Faulty office chair consumer rights

ForumUser7

Purchased an office chair in 2019. In 2020, I contacted the retailer because the piston failed. I explained I was unable to get to store due to COVID and asked if they could do a courier collection but they never replied. Unsure what to do next.

Grumpy_chap

ForumUser7 said:

Purchased an office chair in October 2019. In June 2020, I contacted the retailer because the piston wouldn’t keep the chair up. They said I could return the product to a store before October 2020 and receive a full refund. I explained I was unable to get to store currently and may not be able to then either due to being clinically vulnerable. I replied to their email to ask if they could do a courier collection but they never replied. I therefore gave up and used a different chair since. I’ve now started using the chair again and have been reminded how useless it is, so contacted the retailer again to chase a response and see what they could do. They are now saying I’ll need an independent report confirming the manufacturing defect - despite me reporting it before and making the goods available for collection, but the retailer failed to respond or collect.

I’ve emphasised this point to them, and also highlighted failure to provide courier collection back then as a reasonable adjustment given the circumstances could constitute indirect discrimination under the Equality Act as due to a medical condition I was unable to visit store. They won’t budge.

I don’t feel it’s reasonable to be required to get a report at this point due to the fact that their colleague never replied and they didn’t collect the goods. I was wondering if there are any consumer rights sections relevant to my case, and what I should do please?

I realise now I should’ve chased them more at the time, but it was so difficult to get anyone at the retailer to understand.

Thank you

You had a four-month period in 2020 to get this resolved and a full refund.
You are now four-years later, so the chair is 5 years old.  Any remedy after this time would be reduced by the amount of beneficial use you had from the chair compared to the expected life of an office chair.  That might well be a high proportion (80% - 100% deduction).  It is irrelevant that you may have not used the chair - that cannot be proven.  Any external assessor would determine you had the chair for use for 5 years.

Aylesbury_Duck

I don't think they're being unreasonable.  While understandable that you didn't want to visit a store in 2020, things opened up a lot in 2021 and everything was back to normal soon afterwards.  Leaving it until April 2024 to follow up isn't reasonable, so them asking for an independent report seems the correct course of action.

lincroft1710

You use the term "office chair". If you purchased this to use as a chair for any business you may be carrying out from home then you have no rights as a consumer and this would be considered a business to business transaction

Grumpy_chap

ForumUser7 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

You had a four-month period in 2020 to get this resolved and a full refund.
You are now four-years later, so the chair is 5 years old.  Any remedy after this time would be reduced by the amount of beneficial use you had from the chair compared to the expected life of an office chair.  That might well be a high proportion (80% - 100% deduction).  It is irrelevant that you may have not used the chair - that cannot be proven.  Any external assessor would determine you had the chair for use for 5 years.

Unfortunately that was in the middle of a pandemic, and I was clinically vulnerable so couldn’t go to the shop.

I acknowledge the pandemic impinged on everything, but could you have got a friend or relative to return the chair at any point in the four-month period?

Have you not been to a shop in the four-years since the pandemic?

The real difficulty here is you asking for "reasonable adjustments" related to a medical condition.  An extension beyond the pandemic restriction period may have been a reasonable adjustment if requested at the time.  You seem to be asking for a "reasonable adjustment" to be considered in retrospect four-years after the event.  By now, the chair would likely be showing its age regardless.

How expensive was this chair?
If you were seeking a refund of 10% of the chair's original price (reflecting the 5-years of beneficial ownership), is that really worth pursuing?

lincroft1710

ForumUser7 said:

lincroft1710 said:

You use the term "office chair". If you purchased this to use as a chair for any business you may be carrying out from home then you have no rights as a consumer and this would be considered a business to business transaction

Not a business transaction - I'm a student and purchased it to use while studying. The chair was called an office chair, like home office in this context I suppose. Just one of those ones with pistons to go up and down, swivels around, on wheels etc.

Grumpy_chap said:

ForumUser7 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

You had a four-month period in 2020 to get this resolved and a full refund.
You are now four-years later, so the chair is 5 years old.  Any remedy after this time would be reduced by the amount of beneficial use you had from the chair compared to the expected life of an office chair.  That might well be a high proportion (80% - 100% deduction).  It is irrelevant that you may have not used the chair - that cannot be proven.  Any external assessor would determine you had the chair for use for 5 years.

Unfortunately that was in the middle of a pandemic, and I was clinically vulnerable so couldn’t go to the shop.

I acknowledge the pandemic impinged on everything, but could you have got a friend or relative to return the chair at any point in the four-month period?

Have you not been to a shop in the four-years since the pandemic?

The real difficulty here is you asking for "reasonable adjustments" related to a medical condition.  An extension beyond the pandemic restriction period may have been a reasonable adjustment if requested at the time.  You seem to be asking for a "reasonable adjustment" to be considered in retrospect four-years after the event.  By now, the chair would likely be showing its age regardless.

How expensive was this chair?
If you were seeking a refund of 10% of the chair's original price (reflecting the 5-years of beneficial ownership), is that really worth pursuing?

However I feel like given the case couldn't progress due to the staff member not responding to my email, I feel their originally offered resolution would only be fair. 

Not going to happen, you've had the chair for 5 years. I'm sorry but you have left it far too long to get a meaningful resolution. As soon as you decided not to pursue the matter when they didn't get back to you, that became the end of it. 

unforeseen

Unfortunately that was in the middle of a pandemic, and I was clinically vulnerable so couldn’t go to the shop.

Shielding was paused on the 1st August for a period. As somebody who was extremely clinically vulnerable it was good news as I got out and managed to get back to work and I was also allowed to start my cancer treatment. 

You could have done something then. 

cannugec5

Perhaps the person who never replied to the email never made it through the pandemic… or was overwhelmed with work, or forgot to deal with the question..

Simply ignoring the lack of a response is no excuse for not following it up. Expecting a resolution after 4 years is unreasonable. 

RefluentBeans

Unfortunately, the time to chase up the courier request would’ve been closer to the original email date than now.

You say you didn’t get a response to your original request. Did you check your spam folder? Why didn’t you chase it up then? I appreciate that you may not have felt comfortable taking it back to the shop, but by not following up with the retailer, I don’t think you have done your reasonable effort to ‘make the goods available’ - for the very least they don’t know where the goods are! 

I think given you were willing to wave goodbye to the money 4 years ago, this should be a learning experience. 

Alderbank

lincroft1710 said:

ForumUser7 said:

lincroft1710 said:

You use the term "office chair". If you purchased this to use as a chair for any business you may be carrying out from home then you have no rights as a consumer and this would be considered a business to business transaction

Not a business transaction - I'm a student and purchased it to use while studying. The chair was called an office chair, like home office in this context I suppose. Just one of those ones with pistons to go up and down, swivels around, on wheels etc.

Grumpy_chap said:

ForumUser7 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

You had a four-month period in 2020 to get this resolved and a full refund.
You are now four-years later, so the chair is 5 years old.  Any remedy after this time would be reduced by the amount of beneficial use you had from the chair compared to the expected life of an office chair.  That might well be a high proportion (80% - 100% deduction).  It is irrelevant that you may have not used the chair - that cannot be proven.  Any external assessor would determine you had the chair for use for 5 years.

Unfortunately that was in the middle of a pandemic, and I was clinically vulnerable so couldn’t go to the shop.

I acknowledge the pandemic impinged on everything, but could you have got a friend or relative to return the chair at any point in the four-month period?

Have you not been to a shop in the four-years since the pandemic?

The real difficulty here is you asking for "reasonable adjustments" related to a medical condition.  An extension beyond the pandemic restriction period may have been a reasonable adjustment if requested at the time.  You seem to be asking for a "reasonable adjustment" to be considered in retrospect four-years after the event.  By now, the chair would likely be showing its age regardless.

How expensive was this chair?
If you were seeking a refund of 10% of the chair's original price (reflecting the 5-years of beneficial ownership), is that really worth pursuing?

However I feel like given the case couldn't progress due to the staff member not responding to my email, I feel their originally offered resolution would only be fair. 

Not going to happen, you've had the chair for 5 years. I'm sorry but you have left it far too long to get a meaningful resolution. As soon as you decided not to pursue the matter when they didn't get back to you, that became the end of it. 

I'd be grateful if you could direct me to which part of CRA 2015 says any of that?

My understanding of the Act is as follows:

S24 Right to...final right to reject

(5)A consumer may exercise the final right to reject [when] the consumer has required the trader to repair or replace the goods, but the trader is in breach of the requirement of section 23(2)(a) to do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer.

Between June and October 2020 the OP requested the trader to arrange collection of the chair but the trader has not yet done so.
I believe a reasonable person would consider 3.5 years far in excess of a reasonable time.

The consumer's right to reject is not time-limited in any way in the regulations.

S24 (8) If the consumer exercises the final right to reject, any refund to the consumer may be reduced by a deduction for use, to take account of the use the consumer has had of the goods in the period since they were delivered, but...no deduction may be made to take account of use in any period when the consumer had the goods only because the trader failed to collect them at an agreed time.

The trader might try to argue that there was not a time agreed to collect, because they simply ignored the OP's reasonable request. 
However the court might accept that there was an implied contract term that they would collect within a reasonable time of say 1 month, so the relevant time the OP has use of the chair was perhaps Oct 2019 - Oct 2020, about 1 year.

Grumpy_chap

ForumUser7 said:

I'd asked the retailer about a courier,  The problem is they didn't reply, so I didn't know what to do and with so much else going on at the time just kind of gave up.

the retailer said they wouldn't do anything after October 2020. 

I did ask for an extension beyond the pandemic restriction period at the time, or alternatively a courier to collect the item back in June 2020 when I got in touch. They never responded to this aspect.

While I now recognise that I should've followed up with them repeatedly around the time until I got a response, surely some allowance should be made for the fact that the case couldn't progress due to non-response from the colleague?

Alderbank said:

S24 Right to...final right to reject

(5)A consumer may exercise the final right to reject [when] the consumer has required the trader to repair or replace the goods, but the trader is in breach of the requirement of section 23(2)(a) to do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer.

Between June and October 2020 the OP requested the trader to arrange collection of the chair but the trader has not yet done so.
I believe a reasonable person would consider 3.5 years far in excess of a reasonable time.

S24 (8) If the consumer exercises the final right to reject, any refund to the consumer may be reduced by a deduction for use, to take account of the use the consumer has had of the goods in the period since they were delivered, but...no deduction may be made to take account of use in any period when the consumer had the goods only because the trader failed to collect them at an agreed time.

The trader might try to argue that there was not a time agreed to collect, because they simply ignored the OP's reasonable request. 
However the court might accept that there was an implied contract term that they would collect within a reasonable time of say 1 month, so the relevant time the OP has use of the chair was perhaps Oct 2019 - Oct 2020, about 1 year.

If I understand this correctly, the OP requested the courier in June 2020 by sending an e-mail.
We have no knowledge as to whether that e-mail was ever received by the supplier.  
There has only been a request for the chair to be collected if that e-mail was actually received, so it may be that the retailer did not ignore the OP's request.  

I think "reasonable time for the retailer to collect" has to be balanced with reasonable time for the consumer to make some follow up if there has been no response at all from the retailer.  

The OP sent an e-mail in 2020.
In 2024, the OP followed up as no response had been received.
I really think most people would follow up rather quicker than that.