Dead pixel = no fault
- Thread starter RabNo1
- Start date
A friend of mine wrote this software - it's actually quite good, repaired a couple of laptops with stuck pixels.
http://www.jscreenfix.com/
http://www.jscreenfix.com/
Dist said:
Erm.. LCD's are based on individual components per pixel which can fail or "stick" on if faulty.
CRT's work by firing a bigass electron gun at a layer of phosphor.
By their very nature, CRT's can't get stuck pixels. They can suffer from burn in but to get a dead pixel you'd have to have a black screen with a bright dot in one space for a very long time.
Sure it isn't just dirt on the screen?
Which is, of course, your right. But be prepared for a fight, which might involve court action.Cuchulain said:
If you send it back and the retailer says "it's been opened and isn't 'as new', because we can't sell it as such, so we aren't refunding", you'll be in a situation where you'll either end up paying to have the same monitor shipped back to you, or you have to take court action.
The thing is, the DSR gives you rights, but it isn't a magic wand that can force the retailer into just complying with your wishes. If they decline, then you'll be in the position of having to use the courts to force them. And, with any court action, there's an element of unpredictability. Besides, there's the hassle, and cost. Is it worth it?
I know it's frustrating as hell, and the dead pixel issue is enough to prevent me buying a monitor mail-order in the first place. But there's no perfect solution in this and, after all, the retailer is just piggy-in-the-middle in all this. He didn't create the screen with a defective pixel, and he can't return it to the manufacturer unless it complies with the manufacturer's spec. He might be legally liable to the consumer, but the defect isn't his fault. And if they get stuck with too many unsaleable, "defective" panels, they'll either have to increase prices to cover it, or stop selling them. Neither reaction does the buyer any favours.
Not necessarily.sprognak said:
Firstly, that would only be if the claimant won. Secondly, who pays for shipping would depend on the terms of the contract. The DSR is quite specific about that. The retailer is liable for shipping costs of goods returned under the DSR, unless he has a term in the contract specifying that it's down to the customer. And guess what? Since the retailer can put that cost on the buyer, nearly all do.
As for fees, well yes. You'd normally get court fees back, and perhaps certain other expenses (unless, as you suggest, the court decides you've been acting wholely unreasonably, and that's the standard required, not "specifically be proven"). If, of course, you win. But the judge has a lot of discretion. He/she generally isn't required to actually do certain things (like award costs) but rather, under the Civil Procedure Rules for Small Claims Track, is limited to what they can do, and award.
Geoff said:
The whole "as new" thing (from what I've read from the OFT) is balls, suppliers have no rights to expect items back "as new", they can only expect "reasonable care" to be taken of the item/s and even if the customer doesn't take "reasonable care" of the item the supplier still legally has to give them a refund.
Read up: http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/1E6F3C94-8BB0-4374-A65B-6281E030C3C9/0/oft698.pdf
To be honest, you should have done some research before you bought such an expensive and important item on the internet, I know how you feel but honestly, this is not OCUK's fault, they cannot open and test even single item they sell, and if the distributor has a policy, the re-seller has no option but to abide by it. 
Have you tried massaging the area around the pixel, sometimes if the pixel is just 'stuck' this will free it, problem solved
In future, search the net and forums before you buy anything else instead of just buying it and then moaning about your loss.... Becasue you did not know is a bad excuss to use, especially in court
Have you tried massaging the area around the pixel, sometimes if the pixel is just 'stuck' this will free it, problem solved
In future, search the net and forums before you buy anything else instead of just buying it and then moaning about your loss.... Becasue you did not know is a bad excuss to use, especially in court
UKDTweak said:In future, search the net and forums before you buy anything else instead of just buying it and then moaning about your loss.... Becasue you did not know is a bad excuss to use, especially in court
He's not going to be going to court, if he gets any grief about returning it under the DSR's then he just needs to contact the Office of Fair Trading and let them sort it out.
Associate
- Joined
- 30 Jan 2005
- Posts
- 708
This happened to me when i bought an unknown make.. I took it back to the shop 4 times and ended up going for a different well known make which was about £100 more but it was perfect and i still use it to this day.. About 4 years ago i got this.
Actually, I don't need to read up on it. If you look at post 15 above, it was me that pointed that out to Gibbo when he made the "as new" claim.Cuchulain said:
But you see, there's two aspects to this. The first is what the DSR actually says, and it says nothing about "as new". The second is how a court interprets "reasonable care", if and when a specific case comes before them.
So, while it certainly isn't the case that a retailer can claim the DSR requires goods to be "as new", because it doesn't, exactly what "reasonable care" means is open to interpretation. And it is deliberately open to interpretation. That is an absolutely standard type of phrase used by legislators to keep things deliberately vague enough to allow a court to respond to differing circumstances, and is used all over the place, up to and including using "reasonable force" in self-defence against a murder charge.
So, if a retailer considers that the condition an opened monitor comes back in to be 'unreasonable', they can decline to refund under the DSR. If that happens, the buyer has no choice but to either accept that, or take court action to see if a court agrees with the retailer or not. The retailer would not be committing any sort of offence by refusing .... but they may lose a civil case if the court doesn't agree with their interpretation. But that's what civil courts are for - deciding on matters such as interpretation, where the parties can't agree by themselves.
And as soon as you put it in the hands of a court, you face a degree of unpredictability.
I know what the OFT think of "as new". But at the end of the day, that is just the OFT's opinion and it isn't binding on a court. It isn't even terribly persuasive. It may well be what legislators meant when they wrote the law, but courts have a habit of following what the law actually says, as balanced by both the prime statute, any other relevant statute, common law, precedent and last, but not least, the judge's own judgement on the facts of the specific case before him/her ..... and not what legislators are supposed to have meant it to say.
In short, you risk a judge deciding that "reasonable care" means "as new". But until a given case goes before a court, you won't know if he'll decide that.
Which brings me back to the point I made in the beginning. If someone decides to return a monitor under the DSR, and it's been opened, and a retailer refuses to refund because of that, you have to be prepared to go to court to force them to refund, and have to be prepared to face the possibility that you'll lose. I don't expect that you would, but the possibility exists.
Ha. Good luck with that.Cuchulain said:
The OFT does not take action on behalf of individual consumers. You'd be lucky to get them to do so much as make a phone call about this. You can try Consumer Direct, but even they will limit their help to advice and suggestions. They won't go after a retailer on your behalf. Your best bet would be Trading Standards, who will take action against retailers .... but only if the retailer's activities fall under their remit or they are committing relevant offences.
A retailer refusing to refund because of "reasonable care" is a civil dispute between retailer and customer, and that's precisely what courts are for.
Geoff said:
In relation to receiving a refund it doesn't matter if the customer takes 'reasonable care' of the item, the company is still duty bound to refund them should they decide to cancel, the company then has to take legal action to claim against any damage/loss. You said you didn't need to read up on the legislation, before waffling on about 'reasonable care' again you might want to give it a bash, check section 3.44 and 3.47
(paragraph 3.38 relates to goods not covered under the DSR's)
sprognak said:
My 21" sony trinitron CRT monitor has a "dead pixel" on the centre left of the screen. Hardly noticed it until I looked.
...and yes, it is possibly on a CRT. In this case its because its an AG (aperture grill) one. A fine mesh is inside the tube to improve focus/electron gun alignment on the tube. Guess theres was a fault/blocked hole on the AG.
As for being more noticable on TFT's - I believe that the dot pitch/size on a TFT is generally bigger than a high quality CRT, so would be more noticable. Also, on a CRT it would be a "dead" pixel, where on tft's they can flicker, be odd colours etc which do tend to catch your eye.....