Thanks very much Kraken1, The item was a Gro-Clock, which is an electronic clock without numbers to tell young children when to get up. The time period from arrival of the clock to finding and reporting a fault was 3.5 weeks. I have been in touch with the Gro-Clock company and they have confirmed the clock is faulty from what we described and suspect a faulty batch. They were very helpful. How should I reply then? Many thanks, JakeC2

Hi everyone, I've had some correspondence with a company about the return of a faulty item, and I'd like your thoughts on it please. 1. I bought an item online for £23 and postage was £5. It developed a fault a few weeks later so I emailed them saying I would return it and would like a full refund. It cost £3 to return it. 2. The company said they would confirm the fault and offered a replacement or refund. 3. I said I would like a full refund (cost of item, shipping and return postage). 4. The company confirmed it was faulty, said they were happy to refund, but couldn't refund shipping charges. I pointed out that I was entitled to a refund of the cost of the item plus any shipping charges. 5. The company said I was out of the 7 day cooling off period so couldn't get a full refund. They said legally they only have to repair or replace. 6. I said the 7 day cooling off period only applies if I cancel the order, in this case the item was faulty so it didn't apply. I included an extract from the Office of Fair Trading website and said again I would like a full refund and postage. 7. They replied: "Thank you for the links but we are well aware of consumer law. To be clear, you have no legal right to ask for a refund of the cost of the product because it is faulty and must give us a reasonable amount of time to repair or replace the product. You agreed to our terms and conditions when placing the order and we have gone out of our way to try and be accommodating by offering you a refund for the product but we seem to be getting nowhere. Since we can’t reach an agreement we must revert back to the letter of the law and will proceed with refunding you the £3 paid to return the faulty product and will dispatch a replacement to you as soon as possible." So finally they acknowledge that I'm owed the return postage, but have gone back on their offer to refund the cost of the item. The questions I have are: a. For the refund of a faulty item shold I be refunded the original shipping charge? b. For the refund of a faulty item shold I be refunded the return shipping charge? This company does not show a phone number on their website, I'm sure this could have been sorted very easily over the phone. Thank you for your help!