Argos aggro

[rustyboxx]

I bought an Xbox original as a Birthday prezzie (Xmas day ) in late Nov '06 during thier £49.98 + 4 free games promotion. Xmas day it worked fine but by Boxing day the display failed.

 

Took it back to Argos on 27th Dec to exchange for a new one but they were out of stock as were all the local stores. They offered to refund the purchase price but there was nowhere else I could get another new Xbox and games for £50 so I declined. Alternatively, I could contact the Xbox service centre and get it repaired or replaced with a refurbished unit.

 

I decided to wait and see if Argos got some more in stock and was chuffed when someone gave me a reservation number for an Xbox in Newbury (miles away from me).

 

Last week I took the Xbox and reservation number to my local Argos and after battling with the till operator and supervisor for 20 minutes I finally managed to get to see the manager. He was pretty good and agreed to get the reserved console sent down from Newbury and said he would call me when it arrived.

 

Having not heard a peep I popped into the store today only to be told that the Newbury store had sold my reserved Xbox and despite the local manager's best efforts he could not locate another Xbox in any other store. To add insult to injury Argos are not ordering any more stock.

 

So, I have a duff console that would cost twice the refund to replace + the cost of four games if I bought them elsewhere or I would have to settle for a refurbed console.

 

Does anyone know what my rights and options are? Can I still insist on a new Xbox original or even a 360 as a replacement seeing as they probably cannot replace like for like?

 

Any help appreciated as my daughter is still short of Birthday prezzie

[Bigmac versus]

Agh hate that when it happens, they are happy taking your money but dont seem happy at resolving this, i would contact trading standards as they seem to be messing you about. Sorry cant help more but id be doing the same as you have over this, good luck.

[rustyboxx]

Thanks George, I might consider a strongly worded complaint to the MD too.

[blitz]

The xbox is no longer in production, and very very cheap hence why it goes so fast. Let me see if one of my stores has it in stock tomorrow (was going to buy one myself, can't remember if I canceled the reservation). If I still have it reserved, I will see if I can do anything, however I am not guarenteeing anything, and will have to be approved by my line manager.

 

Stock transfers are rare, and have to be approved by the manager the item is coming from. You can't insist on replacement if one doesn't exist, and the offer of a refund will still stand. You will not get a 360 because a normal xbox is fault, no matter what court you took it too, and how much you complained. 300% price difference

 

from the DTI website: http://www.dti.gov.uk/consumers/fact-sheets/page24700.html

 

Q12. Neither repair nor replacement of the goods are possible. What can I do?

You may either pursue the old route of damages or a partial or full refund. Probably either would give you exactly the same amount of money. You would seek a full refund in scenarios such as those where you had enjoyed absolutely no benefit from the goods. If you had benefited from them then you would seek a partial refund as a fair remedy. This is exactly the reasoning that would be employed if you sought damages.

 

I am busy tomorrow, but should find time to find out for you. Can you pm me your local store as well. As I can only get a stock transfer if they have the same Distribution center.

[rustyboxx]

Hi blitz, many thanks for taking the time to reply and for your offer to help. I'll PM you the store details in a tick.

 

The 360 thing was more tongue in cheek really, I should have used a

 

The manager has been very helpful and appeared to be pretty embarrassed by the whole thing. He did say that if I could find an Xbox at another Argos or store to let him know. He also said he'd emailed all the Argos stores nationally to see if anyone still had stock.

 

Thanks again, PM on the way

[rosiecotton]

You'd be looking at a claim for "loss of bargain" which is basically compensation to cover any extra you would have to pay to get the same product elsewhere due to their breach of contract.

 

Sorry no time to explain in full as it's past my bed time but will try and add more later.

[Bigmac versus]

Very nice blitz, well impressed, well hopefully your daughter will have a new xbox soon rustyboxx.

Thats what i call above and beyond the call of duty and im glad to hear that there are some people out there who will go out there way to help.

[blitz]

Unfortunately the xbox I had reserved expired 2 days ago, and was therefore sold yesterday. Neither of my stores now have any in stock, and as the manager at your store has already 'emailed' other stores there isn't much else I can do. You can try and phone customer services, to see if they can offer a resolution, I did forget to see if they had a repair facility (cat launch today), so will check tomorrow.

[rustyboxx]

Thanks for trying blitz, I guess you must have been busy today judging by the piles of new catalogues I saw yesterday.

 

I'll have a chat with the manager and see what he can come up with.

 

I'll keep you posted.

 

Many thanks again.

[rustyboxx]

[jackboy]

I know your contract is with Argos but I would forget dealing with them

and go straight to Microsoft.

 

My partner bought me an xbox 2 years ago for christmas. By the April it had developed a fault in that if you were in the middle of a game, the screen would go black and then would display a disc error message and then the game would come back on a few second later. Some games it wouldn't even load. Rang Microsoft on the Friday with the serial number from the back of the console, they sent me the packaging by Monday, I dropped it of at our local DHL depot on the Tuesday. Got an email on the Wednesday morning from the repair centre to say they'd received the console. Got another email on the Wednesday afternoon to say the fault had be fixed and it was on it's way back to me. I got it back from the DHL depot on the Friday evening.

 

All the contact details you need are in the booklet that comes with the console. We couldn't find our receipt from Argos but didn't need it, Microsoft obviously knew from their records when it was made and never asked for it.

 

Good luck

 

Karen