Hi.

I've only just joined so I hope I'm doing everything correctly. Please point me in the right direction if I'm not.

I bought a Panasonic TV from Richer Sounds on November 25th 2014. The cost of the TV was £1199.00. I also purchased 2 pairs of 3D glasses for a further total of £69.90. I received a free 5 year guarantee on the TV.

The TV failed just before Christmas, now about 6 weeks ago. I contacted Richer Sounds and, after saying they could arrange an engineers visit, because of the proximity to the holiday season I agreed to take the TV to a store so that I could get a loan appliance. I have this at the moment and I left a £600 deposit with them for this.

I spoke to Richer Sounds yesterday as I had heard nothing and I was told that there was a problem with parts availability and they were discussing with the manufacturer an "alternative resolution."

I have not idea what that will be but I also have no idea what my starting point should be. I know that Richer Sounds are a reasonable company to deal with but should I base any negotiations on the features of the TV, the £1199.00 I paid, or some other criterion?

The problem, of course, is that the TV I had was a fully featured one when it bought but the value of those features has dropped in the intervening 2 years. I don't want to be greedy but I also don't want to miss out.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

You say that you know that they are a reasonable company to deal with – but I don't understand why they should want £600 as a deposit on a loan TV.

Now they have your old broken TV. They have the warranty. They also have £600 of yours in respect of a loan TV which I imagine is probably an inferior model and maybe even second-hand. I don't see where this is at all reasonable.

Next thing, they apparently promise to get back to you and they haven't communicated with you.

For my part, I would have alarm bells ringing.

You say you have got a free warranty. Can you post up a copy of the warranty in PDF format please so that we can see.

If you are simply relying on your statutory rights then you would be entitled either to repair or to a refund of your purchase price less an amount of money to reflect the two years use you have had out of the set. The reduction will be calculated on the total normal life expectancy of the set – say seven years?? You would then take the purchase price £1199 divided by 7 to produce a yearly sum and you would then get five years of that – 5/7.

However, the warranty might confer some completely different rights. Your consumer rights of the minimum that you are entitled to. The warranty might offer you something better and we need to see what it says.

In fact I have just done some calculations on the basis of seven years and it equals about 3 pounds per week that you would be paying for that television if you only had it for seven years.

This seems to me to be a bit on the steep side – but I don't know what you think or others think.

I wonder whether eight or nine years might be more reasonable.

In that case,

your refund in case of a total write-off would be 7/9 or 6/8.

Anyway, you get the picture I expect. (Or as it happens, you don't – until it is repaired!)

Also, you might like to look at this search https://cse.google.co.uk/cse?cx=partner-pub-0964707606882478:652l7hswbgv&ie=UTF-8&q=richer+sounds&sa=Search+CAG#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=richer%20sounds&gsc.page=1 in order to get some idea of the experiences of other people with this company Richer Sounds. I hope you do better.

Hi.

 

I've only just joined so I hope I'm doing everything correctly. Please point me in the right direction if I'm not.

 

I bought a Panasonic TV from Richer Sounds on November 25th 2014. The cost of the TV was £1199.00. I also purchased 2 pairs of 3D glasses for a further total of £69.90. I received a free 5 year guarantee on the TV.

 

The TV failed just before Christmas, now about 6 weeks ago. I contacted Richer Sounds and, after saying they could arrange an engineers visit, because of the proximity to the holiday season I agreed to take the TV to a store so that I could get a loan appliance. I have this at the moment and I left a £600 deposit with them for this.

 

I spoke to Richer Sounds yesterday as I had heard nothing and I was told that there was a problem with parts availability and they were discussing with the manufacturer an "alternative resolution."

 

I have not idea what that will be but I also have no idea what my starting point should be. I know that Richer Sounds are a reasonable company to deal with but should I base any negotiations on the features of the TV, the £1199.00 I paid, or some other criterion?

 

The problem, of course, is that the TV I had was a fully featured one when it bought but the value of those features has dropped in the intervening 2 years. I don't want to be greedy but I also don't want to miss out.

 

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi,

I was obviously sorry to read you’ve been having problems with your television and offer my sincere apologies.

So that I may investigate and resolve the matter please could you e-mail me with your contact details via my personal e-mail address which is..

[email protected]

Once again, I offer my apologies, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Many Thanks

Tom

… And at the same time you can post the conditions of the warranty so that we can have a look and advise you whether you are getting a fair shake from Richer Sounds

Thank you for your input BankFodder. I used your suggested calculation after Richer sounds suggested that £600.00 might be appropriate.

I pointed out that the TV should be expected to last a lot longer than 4 years and, after further discussion, they offered £1000.00 which I will be putting towards a new TV.

Thankyou for you suggestion on working out the value.

It was most helpful.

Did you receive your deposit of £600.00 back?

I'm not going into store till tomorrow, but I'll update you after that.

Just to tidy this up,

I bought a new Panasonic HDR/4k/3D 58" TV with a 6 year warranty and a Panasonic Blu-Ray/HDR/3D player, with an optional 6 year warranty for the broken TV and an additional £300.00.

They made it plain that I could have had a TV with the same features as the broken one for no additional charge and, in fact, I would have gained because that would have been a 58" model whereas the broken one was a 55" TV.

I received my deposit back with no problems (less the additional £300 I spent) and, all in all, I am pleased with the outcome.

I appreciate BankFodders advice because I literally had no idea how to workout what I should have been getting.

We still need to see the warranty to make sure its fair incase the new one breaks.

Congratulations on getting the result you wanted though.