debit card I would assume after 3 years you are out of tie but if you paid on a credit card the bank should still process a S75 @born_again might confirm on that. 

Regarding a claim, after 6 months the retailer can reduce the refund for use so you'd be looking to claim that part amount rather than a full refund.

If you haven't already worth a Google search for the Amazon uk managing director email, they might be more helpful.  

ArbitraryRandom

As per lunatic, you need to be aware your claim would be minus any use vs the expected life of the product... and given they're wireless headphones about 3 years is a good life expectancy given the lithium battery so you may find that even if you win (not guaranteed) you don't get back much more than the filing fee... 

Also, just because that batch had a manufacturing fault - is the problem you experienced DUE to the fault? I mean, they worked without issue for several years.  

Aylesbury_Duck

Mark_d said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

TomB_on_the_Sax said:

If I had bought the Airpods from Apple directly then they would have given her a new set there and then. 

Easy for them to say that, and they often do.  Is there any evidence that it's true?

From my experience it has been much easier to sort out issue when you deal with a company directly rather than going via a reseller/travel agent

I agree, but I made the comment because there have been lots of threads where Apple specifically have said this to customers. It could be an empty promise made to make themselves look good, so I'm interested to find out if they actually do as they say they would.

DullGreyGuy

born_again said:
This is really amusing & sad, as all Amazon could do is return to Apple, citing the same. So why do Apple simply not replace them & make themselves look good?

Because Amazon may not be able to return them to Apple... it's a B2B arrangement and so comes down to their commercial agreement rather than statutory rights. I know when looking at supplier contracts with a previous mail order company that for small and relatively inexpensive goods they could only reclaim monies if failure rate was over X% and the price they paid got lower the higher that X was. 

It was fairly rare that these levels were ever triggered and inevitably some level of debate if all of the items were truly faulty which gets even more complex when you get situations like where we knocked £50 off a Desktop because its DVD drive stopped working... was it an appropriate amount? Can we even prove the old one was faulty? These were the days before email and digital photos and so most discounts were given based purely on the customer's say so. 

Even if Amazon could return them to Apple you have all the entity issues... the store giving away its stock will most likely be Apple Retail UK Limited but Amazon will have bought from Apple Distribution International Limited... the people who's bonus is dependent on Retail UK Ltd results won't want to be reducing their bottom like whilst staff working for Distribution International get a bumper bonus as all Amazon purchases go through them but returns via the other entity. 

TomB_on_the_Sax

I can't get 'Quote to work properly so this is in reply to the 120 day post at the bottom of page 1.

It's over 120 days. in fact it's over 3 years. That's the problem. Both Amazon & Mastercard point blank refuse to do anything over 3 years, however the law states 5 years for Scotland & 6 for England & Wales.

molerat

TomB_on_the_Sax said:

I can't get 'Quote to work properly so this is in reply to the 120 day post at the bottom of page 1.

It's over 120 days. in fact it's over 3 years. That's the problem. Both Amazon & Mastercard point blank refuse to do anything over 3 years, however the law states 5 years for Scotland & 6 for England & Wales.

How / why are you dealing with "Mastercard", you should be dealing with your bank, the ones who issued the Mastercard.  You are also not making it clear to them that you are invoking your rights under section 75 of the CCA and not trying to invoke the Mastercard chargeback process.

DullGreyGuy

TomB_on_the_Sax said:

I can't get 'Quote to work properly so this is in reply to the 120 day post at the bottom of page 1.

It's over 120 days. in fact it's over 3 years. That's the problem. Both Amazon & Mastercard point blank refuse to do anything over 3 years, however the law states 5 years for Scotland & 6 for England & Wales.

The law doesn't state 5 years (or 6)... the Consumer Right Act, which is what you are claiming under, doesn't specify any time limit but just states you should be able to expect a reasonable durability. 

The Law of Limitations sets the time limit... if the items aren't of reasonable durability then its a breach of contract, they must not have been appropriately durable from the start and therefore the 5/6 years law of limitation from contract breaches starts from the date the goods were supplied. 

That isn't to say you can claim that everything has to last at least 5/6 years... the CRA is clear that reasonable durability has to consider what you are buying and so if you buy a Biro you cannot claim 4.5 years later that it wasn't durable when the ink runs out... its not reasonable that a pen should last that long and they aren't sold as being refillable etc. 

The other issue which others have pointed out, the CRA allows a merchant to reduce the refund to reflect the use received prior to the fault occurring. 

Now the problem is that the law doesn't define how you determine either what the reasonable life expectancy of different items are nor how you calculate the deduction for use. Most seem to suggest a straight line cost is reasonable so if your item dies after 3 years and had a life expectancy of 4 years then you'd be entitled to a 25% refund. 

Hopefully your expert's report on the item's defect includes their opinion of what reasonable life expectancy should be which will give you one less thing to have to debate in court. 

The other word of caution, make sure you issue against the right Amazon legal entity... seen people issue 2-3 times before correctly identifying the defendant and all those fees are lost money.  Given your claim is realistically going to be under £50 you quickly get into a position where you spend more in fees than you will ever get back. 

la531983

TomB_on_the_Sax said:

It's over 120 days. in fact it's over 3 years. That's the problem.

Go and read my post again. "Its 120 days from when you first noticed a problem"

When did you notice a problem?

TomB_on_the_Sax

Mole rat - I did deal with the bank and they quoted Master card's rules.

TomB_on_the_Sax

La531983 - We noticed it recently, over 3 years since buying them. However the law states that if it is a known manufacturing issue, then you area allowed a refund or replacement if you notice the problem within 5 years.