Apple, John Lewis and me

[Neo1]

Back in January (11^th to be precise) I purchased an Apple Mac book Air M2 for the best part of £1200.  I decided to buy from John Lewis (Brent Cross) to take advantage of the 2 year warranty.

In mid May I noticed vertical multi colour lines  had appeared on the left hand side of the screen. I returned the laptop to JL at the earliest opportunity I had which was early June (9^th to be precise). I had not used the laptop for nearly 2 weeks however now there were horizontal lines on the bottom of the screen as well as the original vertical lines which were now even thicker on the left hand side.

On arriving at JL the technical support chap had a quick look and then stated that it had been dropped. I strongly refuted this as I knew that as I work from home it had sat on my desk for the last 5 months. He continued to state that such damage was outside the manufacturers guarantee.  He inspected it further and agreed that there was no physical damage he could see to the external casing and agreed to send laptop to their technical team for further examination/repair, but this could take up to 28 days.

I asked why so long and he said that if I take it to the Apple store in Brent Cross they could do it in 14 days. I went straight to the Apple store. They took the laptop and sent it to their technical team. Within 14 days they returned laptop stating that laptop had a small crack at the bottom left of screen probably due as a result of charging cable getting trapped in laptop whilst closing. To fix would cost nearly £500.

I immediately returned to JL stating consumer rights act that any fault which is discovered within 6 months of purchase is assumed to be present when the product was purchased and the onus is on the retailer to prove it wasn’t.

JL sent the laptop to their technical team and within a couple of days returned stating that they found multiple micro cracks on the screen which is outside the manufacturer’s guarantee (see attached).

I just want to know how best to proceed. Please advise.

Apple and JL Service.pdf

[honeybee13]

Hi.

Would you be able to edit your post to include spaces between the paragraphs please?

It will help the advisers to help you if it's easy to read.

HB

[BankFodder]

Yes, I suggest that the best thing to do is to start a new thread but this time to post your story well spaced and punctuated show that it is easier to follow especially for people using a small screen

 

It is very difficult to read a solid block of text and will discourage people from giving you the advice that you need

[dx100uk]

59 minutes ago, Neo1 said:

I immediately returned to JL stating consumer rights act that any fault which is discovered within 6 months of purchase is assumed to be present when the product was purchased and the onus is on the retailer to prove it wasn’t.

post spaced.

the above statement is not strictly true. but i think you've just explained it poorly.

dx

[Manxman in exile]

2 hours ago, Neo1 said:

... I immediately returned to JL stating consumer rights act that any fault which is discovered within 6 months of purchase is assumed to be present when the product was purchased and the onus is on the retailer to prove it wasn’t...

That's correct.  It's in s19(14) and (15)(a) here: Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk).  s19(14) creates the presumption and (15)(a) allows the retailer to rebut that presumption

The difficulty you have is that Apple appear to have already confirmed that the "fault" was not present at purchase from JL, but was probably caused by you trapping the cable when closing it:

2 hours ago, Neo1 said:

...I went straight to the Apple store. They took the laptop and sent it to their technical team. Within 14 days they returned laptop stating that laptop had a small crack at the bottom left of screen probably due as a result of charging cable getting trapped in laptop whilst closing. To fix would cost nearly £500...

You might find it difficult to convince JL on the balance of probabilities that this fault was present or inherent when you bought it..

[Neo1]

Thx but surely they have to prove that this was the case. Making assumptions is not proof. I know for a fact that I did not trap any cable in any laptop. Looks like I may have to go to the Retail Ombudsman.

[dx100uk]

and a lot of use they are......

your theory works both ways too. it's not automatically assumed it was present at time of manu.

what you need to do it do some research on the interweb to see if others have gotten mystery screen lines in those areas or with that model.

its not unknown ,,,, we've had a few here too.  i think in your case the fact you had earlier lines indicates a manu issue that got worse. i dont for one minute think its lead entrapment. 

 

dx

 

[Neo1]

Thx.

[Manxman in exile]

6 hours ago, dx100uk said:

... your theory works both ways too. it's not automatically assumed it was present at time of manu...

 

If that is true, can you explain what this is intended to mean?

"19  Consumer’s rights to enforce terms about goods...

... (14)For the purposes of subsections (3)(b) and (c) and (4), goods which do not conform to the contract at any time within the period of six months beginning with the day on which the goods were delivered to the consumer must be taken not to have conformed to it on that day. [my bold]"

see: Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk)

Like the OP I took it to mean what it appears to say.  That if goods fail to conform* to contract within 6 months of purchase, then there is a statutory presumption that the non-conformity (or "fault" - call it what you will) was present at purchase**.  If the wording does not mean that, what do you think it means?

Under s19(15)(a) it is - of course - open to the retailer to rebut the statutory presumption.

 

*   The screen is faulty.

** Do you think there is a significant distinction between "... was present at purchase..." and what you describe as "... at time of manu..."?

If so, what is the distinction, and why is it important?

 

7 hours ago, Neo1 said:

Thx but surely they have to prove that this was the case. Making assumptions is not proof. I know for a fact that I did not trap any cable in any laptop. Looks like I may have to go to the Retail Ombudsman.

1.  I don't believe there is any such thing as "the Retail Ombudsman".  If you can't persuade JL that the product had some sort of inherent fault at purchase then your only recourse is to sue them.  (Although if you paid by credit card you might have a valid s75 claim against your card provider, but you'd have to persuade them that the product had an inherent or latent defect at time of purchase.  If you paid by debit card, in January, I'm not sure if you are still within the timescale to make a chargeback claim).

2.  Depends what you mean by "... surely they have to prove that this was the case... "   All s19(15)(a) says is that the retailer can rebut the statutory presumption that the "fault" (or whatever you want to call it) was present at purchase by establishing that it wasn't.  All this means is that JL need to persuade a court - on the balance of probabilities (ie more likely than not) - that the fault was not present at purchase.  It does not mean they have to prove it 100%.  50.1% would be enough. 

If you can't persuade JL that this was an inherent fault, and if you have no s75 or chargeback claim open to you, you'll have to sue JL.  A court might believe you that you've never caught the cable when closing it, or it might think it more likely that Apple and JL are correct and you've caused the damage yourself by closing it carelessly.  Who knows?  Once you get to court any decision is possible and I won't presume to predict an outcome with unjustified optimism or pessimism.

Press your argument with JL.  If they won't listen to you and you are positive you haven't caused the damage yourself, try suing them.

(NB - If you can get an independent report from somebody who knows what they're talking about and that says the product was inherently faulty, that can only bolster your case)