Missold Printer

[John1802]

Help and advice needed please, I will try and keep this short.

I went to a well known electrical retailer in August this year to buy a multifunction printer. They had one on show that was reduced because it was the last one and a display model, i said i would have it. I bought an extended warranty (I don't normally but because it was goods that had been on show i thought better to be safe) and they even sold me some reduced price ink and paper for it.

From day one it did not seem to work properly. It had trouble taking the photo paper in to print on and the scanning was really poor leaving lines all over the scanned images. Last night and today i decided that i'd had enough and did something about it.

I rang the ratailer customer service line and was told that i could ring the manufacturer direct and so i did that today. The manufacturer told me today that there is no longer a warranty on the printer after i gave the model number and i think some other number off the reciept. I did not give the serial number because i was at work at the time and did not know it.

I was not happy to learn that there was no warranty so got on the phone to the retailer again who could not give an explaination why this would be the case and passed me through to the shop. The guy at the shop told me that it looked like the printer i had bought had been sold before and then returned back to the shop with no record as to why and he asked me to take the printer into the shop which i did this evening.

One of the first things the sales guy said was that they don't give refunds?? I understand from the litrature that the store policy is to give vouchers. He said he will contact the manufacturer direct tomorrow and organise to get the printer fixed for me but to be honest i am very unhappy about being told lies and i was not aware that i was buying second hand goods even with the discount. Now i am also wondering if the extended warranty was worth buying as well at a cost of £75.

I am also narked about the inconvenience of having to drive to the shop (Not in my town) to take the printer there and then i have to drive there to get it back at a later date and in the meantime i am without the printer/scanner.

Any thoughts and advice would be appreciated.

[John1802]

Oh, another thing was that it was all paid for on credit card.

[Bookworm]

Well, my first thought is that you bought it in August and used it, so rejecting outright is not really an option. You do however statutory rights under SOGA 1979 and one of them is that the item you bought should be "as described". If you were sold second-hand goods as new (albeit ex-display) then the "not as described" applies. You can also rely on the "not of satisfactory quality", obviously.

Be that as it may, if the printer is faulty, they can not offer you vouchers, store policy is one thing and statutory rights another. However, you seem unclear in your own mind as to whether you want the printer fixed or refunded, so you need to decide which way to go.

The extended warranty is another matter. You need to clarify whether the warranty of which the guy on the phone spoke refers to the original 12 mths warranty (which I suspect is the case) or the extended one. If it is the original one, then it has no effect on the extended one and you have spent your money on a product you might now be regretting to have bought, but there's no recourse for regret, I'm afraid. OTOH, if the extended warranty is null and void because the printer was second-hand (I don't see why, then again I don't work for them!), then you were mis-sold it in the first place and should go after them for a full refund on those grounds, that you were sold a product which couldn't cover you in the first place.

Finally, when you say "i am also wondering if the extended warranty was worth buying as well at a cost of £75", my answer would be "no". You have statutory rights and they already cover you for most of the stuff that the warranty does. But that's for future reference.

[John1802]

Thank you for your reply Bookworm.

It was the original 12 month warranty that i was told had elapsed.

Having a quick look at the extended policy some things jump out at me.

'Period of Cover
Breakdown cover starts from the date the manufacturers guarantee expires and cover for accidental damage starts from the date the policy is purchased.'

Now if they are telling me that the 12 month guarantee has expired then my breakdown cover has already started which i am not happy about either.

I think i am going to cancel the extended cover and get back what i can anyway, it says i can after 45 days and get a refund of a pro rata amount.

[gyzmo]

I really think this is an issue to raise with trading standards. If they are engaging in this kind of practice with knowledge of what could happen then they are, in my view, deserving of a right embuggerance.

[John1802]

Thought I'd update this.

After taking the printer into the shop and the shop assistant messing about with it and taking some details from me, he said that he would contact the manufacturer the next day and send some details into them to verify that it was still under warranty. Then he would contact me to let me know what is going on and get the printer off for repair and that i should get it back on Thursday the next week (20th Nov). I heard nothing the next day and decided to contact the shop again where i had to speak to someone new because the original guy who dealt with it was off.

I'll say at this point that contacting the store is a right pain because there is no direct number so you have to ring a customer service line and each time you do that you get someone different and have to explain the whole thing again to them before they will contact the shop.

The new lady seemed very helpful and told me that they were still having problems with the validity of the warranty (Manufacturer saying it has expired and the store saying it has not because they only sold it a couple of months ago) but she would get it off for repair anyway and she also played down any possibility of the printer being sold before, she was adamant that it had not been.

Fast forward to yesterday (20th Nov) and i heard nothing from the shop and so decided to ring them to see if the printer was back. Had to phone customer services line again, asked to be put through to store, had to explain the whole thing again and then the customer services person contacted the store and had conversation with them. Then customer services person spoke to me and told me the printer would not be back until at least the 29th Nov. I then explained what i had been told but got nowhere with them. Customer services person told me that they try and fix the fault in the shop first before sending it away for repair.

I was happy enough to have the printer fixed under the warranty but the longer this farce goes on the more i am inclined to try and get a refund and get something else from somewhere else. How would i stand if i decided to do that and what is the best way to go about it?

Thoughts anyone please!!

[Conniff]

If you name the company John then those that know them will be able to help you especially if it is PC World.

I know there is a time limit on how long a repair takes so name and shame.

[John1802]

Comet

[gyzmo]

Oh there we go! Definitely report it to TS.