Will section 75 cover a Groupon purchase?

zah_ali

Hi all, I bought a pair of AirPod pros back in Oct 2020 via Groupon, I've had intermittent issues with them over the last year or so but didn't think too much of it until I'd seen Apple had issued a notice that some of their 1st gen Airpod Pros have had manufacturing issues: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/airpods-pro-service-program-sound-issues

I went into my local Apple store, who tested the airpods and they were found to have the issues that have been mentioned on their website, however I was outside of the 3 years after the retail sale of the unit. The person at the genius bar said had I bought them direct from apple they would have honoured it, and then went on to mention that under UK consumer law you have 5/6 years to make a claim to the retailer who I bought them from - this is where things get a bit tricky.

I've got in touch with Groupon who gave me the customer service email of the company that fulfilled the order (mantoquin.com), I've emailed them and not had any response. In fact googling mantoquin doesn't even come up with anything so I'm not sure the company even exists anymore!

I paid by credit card and have the statement showing the transaction, would I be able to raise a section 75 claim with my credit card company for this?

I had a look at the section 75 details on MSE and I'm wondering if purchasing via groupon would fall under third party territory resulting in no section 75 cover? 

elsien

I don’t think it does because you don’t have a direct relationship with the seller. Groupon is acting as a third-party and that breaks the section 75 link.

grumbler

zah_ali said:

..... and then went on to mention that under UK consumer law you have 5/6 years to make a claim to the retailer who I bought them from - this is where things get a bit tricky. ...

Well, in fact it's 'reasonable time', not  5/6 years. And IMHO, 3 years is long enough time for earphones, even if they are (overpriced) Apple.

MSE:  Consumer rights

DullGreyGuy

Section 75 would only cover the actions of GroupOn, so if they hadn't provided the voucher then you could have used that protection. It won't cover any issues downstream of GroupOn because you then have too many parties in the chain.

5/6 years is the law of limitations, giving you are alleging a breach of contract. The CRA itself uses more fluffy wording about "reasonable durability" and the guidance notes state the nature of the item, price paid etc all should be used to determine what's reasonable. 

The CRA also states that the merchant (and therefore your bank also had S75 applied) can reduce any refund to reflect the use already received. Again the law doesn't state how this is to be calculated but most do something like a straight line depreciation over acceptable lifespan. So if you think sealed unit headphones should last circa 4 years then you'd be looking at less than a 25% refund given yours are over 3 years old. 

zah_ali

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated! 

Given Apple themselves have admitted there was a manufacturing defect with my headphones (which they have confirmed is the case) I thought it might be worth investigating if something can be done about it. Looks unlikely, but thought I'd ask just in case. 

Thanks again to all who replied  

born_again

zah_ali said:

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated! 

Given Apple themselves have admitted there was a manufacturing defect with my headphones (which they have confirmed is the case) I thought it might be worth investigating if something can be done about it. Looks unlikely, but thought I'd ask just in case. 

Thanks again to all who replied  

Apple are very good at this, but won't put it writing & tell you to go back to seller.
If they were anything like a decent company, where they admit their error, they would simply replace.