Consumer Police. See if you can get your heads around this?

saajan_12

Super unclear posting which makes it difficult to help (at some point he was threatening to sue you, now you're suing him..) No point going on about whether people would be happy losing £x , the question is do you have a legal right and are you articulating that correctly to the court. 

1. If the item was bought in person, then you don't have a Distance Selling Consumer Rights claim.
2. If there was no specific defect or fault you could point to, then you have no no Faulty Item Consumer Rights claim. Depending on when you raised it, you may have had to give him a chance to fix / replace anyway. 
3. If none of those apply then you're replying on the guarantee / 60 day money back offer, under Contract Law. That may come with terms, it's not automatic that you get your full money back. 

Are you clearly claiming for the contract and NOT talking about Consumer rights in the court claim?

Ron1e

saajan_12 said:

Super unclear posting which makes it difficult to help (at some point he was threatening to sue you, now you're suing him..) No point going on about whether people would be happy losing £x , the question is do you have a legal right and are you articulating that correctly to the court. 

1. If the item was bought in person, then you don't have a Distance Selling Consumer Rights claim.
2. If there was no specific defect or fault you could point to, then you have no no Faulty Item Consumer Rights claim. Depending on when you raised it, you may have had to give him a chance to fix / replace anyway. 
3. If none of those apply then you're replying on the guarantee / 60 day money back offer, under Contract Law. That may come with terms, it's not automatic that you get your full money back. 

Are you clearly claiming for the contract and NOT talking about Consumer rights in the court claim?

Well, good question, both I think,  the consumer rights act say that goods must be as described and match their description.
Does the way he advertises his goods not form part of their description?
I so, then that comes under the consumer law.

If not does not, does  the way he describes them form part a legal contract between the retailer and the consumer?

To the best of my knowledge, there or terms and conditions of any kind.
Basically he just says, try them in your own time, with your own music, all without risk should you decide otherwise. Rock solid, NO QUIBBLE MONEY BACK GUARANTEE.
Thats it, no terms and conditions whatsoever. 

Ron1e

Take from this what you will.

Visitors to our superbly equipped workshop are always welcome, by appointment, where they can meet and chat with friendly, specialist audio engineers.

We offer Free Delivery and a rock solid 60 DAY, NO QUIBBLE MONEY BACK GUARANTEE, so that you may buy with confidence.

RefluentBeans

How exactly did you pay for the item? This may be the crux of your distance selling contract (which, to me, a lay person, this should be)? If you paid online then I think this is a pretty clear click and collect sort of situation, which generally falls under distance selling regs (as far as I understand, and the consensus in these boards). 

If this was a distance sale then you have an automatic right to return the item for any reason. The retailer may have a claim to deduct some cost if you handled the products more than necessary to inspect the item (an easy to think test for this is what you would be able to do in a brick and mortar store). So the question would be is installation of the product into your sound set up beyond the ‘reasonable’ aspect, and thus can the retailer deduct a cost for this? The simple answer - I don’t know. Not enough details provided, and this board isn’t going to be able to come to that conclusion (the judge will, though). 

Finally, thinking about the 60 day no quibble return period. This should contain some terms (but as others have stated) there appears to be no real terms associated with this. Generally, this favours the consumer as it will be what is generally reasonable to expect in this situation. However, modifying (as the retailer is claiming you have done) would likely be exempt, and not unreasonable to not honour this policy. I don’t there is a good faith argument to be had that you could make any adjustments you wanted and then return it to the retailer for a full refund. But the retailer will have to prove this; and if they haven’t got the evidence then I doubt that their argument holds water. 

My advice is to keep your story simple. Go for the low hanging fruit - you were promised a no quibble returns. This had no policy attached, and you did what a reasonable person would do - test it in your system (as the marketing material recommended). This formed part of your decision to purchase the product. The retailer now is trying to back out of this agreement, and change the policy. This is a breach of contract, and you want to be put in the position that you were in before the breach occurred (ie a full refund). Assuming the facts are true, and that you haven’t gone beyond what a reasonable person may expect the marketing material to mean, this should be a pretty clear case. Don’t include any other detail unless it helps you make your point. Don’t go off on tangents; and don’t confuse your statutory rights with your contractual agreement. 

Ron1e

RefluentBeans said:

How exactly did you pay for the item? This may be the crux of your distance selling contract (which, to me, a lay person, this should be)? If you paid online then I think this is a pretty clear click and collect sort of situation, which generally falls under distance selling regs (as far as I understand, and the consensus in these boards). 

If this was a distance sale then you have an automatic right to return the item for any reason. The retailer may have a claim to deduct some cost if you handled the products more than necessary to inspect the item (an easy to think test for this is what you would be able to do in a brick and mortar store). So the question would be is installation of the product into your sound set up beyond the ‘reasonable’ aspect, and thus can the retailer deduct a cost for this? The simple answer - I don’t know. Not enough details provided, and this board isn’t going to be able to come to that conclusion (the judge will, though). 

Finally, thinking about the 60 day no quibble return period. This should contain some terms (but as others have stated) there appears to be no real terms associated with this. Generally, this favours the consumer as it will be what is generally reasonable to expect in this situation. However, modifying (as the retailer is claiming you have done) would likely be exempt, and not unreasonable to not honour this policy. I don’t there is a good faith argument to be had that you could make any adjustments you wanted and then return it to the retailer for a full refund. But the retailer will have to prove this; and if they haven’t got the evidence then I doubt that their argument holds water. 

My advice is to keep your story simple. Go for the low hanging fruit - you were promised a no quibble returns. This had no policy attached, and you did what a reasonable person would do - test it in your system (as the marketing material recommended). This formed part of your decision to purchase the product. The retailer now is trying to back out of this agreement, and change the policy. This is a breach of contract, and you want to be put in the position that you were in before the breach occurred (ie a full refund). Assuming the facts are true, and that you haven’t gone beyond what a reasonable person may expect the marketing material to mean, this should be a pretty clear case. Don’t include any other detail unless it helps you make your point. Don’t go off on tangents; and don’t confuse your statutory rights with your contractual agreement. 

Thank you, Clearly you know what you are talking about and I really appreciate your response. Court cases are not my area of expertise and way above my pay grade. I will be contacting the retailer one last time before the hearing and the last two paragraphs in your reply to me will very helpful in my response. . 
I wish I had come to this forum sooner, I tend to see things in black and white, I know life’s not like that, but to me, a  Rock solid 60 no quibble money back guarantee, means exactly what it says on the tin.

Thank you again for your time.

Ron1e

Just to make it clear. These were purchased in store, well from his shed.
He doesn’t, have demonstration facilities thats why he invites you to try them in your own home.

Paid for with debit card.

Originally he refused to refund me anything. Point blank.

And this is the best bit. 

He says ” I appreciate you made the wrong decision” but you will remember that is a previous email, I stipulated that if we were to bend to your demands that any consideration would final and binding.
In the circumstances I am not will to accept these replacement amps, made to your precise wishes to be returned for a refund as you demand.
How is it possible to make the wrong decision when he advertise his goods in the way that he does?
I don't get it.

First reason for refusal was because the offer to buy them was final and binding.
When it was pointed out to him that he can't take away a persons consumer rights he changed tack.

Then he went for the bespoke option, claims they were made to my precise wishes.
When it was made clear to him that they were a commercially available product, available to anyone, he changed tack again.

His last ditch attempt (even though they were returned in person and made freely available for inspection)
Was that I had tampered with them and he will now refund, me, but less £500.00

It was pointed out to him that he has no evidence to support this claim and he now makes no mention of this in any correspondence.

The  latest offer, which came yesterday, was, he has advertised them as secondhand and has had an offer of £2500.00. He says he is willing to accept this, but still pay me £3500.00. And he is willing to accept a loss of £1500.00 and he will put this before the court.

I haven't replied to him yet and I have no intention of accepting his offer.

born_again

Ron1e said:

Just to make it clear. These were purchased in store, well from his shed.
He doesn’t, have demonstration facilities thats why he invites you to try them in your own home.

Paid for with debit card.

So distance selling does not apply.

As far as consumer rights go, there is no change of mind for in store purchases, unless retailers have their own policies.

Jumblebumble

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hello OP

Thanks for the message, the website does indeed offer the 60 days moneyback guarantee described as no quibbles with no terms I can see and that guarantee is along side an offer to visit them in person by appointment so, to my reading, should apply regardless of whether you buy through their website or "in store", as it were. 

Looking at the site there is very little in the way of T&Cs, despite being able to place a website order I couldn't see the usual "Returns" page or "Terms and Conditions" page to say anything about the right to cancel or indeed anything else about this guarantee.

To add to the point above about buying after seeing Facebook ad, the website looks nice, has the company address, perhaps a little basic but small businesses don't always have the money or knowhow to set up fancy sites, it certainly doesn't look like a "scam" website.

OP have they refunded you anything yet? I think best bet is accept whatever they are offering and then chase the rest. Did you pay by credit card by any chance? 

In addition it is interesting that his Trustpilot  has 84 reviews and only one bad one
( It is not very difficult for someone who might do forensics as a day job to work out who the vendor is)