Comet - Acer Aspire 5102WLMi

[dismayed]

I bought my Acer laptop from Comet online in November 2006. On delivery, I unpacked it and plugged it in and quickly discovered that the card drive didn't work. I took it to a local Comet store who told me I'd have to deal with Acer directly. I argued my consumer rights and after a lot of hassle they suddenly agreed to replace it and I took home a new laptop.

 

At the beginning of October this year, still within the 12 month warranty, I left the room for 10 minutes and returned to find that the laptop had failed. There was a black screen full of 'fatal error' messages and the top left surface of the case in front of the keyboard [Fn Alt] keys had actually melted and caved in. I touched it and burned my finger and realised that it was a catastrophic failure and also a fire risk. This time, I took it back to a Comet store in Leeds area. They again tried to fob me off by asking me to ring Acer. I said I'd bought it from Comet and that I only wanted to deal with Comet. I pointed out the two failures, said I'd lost faith in the product and wanted a replacement of a different make. They were extremely hard-nosed and said that after the first 28 days all they would ever do is return faulty items to the manufacturers. So back to Acer it went.

 

My laptop was returned to the store for me to pick up a week later. I took it home and switched it on. It booted up OK but then failed again within about 4 minutes. The keyboard, mouse and USB ports were all dead and there was a plain blue screen with only faint vertical bars showing. I phoned Comet head office in Hull and spoke to a character called Mark Lambert. He told me that it would have to be returned to Acer yet again and that nothing else would be done in terms of a refund or replacement. When I tried to argue my case he simply held his ground. I sat and thought the situation over carefully and felt dismayed by their attitude. I actually rang him back to plead my case further. His actual words: "Oh ... I thought we'd finished our little conversation", in a sickening and patronising tone that dismissed any notion I had that I was dealing with a decent company with any concern whatsoever for its customers. I took it back in, it was sent off to Acer once more and I have not heard any more for the last 4 weeks. I have been without a working laptop for around 7 weeks now.

 

My overall impression is that Comet's attitute stinks, their customer service is abysmal and that their only interest is to take our money and then we can just sod off. I contacted consumerdirect.gov.uk who advised me to write to the credit card firm I bought it through, since they are jointly liable. I've done that and the original transaction is now in dispute. It has also been passed up to Trading Standards who called me back today. They say that the whole business of 'reasonable period' and proved 'unfit for purpose' are grey areas and that ultimately I may have to take it to the small claims court. They said I might expect a reduced refund value since I've 'enjoyed some use of it' over the 10 month period. I fully accept that and had already told Comet I'd be quite happy to pay extra and buy a better make and model if they would at least offer some form of store credit. But no; they don't want to part with a single penny it seems.

 

I do not want it back, regardless of Comet's sales patter and arrogance as I simply don't have any faith in the product's safety, (especially left unattended), nor in its reliability.

[fred_2009]

with all retailers these days, they are not commision based and are pretty much all on minimum wage with little to no training.

 

this is how laptops are now retailing for £299. yes you may not see why this is relevent but keep reading.

 

retail staff are only trained with company guidelines and policies. they are not law graduates or engineers to be able to assess the cost or repair and compair it to the cost of a replacements to be able to fully offer a remedy which by SOGA is remedied within a reasonable time and without extra costs in comparison to other remedies.

 

the companies legal team, head office, engineers can asses this. this is why store staff canot be very helpful for anything SOGA related.

 

with their lack of wages and training and the fact that they are personally not legally accountable for SOGA issues they do not care about consumers soga rights.

 

advice to you.

 

write to the highest department you can. above the call center stock checking phoneline. try the complaints department or writing a letter to the chief executive.

 

under SOGA you have allowed them the opertunity to remedy the issue and they have repaired or replaced it already atleast once. this is enough to now request a partial or full refund/recission.

 

store staff will be unhelpful. so dont stress yourself out with them. it has only been proven to get action out of store level staff if you word your grievance loud enough for other customers to hear and make them rethink their purchases, without being insulting or abusive enough to get banned.

 

this is hard to acheive so going the legal route by contacting trained staff or staff that are accountable to deal with your SOGA rights.

[dismayed]

Hi Fred and thank you for a useful post. I agree with you about lack of staff training, motivation and responsibility and that is why I quickly resorted to Comet's head office in Hull. Even there, my telephone conversations with a so-called manager led nowhere so I then put my complaint to them in writing and copied it to Trading Standards. My credit card company are now looking into the transaction. The offending laptop is STILL away 'under repair' several weeks later. I've had to first borrow and then purchase another one since I use it both for work and also to keep in touch with friends and family being partially disabled. I've now seen a few more posts describing other peoples' dire experiences with Comet and have serious doubts about finding any acceptable solution outside of a small claims court. My laptop cost £500 so wasn't all that cheap either. I will post any updates here, negative or positive.

[Delta-NC]

Knowing someone who works at Comet, it is pretty much company policy to fob off every customer who comes in with a product complaint. As far as I am aware, you are perfectly entitled to have the store deal with any issues with the product, it is up to you wether you go to Acer or the store (both can have their advantages, depending on the situation).

[dismayed]

I'm not surprised to hear that, Delta. Since I bought the offending article from Comet, I assumed my contract of sale was with them. I did subsequently phone Acer's service department and explained what had gone on and asked if under these extreme circumstances they will write the machine off and instruct Comet to offer me a refund, but they wouldn't even discuss it with me. They pointed out that if I'd bought it from Comet I would need to speak with them only. After all this time, I doubt I will see the laptop again and even if I do get it back I would never leave it switched on and unattended ever again, let alone trust it with vital work or financial information. If this had happened with an item bought from Argos or other highstreet stores, they would have exchanged it without question. Low prices are no justification for zero after-sales service and a cavalier attitude. Once bitten and all that ...