Trading Standards & Refund of less than order value

Durzel · 21 Dec 2010 at 18:15

I'm not going to bother trying to run Crossfire with the current gen cards on my old motherboard, frankly I'm surprised the 5970 ran as well as it did. One big single card for me, at least until I can be bothered to upgrade my whole system at which point I'd presumably add a second "big single".

Trifid · 21 Dec 2010 at 19:33

To give a comparison on what a decent company would do...

My 11 month old Nvidia 6800 died and I received a full cash refund from OcUK. As PCIE had come out by this time I proceeded to purchase a 7800GT with the refund and then bought a new ASUS motherboard.

rolypolyman · 21 Dec 2010 at 19:55

All sounds pretty fair to me.

Trunks9486 · 21 Dec 2010 at 20:01

Its fine. You can buy a GTX 580 with that kind of money and thats pretty close with 5970 and is a single card too.

Or wait for the 6990. It wont be much more expensive than that.

muterobert · 21 Dec 2010 at 20:34

Take the damn money and hold tight for Antilles. If I'm honest, I'm on the side of the etailer here TBH, 10 months and no RMA for that sort of use is fair enough.

biuro74 · 22 Dec 2010 at 00:04

.

If I were you, I'd ask for GTX 570 (or even 580, if price is not too high) and wouldn't bother any refund. It's about the same card, and PhysX included for free

Your case might be extended for long time, it's better to have very similar card and play instead of thinking what is Good Trading Rule, or why they refund partially - it simply is not worth nerves, money, nor time.

Strife212 · 22 Dec 2010 at 00:57

It seems fair, just take the cash. I'm suprised they even consider it faulty to be honest as you're not exactly running the card in spec.

Tute · 22 Dec 2010 at 02:06

I'm with you here Durzel - but at the end of the day you have to look at it in perspective.

I know the card was faulty but you got good use out of it, and they're offering you a refund that's well over the second hand value of the card. I'd personally take it, it's going to get you most of the way towards a HD6990 when they come out.

Then again there's the principle of it, so I can fully understand your angle.

Duff-Man · 22 Dec 2010 at 06:03

Durzel said:
Sounds fine right? Well, apparently the catch is that they would only refund me £461.81 even though the initial purchase price including VAT & delivery was £546.29. When pressed I was told that this was in line with trading standards practices, that because I had owned the card for 10 months that I was only entitled to a reduced refund.[/SIZE]

I can confirm that this is the case, unfortunately.

I had a 30" screen fail on me recently (well in July), which was around 14 months into a 3-year warranty. At the time, an equivalent replacement item would have cost far more than the price I originally paid for it, and the manufacturer had gone under (Hazro - the company has since been bought and is trading again, but that's a different story). For this reason, the retailer (OcUK) was not willing to replace the screen (as I expected), but I was offered only a partial refund.

Anyway, I got in contact with consumer direct about the matter, so see if I had the legal right to demand a full refund or a replacement. As it turns out, it is up to the retailer to decide whether to give a refund or replacement, and if a refund is to be given, it need only be "reasonable". It can't be defined in explicit terms, but it was made clear to me that I could not demand a full refund. If I was unhappy with the amount offered, I could go to small claims court.

In the end OcUK arranged a replacement screen with the "new" Hazro (I had been trying everything under the sun to get in contact with them for 3 months before they were taken over) and all was good. But still - no legal recourse to demand a full refund, OR a like-for-like replacement.

Skyrocket · 22 Dec 2010 at 06:43

I don't see what the big flap is about?
You use the card for 10-12months without problems?
The problem arises, that you could have rectified by yourself at home by doing a simple bios update? ( you dont think the customer should be doing bios updates? you update bios your motherboard? )
You send the card back, hoping to get what exactly? Knowing that they are EOL?
They offer you £100 less cash then what you payed? :confused:

I know its Christmas, season for giving and all that.
But what did you expect?
For them to send you 2 x 6970?

cammy5477 · 22 Dec 2010 at 06:56

take the money mate....your getting a great deal out of that
try selling it for anything like that on the auction site?

Durzel · 22 Dec 2010 at 08:07

Skyrocket said:
I don't see what the big flap is about?
You use the card for 10-12months without problems?
The problem arises, that you could have rectified by yourself at home by doing a simple bios update? ( you dont think the customer should be doing bios updates? you update bios your motherboard? )
You send the card back, hoping to get what exactly? Knowing that they are EOL?
They offer you £100 less cash then what you payed?

I know its Christmas, season for giving and all that.
But what did you expect?
For them to send you 2 x 6970?

Good job on not actually reading the opening post at all.

The card was faulty on arrival. The only way to use it at all without it crashing was to arbitrarily delay the first boot of my PC by 5 minutes or so until the card had warmed up. Since you have trouble reading I'll restate that for you - the card would not work until it had reached a certain temperature.

As for a BIOS update - there isn't one, at least not an XFX one. I asked XFX (in a ticket) and checked their website, there was no BIOS fix available and they did not even openly admit an issue. There is talk of a BIOS update for Sapphire (hint: not XFX) graphics cards which - because of the architecture of these cards - probably could be flashed onto a XFX or other manufacturer card, but that's something I wasn't prepared to do. Why? For starters even if it did work I'd nix whatever warranty I had left on the card anyway, if it died in some other fashion and it could be shown that I flashed it with a third-party BIOS I'm confident it wouldn't be honoured.

What I expected was a full refund, because I assumed (e.g. without information or experience to the contrary) that this was standard practice. Because I wasn't offered one I posted this thread asking whether that was typical. It seems you were the only person who wasn't actually even capable of just reading the opening post properly.

Locky · 22 Dec 2010 at 08:33

Take the money, it's a blessing tbh, you have a good deal there. Don't be greedy.

littlepuppy · 22 Dec 2010 at 08:45

Divide by Zero said:
Hello... I bet you bought from Scan.

They are *&^%s some times. You are not the first to mention this. You have 2 options... take the money or try taking them to court. Don't waste your breath e-mailing saying it's not fair or you are not happy - they will just annoy you further.

Scan are absolute bar stewards, if you dont want this sort of problem dont order from them, ive had worse than this and will never touch them again, I can never understand how people think they are so great... Obviously never returned anything to them.

PS I took them to court.....

queamin · 22 Dec 2010 at 08:53

littlepuppy said:
Scan are absolute bar stewards, if you dont want this sort of problem dont order from them, ive had worse than this and will never touch them again, I can never understand how people think they are so great... Obviously never returned anything to them.

PS I took them to court.....

I used to use them quite a bit same as ocuk but as more and more people have had problems with their returns i will not take that gamble

littlepuppy · 22 Dec 2010 at 08:58

Same here mate, i used to be in the "cheapest" camp.. .Now I just wait till OCUK have what I want at a reasonable price as I have experienced their returns several times and nothing has ever gone wrong...

OCUK should start a "scan problems" thread

Durzel · 22 Dec 2010 at 09:27

"There are forty-two calls ahead of you...."

0871

On a mobile

Scougar · 22 Dec 2010 at 09:36

biuro74 said:
If I were you, I'd ask for GTX 570 (or even 580, if price is not too high) and wouldn't bother any refund. It's about the same card, and PhysX included for free Your case might be extended for long time, it's better to have very similar card and play instead of thinking what is Good Trading Rule, or why they refund partially - it simply is not worth nerves, money, nor time.

570? That's a fair bit less that less than the money he's been offered, he'd easily get a 580 for that money, with change :-)

Take the money. It's not their fault you put up with the fault, and in honesty you did get usage out of it. I'd consider £90 loss fair tbh. If you tried selling it on, you'd get MUCH less, especially given 'the bug'.

Durzel · 22 Dec 2010 at 09:41

Yeah, fair point. You (and everyone else who has said likewise) is right.

Thanks all!

Scougar · 22 Dec 2010 at 09:44

Durzel said:
Yeah, fair point. You (and everyone else who has said likewise) is right.

Thanks all!

Not saying it doesn't sting to lose £90.. but you'd still get a damn good card for that money with change. Possibly a chance to upgrade your motherboard / cpu ?