Hi,
Don't know if anyone can advise on this, am asking and acting on behalf of a friend.
She bought an Acer laptop for her parents as a Christmas present in late December 2012. It wasn't a particularly great spec, but was sufficient for their needs. All told it cost just under £300.
Fast forward to early September 2014 and the backlight on the screen has apparently failed. You could barely make out the silhouette of the Windows 7 login prompt, but it was to all intents and purposes unusable.
Initial contact was made with Acer who informed her that the laptop had a 1 year warranty that had expired. They said that any diagnosis & repair would be chargeable.
She then spoke to the retailer, exercising her rights under the Sale of Goods Act on the basis that a reasonable person would not expect a laptop screen to fail catastrophically less than 2 years into its life, and was therefore not fit for purpose or of satisfactory quality.
The retailer demanded that an independent engineer carry out an inspection of the laptop, at her cost (they agreed to contribute £25 towards this cost, but no more, it ended up costing £35). The engineer corroborated the obvious failure in the laptop and produced a report, which was forwarded to the retailer. This started the whole RMA process.
The laptop was then subsequently collected by the retailer's own arranged courier (Yodel). Shortly after receipt they closed the claim, stating that physical damage had occured to the laptop. They sent two photos of the laptop screen with a crack going from the top of the screen all of the way to the bottom. This was of course a revelation to my friend since it was very well packaged when sent back (which the retailer confirmed - there was no damage to the outer box). They have now washed their hands of it completely and sent it back.
I can personally confirm 100% that were was no physical damage to the laptop before it was packaged, and at the point it was collected.
We're now at an impass where the retailer is refusing any liability because of the crack, and we are adamant that this crack never existed before it was collected.
From our perspective it would've been completely without merit to have gone through all of the hassle of claiming under the SoGA (the retailer has been obstructive in this regard from start to finish, it took 2 phone calls before they would even acknowledge that the SoGA would apply) when any claim would've been frivolous in the presence of obvious physical damage caused by the end user.
I don't know where we stand with this now really. Before it all started I think she would've been happy with some sort of goodwill contribution towards the repair (of the backlight), but now it is obviously going to cost considerably more to fix, through no fault of her own.
I think she should take the retailer to small claims court, though I don't know what avenue this would take now - is it still a SoGA dispute, or something else entirely? How can we realistically prove that the laptop was fine at the point of collection (she didn't take photos).
To muddy the waters further - about 2 weeks elapsed between the engineer's report being done and her actually sending the laptop back, partly because Yodel failed to collect the first time around but also because she was very busy and had been given 30 days to send it back. Retailer are claiming that this delay is material - i.e. that she could've broken it in the intervening time from the engineer report being created, to sending it back. My assertion is that the engineer report makes no mention of the crack (because it wasn't there!) and that the nature of the fault meant the laptop was unusable anyway - so what use would it have been to continue trying to use it in any way?
My gut feeling is that this would come down to credibility alone in a court of Law, but I really don't want to let this retailer get away with this behaviour, or leave my friend looking at big repair/write off costs through no fault of her own.
I've said to her that I'd front the legal costs on a point of principal (she was unaware of her rights under SoGA), just curious as to what you guys think her chances are realistically...
Thanks in advance!
Don't know if anyone can advise on this, am asking and acting on behalf of a friend.
She bought an Acer laptop for her parents as a Christmas present in late December 2012. It wasn't a particularly great spec, but was sufficient for their needs. All told it cost just under £300.
Fast forward to early September 2014 and the backlight on the screen has apparently failed. You could barely make out the silhouette of the Windows 7 login prompt, but it was to all intents and purposes unusable.
Initial contact was made with Acer who informed her that the laptop had a 1 year warranty that had expired. They said that any diagnosis & repair would be chargeable.
She then spoke to the retailer, exercising her rights under the Sale of Goods Act on the basis that a reasonable person would not expect a laptop screen to fail catastrophically less than 2 years into its life, and was therefore not fit for purpose or of satisfactory quality.
The retailer demanded that an independent engineer carry out an inspection of the laptop, at her cost (they agreed to contribute £25 towards this cost, but no more, it ended up costing £35). The engineer corroborated the obvious failure in the laptop and produced a report, which was forwarded to the retailer. This started the whole RMA process.
The laptop was then subsequently collected by the retailer's own arranged courier (Yodel). Shortly after receipt they closed the claim, stating that physical damage had occured to the laptop. They sent two photos of the laptop screen with a crack going from the top of the screen all of the way to the bottom. This was of course a revelation to my friend since it was very well packaged when sent back (which the retailer confirmed - there was no damage to the outer box). They have now washed their hands of it completely and sent it back.
I can personally confirm 100% that were was no physical damage to the laptop before it was packaged, and at the point it was collected.
We're now at an impass where the retailer is refusing any liability because of the crack, and we are adamant that this crack never existed before it was collected.
From our perspective it would've been completely without merit to have gone through all of the hassle of claiming under the SoGA (the retailer has been obstructive in this regard from start to finish, it took 2 phone calls before they would even acknowledge that the SoGA would apply) when any claim would've been frivolous in the presence of obvious physical damage caused by the end user.
I don't know where we stand with this now really. Before it all started I think she would've been happy with some sort of goodwill contribution towards the repair (of the backlight), but now it is obviously going to cost considerably more to fix, through no fault of her own.
I think she should take the retailer to small claims court, though I don't know what avenue this would take now - is it still a SoGA dispute, or something else entirely? How can we realistically prove that the laptop was fine at the point of collection (she didn't take photos).
To muddy the waters further - about 2 weeks elapsed between the engineer's report being done and her actually sending the laptop back, partly because Yodel failed to collect the first time around but also because she was very busy and had been given 30 days to send it back. Retailer are claiming that this delay is material - i.e. that she could've broken it in the intervening time from the engineer report being created, to sending it back. My assertion is that the engineer report makes no mention of the crack (because it wasn't there!) and that the nature of the fault meant the laptop was unusable anyway - so what use would it have been to continue trying to use it in any way?
My gut feeling is that this would come down to credibility alone in a court of Law, but I really don't want to let this retailer get away with this behaviour, or leave my friend looking at big repair/write off costs through no fault of her own.
I've said to her that I'd front the legal costs on a point of principal (she was unaware of her rights under SoGA), just curious as to what you guys think her chances are realistically...
Thanks in advance!