Am i expecting too much?

[Zenduri]

I'll be sparse on the details for now but I need a sanity check on my thinking.

I buy a pc component from an e-tailer. It's working fine and as expected and im happy. 54 days after I purchased it, it develops a vibration noise so I raised a ticket with the e-tailer reporting the fault and requesting a replacement unit/swap. The SLA given on the ticket is 1 day, (3 days in busy periods).

4 days pass and I decide the next business day I’ll call and chase the ticket however that night the part catastrophically fails and renders the PC unusable. I ring the company up in the morning and ask what’s going on with the ticket and that the part has catastrophically failed now rendering the PC I use for work and leisure unusable without a replacement part. I asked if we could do a return/swap where they pick up the faulty part and deliver a replacement at the same time as they have done this before and I was told because its outside of the 30 days it would need to be sent back to the manufacturer for them to test before they would issue a replacement and they then quoted up to a month for the turn around which obviously isn’t viable/acceptable.

I then offer to pay for a complete new unit to get me up and running and they can RMA the old one at their leisure and once its confirmed as faulty they can then refund me the original purchase. The short answer was no we won’t refund you in that instance if its confirmed faulty they would replace it meaning I would then have 2 of the same item which is of no use to me. Finally, I was essentially told, if you want sort it any quicker then try getting in contact with the manufacturer and dealing with the RMA/Replacement directly with them.

What boggled my mind, is I provided video and screenshots of the fault and if I returned it to the company in question, they have the means and staff to test it on a testbench and confirm its faulty as it would take all of 10 minutes to do so. Once they confirmed its faulty then they could chase a stock replacement from the manufacturer on their time.

In the immortal words, am I being unreasonable with my customer service expectations as i feel if this was someone like amazon it would be no questions asked?

 

[Zenduri]

If the warranty is RTB (return to base), then that's exactly what it is. When they respond to your ticket, they will ask you to send the faulty unit back. They'll test it and if they do reproduce the fault, then they'll send you a replacement unit. I've had failures rending my main desktop PC unusable, so that's why I have a laptop as a computer to tide time over when I'm dealing with RMAs.

The problem is they wont test it themselves when they 100% have the staff and resources to quickly test it. They insist on it going back to the manufacturer. I've provided video and photographic evidence of the fault and that its entirely dead so there isn't really any testing to be had anyway.

 

[Zenduri]

Goods bought online must be:

1. Satisfactory quality – your goods shouldn’t be faulty or damaged, and of at least satisfactory quality. For example, second-hand goods aren’t held to the same standards as new.
2. Fit for purpose – you should be able to use it for the purpose they were supplied for.
3. As described – your goods or service must match the description, model or sample shown when you bought it.

If within the first 30 days you have the right to reject the goods if they do not meet any of the three criteria above.

After 30 days you are not legally entitled to a refund, however you can ask the retailer to repair or refund the goods. Between 30 days and six months it’s assumed the fault was there from new, so it is up to the retailer to prove that it wasn’t there when you bought it, meaning it’s up to them to get it inspected to find the fault.

After six months, it’s up to you to prove it was faulty when it was delivered, although most decent retailers will assist in getting in inspected.

So according to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the retailer is perfectly entitled to say what they’ve said.

Very annoying I know, for both you and a the retailer, as the vast majority of the time the retailer won’t cover postage to the repair centre

Yeah I get that but they have done a doorstop swap before without all this hassle so it's almost like they decided to downgrade their service. I would have hoped they would offer the better customer service option over "erm.. actually the law says" approach. At the end of the day the items 100% dead so its not a question of testing based on what ive provided so far.

My irk is that if they did the swap i would be up and running again and they could take whatever time they need to test or return it to the manufacturer and then get credited for the faulty unit or replacement stock without me having to sit here waiting like a pillock. No-one would lose out financially, it's just a time thing. It's not a great journey in such a clear cut component failure like this one