Grey Import Hard Disk Drives-Demand a Refund?

[daKlone]

Hi All,

 

Back in July 2010 I purchased 4 off 2TB Samsung hard disk drives online from a UK website. Everything went fine, until last week a fault developed with one of them. I contacted the website today and they told me to go to Samsung directly for service. This is where the problems start!

 

Putting the serial numbers into Samsung's website reveals that all four drives are grey imports, originating in the Middle East somewhere. This means that Samsung UK won't touch them as they are "out of service area". Currently, I've just asked the retailer to confirm that they will themselves cover the full warranty period of 3 years.

 

There was no mention of them being imports on the website when I bought them and nothing has been said since. The product description page carried no warranty information at all, although since these are now no longer available the page doesn't exist either so I can't prove it. They still sell Samsung drives though, and none of them mention warranty either.

 

Now, if they come back and say they won't cover the drives I think I would be entitled to complain under the CPUT regulations section 6.1.a "the commercial practice omits material information", in that no mention of the lack of warranty/import status was made and that since I was buying from a UK company it was reasonable for me to expect to receive UK sourced stock.

 

What do you guys think? Should I accept them covering the drives themselves (if indeed they do) or should I just return them all and demand either a refund or a UK stock replacement?

 

TIA,

dK

[daKlone]

Well, I got a reply this morning. They've completely ignored my comments about the drives being grey imports and just outlined their returns procedure. I take this to mean that they were aware of the facts and will not honour the warranty.

 

I've replied asking them if I will receive a full refund or UK stock replacements when I send all four drives back...we'll see what they say!

[daKlone]

The latest reply now states that the WILL honour the warranty for three years, but I'm suspicious.

 

I've asked them if they would honour it straight out in plain English but they ignored the question, now I've asked for a refund or replacement they now say they will.

 

I really don't know what to do next. I'm suspicious of the company now and worried about future problems with them but if they say they'll honour the warranty, I guess I don't have much choice but to believe them??

 

Any suggestions gratefully received! :???:

[Conniff]

If this is done in an email then there should be no suspicion of them not honouring that as it is in black and white something you can use at a later date should things not progress as they agreed.

[daKlone]

Thanks Conniff.

 

I understand what you're saying and I guess you are right, but I just hate the idea of storing up a fight for later with them using the old "oh, I don't know why such-and-such told you that, it's not true" line.

 

Anyway, I asked them to re-confirm that they will honour the warranty which they did. I've taken a screen-shot of the "message centre" on their website as evidence of what they said. I'll go through their RMA procedure and see what happens. Wish me luck!

[Conniff]

Would you like to give the name and url of the company so I can have a look - you can do it in a pm if you don't want to put it on the open forum.

 

As they have confirmed I doubt you will need luck, but I will wish it to you just the same.

[perplexity]

Now, if they come back and say they won't cover the drives I think I would be entitled to complain under the CPUT regulations section 6.1.a "the commercial practice omits material information", in that no mention of the lack of warranty/import status was made and that since I was buying from a UK company it was reasonable for me to expect to receive UK sourced stock.

 

You are entitled to complain in any case, whether or not they sort you out because it's a strict liability offence to mislead the average consumer, regardless of an actual consequence or prior intention.

[Biggles 266]

Was this ebuyer.com by any chance?

[daKlone]

It wasn't, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that many of the cut-price online retailers are up to the same thing. I just bought a drive from Amazon which was UK stock, so that's OK.

 

My advice would be when buying anything like this is to ask the question directly before buying - is this UK stock covered by the manufacturer's warranty in the UK? Then when it arrives, check with the manufacturer within the first 7 days that this is really the case (often you can do this online) and if not get it sent back under the Distance Selling Regulations clause. It'll save you any messing about in the long run.