This topic was closed on 09 March 2019. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

Hi, This is about an experience I had in an Apple Store, so I hope I'm posting in the right forum. Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place for this post -- if that is the case, please let me know where to post I bought an Apple Watch earlier this year, and about a month ago it stopped working. I noticed a crack in the display, and sure enough it was cracked right the way across from the left to right, bang in the middle of the screen. Because of the way the watch works, this effectively kills the touchscreen and makes it useless. Now, because the watch it now useless I had a really good idea of when this damage would have occurred, and that day I didn't leave the house until into the evening and then wasn't doing anything that risked damaging the watch. Also, I would expect that the force needed to damage the watch would be such that I would remember doing it; but I don't. I took the watch to the Apple Store in Edinburgh and explained all of this to the guy working there, but he said that in Apple's view this was accidental damage (i.e., my fault) and that they would charge me for any repairs. The cost of repairs was over £200, which I wasn't prepared to pay. Is there anything else I can do here? It seems to be my word against theirs, but I'm not sure what the law says in this scenario. I might also have another way to approach this, as I think I bought the watch from John Lewis. I'm guessing consumer law is focused on my relationship with them, rather than my relationship with Apple?

Hi, Thanks for the clarification; I've dropped the phone back in to T-Mobile now for them to repair - they reckon it should take 2 weeks, which seems pretty reasonable.

I've had a K850i on an 18 month contract for about three months now. In the past week or so it's developed an annoying fault: the three touch buttons at the bottom of the screen only work intermittently. I've tried updating the phone's firmware and doing a "master reset", but the problem is still there. I'm going to go back into the T-Mobile shop but I know they are going to try and send the phone away for repair. I'm not happy with this, as I'm pretty sure that under the Sale of Goods Act or the Supply of Goods and Services Act I should be given a replacement phone there and then. Am I right in thinking this? And is it SoGA or SoGaSA? I'm guessing the 2nd as I didn't buy the phone outright. Furthermore, from seeing similar complaints from other people on web forums, I think the fault might be bad design, so I'd like to get a different phone. Am I entitled to do this under the law? Thanks in advance to anyone who's able to answer my questions!

I've had direct experience of Virgin throttling P2P, so it does happen. A student of mine's husband is using P2P on his computer, and after he's been uploading/downloading for more than a few minutes the "down" speed automatically drops to 15kBps. He is downloading copyrighted material, but so what? It's not the job of businesses to enforce the law.

Whether their staff know about the law (and are told not to respond when the law is mentione) or they don't know about the law (because they aren't told about it and, in BT's case at least, because they live in India, they would have no reason to know about it), I think it's time that legislation is passed which enforces corporations to go to "reasonable lengths" to work within the law, rather than just trying to shirk it like they do now. The whole point of the law, at least in theory, is to protect less powerful people and institutions against more powerful people and institutions, so I think it should be put to work in this case: kind of like the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act, which has led to so many people getting their bank charges back.

SUCCESS! I went to see my student last night, and he had a brand new replacement router, sent out to him by BT. I also had a call from them on my answerphone. What's irritating about this, though, is the number of people who don't know the law and who would have just taken BT on their word and paid for a new router. I think it's time that the law is changed, so that BT are legally bound to train their staff to be aware of the SOGA and SOGASA. But I doubt that will happen in the near future...

Just so you all know, I've now written to BT demanding a new router/repair under the SoGaSA. It turns out that my student is in contract until January next year! I haven't had a reply back from BT yet but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume things have been messed up by the postal strike. It's a good point about mentioning the forthcoming renewal (or otherwise) of the contract. I'm still not sure whether I just want to get the end result sorted, or whether I'm up for a proper fight whereby I try and get BT to stick to the law and admit that they're sticking to the law...

He he! Yeh, I originally got that tip from a guy at PC World tech support. I thought he was pulling my leg to start with but it's sorted out three laptops for me now. It's the only positive thing a PC World has ever done for me (or anyone, I suspect). Before you send off the laptop, you could try pchelpforums.com. They are a really good, knowledgeable bunch of guys and might be able to offer some advice.

I just came across this browsing the forum. Jesus, you've had a really hard time. One thing that might help is that you may be able to get Income Support for the period that you were off work sick. My girlfriend is self-employed and got knocked off her bike by some guy who ran a red light and then failed to stop, and it looks like she'll get Income Support - althought it might be too late for you to claim. Probably worth a go though. On that note don't expect anything out of the dole office - I think they are the only organisation in the world whose business model means they have to provide the worst possible service. If you were in Scotland I'd recommend Edinburgh Claimants - Edinburgh Claimants - who are a really great bunch of guys. You might still get something out of calling them; they might be able to recommend a similar service in your area. I hope you manage to go to the police over this, although I do understand the problems involved with doing that. Have you considered filming them when they threaten you? You can get some very discrete cameras from Maplin. Not sure if this would be admissable as evidence though. Good luck. All this sort of stuff should have been sorted out in society many years ago, but with everyone going freelance it just makes things more difficult.

Thanks for your reply David. The router was provided free with a fixed-term contract (which may still be in place; not sure if it was a year or 18 months), so I'll write to them with reference to the SoGaSA (I love acronyms!) And thanks for the advice about clarifying the status of my client. I'll keep you posted!

Hi PGG: One last thing to try: Take the battery out of the laptop and leave it unplugged from the mains. Press the power button down for 60 seconds (since the battery isn't in and there's now mains power, the laptop won't turn on, obviously). Release the power button. Put the battery back in, and plug in the mains power. Try turning the laptop on. Does it work? This is a bit of a stab in the dark but has worked for me before; it only takes a minute so might be worth trying before you lose the laptop to the repairer.

That's a very good point - but does anyone know if there are any laws, such as SOGA, that cover this sort of thing? IF BT don't respond to the letter, I'm sure a number of papers would find this story very interesting...

I work for a charity (http://www.ucandoit.og.uk) which teaches people with disabilities how to use computers. One of my students has been having real problems with his BT Voyager 210 router. It seems to run very hot, and then disconnects from the internet. According to my bt voyager 210 adsl router keeps on disconnecting - The Scream! lots of people have been having problems similar to my student's. Since my student is blind this is a huge problem for him, as it's difficult for him to tell when the router has disconnected. I spoke to BT today and they refused to replace the router as it is out of the year long warranty they provide. The warranty ran out in July. Does anyone know if I have my student has any statutory rights which mean that he can get a new router out of BT? It seems to me that the Sale of Good Act would mean that the router should be "fit for purpose" and should work for more than 14 months.

Success! I sent that email on Friday night. When I called Sony on Monday evening, they finally had some news for me - after two weeks of waiting. It turns out that the laptop needed a new motherboard, which I was told had been ordered and would be ready to be installed Tuesday or Wednesday (i.e., yesterday or today). Funnily enough I had told Sony that I suspected the motherboard would need replacing when I first told them the laptop needed repairing. I then got an email today telling me that the new motherboard had been fitted, and the laptop would be despatched today or tomorrow. Strange how, as soon as I got the management involved, I went from getting no information at all about the repair to the repair being completed in three working days...

Glad we agree. I guess it's "each to their own" in terms of which rip-off to fight. I can't drive so petrol prices don't effect me on a daily basis, but I can see your point if you were running a business that relied on fuel. Similarly, I think it's dangerous to under-estimate the power the ticketing companies and the touts have over their customers. The touts can only charge the prices they do because they know how much people will pay. Some people are so keen to see certain events that it's very close to being a necessity to them - I mean, if you were on an average income would you pay thousands of pounds to watch a bunch of blokes kick a ball around, unless you pretty much had to see them do it? Empirically it seems that people do need to go and see these concerts etc. I'm not personally one of them but I do think their cause is pretty worthwhile.

Certainly, everything you've listed there is unjust, and they should all be tackled. But just because there's so many of them, do you really think getting one of them sorted out is such a bad idea? In practice this is how things are hapenning at the moment, even with our supposedly free-market economy. Governments are consistently subsidising certain markets so that goods remain at a fair price. As I said in my first post, it's certainly less important for the ticket touting problem to be sorted out than, say, for the food markets to be ran on a basis where people can get access to goods. And, personally, since I've never bought anything from a tout, I've not got the motivation to do very much about this myself. However, it would be very simple for eBay to prevent profiteering on ticket sales. I guess the next step would be to get tighter control on the companies such as ticketmaster and their legitimated profiteering.

I think that's a bit of a simplistic view to take. Not all markets are the same, so the "law" of supply and demand needs to be looked at in different ways dependent on the market, not as some incontrevertible truth. As demand goes up, prices go up, but because of this more people start making a product, so supply goes up and prices go down, until (supposedly) we reach some kind of equilibrium. But this doesn't always work. For example, with popular sporting events and concerts the demand is very high and there is absolutely no way that the producer can increase the supply - there are only so many tickets available for any one event. The "market" is then skewed further by the fact that there are some people who are willing to pay huge amounts of money for tickets, because of the emotional attachment they feel towards the event. This enables touts to buy up a bunch of tickets and then sell them on at a huge profit. The touts are not adding anything to the use value of the tickets, but because of the market conditions they are able to add a huge amount to the exchange value. I don't think this is anywhere near as bad as when governments or businesses do the same with currencies or more traditional commodities, but it's still unjust and needs to be rectified. I'm not sure how one would go about this, however. Touting has always been controlled around football stadiums but it still goes on. But it would be possible for eBay to ban all sales of tickets where the mark-up is disproportionate. In my view the only profit that should be allowed on any ticket sold on eBay would be to cover the costs incurred in selling the ticket, and the time spent doing so. Of course, this doesn't touch on the issue of the larger-scale profiteering that is carried out by the organisations who run these cultural events, but that's another issue entirely.

I do have something I can hold against them - the fact that I have a warranty with them. I would have thought they were, therefore, obliged to fix my laptop for me. The problem I've raised here isn't one of legal obligation - I doubt there's anything in my warranty about them having to give me any information about the state of my laptop's repair. It's about businesses getting their staff to do very simple things, such as communicate with the customer. As I've said before, I wouldn't mind if the repair took longer than I was originally quoted. I've worked in customer service before and understand how annoying it is when customers aren't reasonable about things like this. All I want is for someone to actually tell me what's going on. Surely this isn't too much to ask??

I did send the letter to various management at both Sony and Teleplan, the company who are meant to be carrying out the repair. I also posted the letter here (and to a couple of other forums) to see what other people thought, and to publicise how bad the service has been in this instance. I would be absolutely fine with the repair taking 11 days (even though I was originally quote five working days). However, during these eleven days no-one has been able to tell me what is wrong with my laptop or when I can expect it back. They can't (or won't) even tell me if anyone's looked at the laptop. I am happy to accept that repairs sometimes take longer than quoted, but what I find unacceptable is the fact that I've been given absolutely no information regarding when my laptop will be back with me. I have even explicitly asked the people who are repairing it to tell me if it's likely to be a month or two, so I can hire or borrow a laptop. But they wouldn't answer my question. I did consider this. I phoned the company that originally supplied the laptop to me, and they told me I would need to contact Sony. I had a feeling this wasn't right (having read an article a while back about SOGA) but since the company that sold me the laptop had already messed me around, I thought I would be better going with Sony and getting the laptop repaired under warranty - especially since I was told it should only take five days. The first engineer who looked at the computer couldn't diagnose the fault. There's been no news since then. And even if they couldn't diagnose the fault, they should tell me and then fit a new motherboard pronto. Maybe I should have stuck with SOGA, but as I explained above I didn't want to get into this with a supplier who had already messed me around. I'll post again when I get a reply from Sony, or when I get my laptop back... :-?