Amazon wont acknowledge 6 year consumer rights covering faulty goods

thx67

Apologies if this has already been covered but searching for anything amazon, brings up thousands of threads about vouchers etc.

Owned some AirPods for a few years and theyve never been quite right but dont wear them that much to bother in all honesty.    More recently ive been using them a little more.   Long story short there is a known issue with a batch of AirPods.   Spoke to apple about it and they were very helpful but advised it was down to amazon to sort this out as my contract was with them as the seller.   They even provided an apple document outlining the service program.   Essentially apple agreed I would be covered but to advise amazon of the recall and the 6 year consumer law element.    All amazon would say was "it's no longer covered by the 2 year warranty".   Regardless of how I worded it, provided the relevant info it was the same drag and drop response.    Eventually got through to a "manager" who told me it was no longer covered by the warranty but he would escalate it to another department.    They either have no knowledge of this additional protection OR theyre deliberately ignoring it.    Neither option is acceptable.    Anyone else experienced this?

Aylesbury_Duck

thx67 said:

Apologies if this has already been covered but searching for anything amazon, brings up thousands of threads about vouchers etc.

Owned some AirPods for a few years and theyve never been quite right but dont wear them that much to bother in all honesty.    More recently ive been using them a little more.   Long story short there is a known issue with a batch of AirPods.   Spoke to apple about it and they were very helpful but advised it was down to amazon to sort this out as my contract was with them as the seller.   They even provided an apple document outlining the service program.   Essentially apple agreed I would be covered but to advise amazon of the recall and the 6 year consumer law element.    All amazon would say was "it's no longer covered by the 2 year warranty".   Regardless of how I worded it, provided the relevant info it was the same drag and drop response.    Eventually got through to a "manager" who told me it was no longer covered by the warranty but he would escalate it to another department.    They either have no knowledge of this additional protection OR theyre deliberately ignoring it.    Neither option is acceptable.    Anyone else experienced this?

How long is "a few years"?

What you'll need is a report to show they're inherently faulty.  The document from Apple might suffice, but Apple seem to have a reputation for assuring people they're covered and are good at telling you how it would all be quickly sorted had you purchased directly from them.  Assuming they accept that there was a recall (and therefore that they were always inherently faulty), Amazon should then refund, replace or repair.  After x years any refund would be depreciated to account for use to date, so if you've had them for say five years, are they really worth anything?  What would a five year old set of AirPods cost on eBay, for example, because that's the sort of value you're looking at.

DullGreyGuy

Apple service programmes are irrespective of where you buy them from... had free battery replacement done on a MacBook Pro which wasn't bought from them. For example https://support.apple.com/en-gb/airpods-pro-service-program-sound-issues is irrespective of where you bought them from. 

The CRA doesn't give you "6 years", it gives you the right to expect a reasonable durability etc of your goods. It's the Statute of Limitations that says you have up to 6 years to make a claim against a counterparty for a simple contract (which buying something in a shop or online is going to be considered). Unfortunately people blend the two together and think it means everything you have up to 6 years to claim but if somethings reasonable lifespan is less than 6 years you'll lose. 

The question is how long have you really owned them? My guess its over 3 years hence why Apple aren't dealing with it. The second question is, how long should AirPods last? That'll be much harder to come to a single answer on but the fact Apple has capped their programme at 3 years could be telling. 

thx67

Thanks for taking the time to reply folks.    They are over 3 years old.   What prompted me to look into it was a work colleague who had several faulty pairs in a short timespan and he mentioned the recall/service program for them.   If apple had said it was too late/not covered etc I would have just dropped it but they were insistent on it being a reasonable request and the SN matched the faulty batch.    What needled me is Amazons approach to it (and everything else come to think of it).     Im not expecting much from them but ive been weaning myself off the company for a few months anyway.    I used to sell on Amazon but pulled my items due to their constant goal post moving and ridiculous rules "to protect customers".     

DullGreyGuy

Dont get me wrong, I am an Apple product devotee. Have 4 MacBook Pros, 3 Apple TVs, 3 AirPods, and dont want to think how many iPhones... thats before you consider Magic Mice, Keyboards, Time Machines (before they discontinued them) etc. 

There are a few points of criticism of apple though... for one is the frequent statement of "if you had bought it from us...". Having bought some from Apple and some from other sources it turns out their claimed generosity only exists when you have bought elsewhere. 

A touch unfair maybe, they are far from the worst to deal with as a retailer or manufacture, but its easy to make promises of what would have happened had you only...