PC Half fixed - Whats my legal position?.

[FatRakoon]

Ok, a month or so ago, my ASUS RoG Laptop suddenly gave me a blank screen after I did something in the BIOS.

I was unable to fix it as there seems to be no way to clear the CMOS and so I decided that I will send it off to see about getting it repaired.

They checked it over and on 27/04/2021, they gave me a quote for £295.55

300 quid is a lot of money for a Laptop thats a few years old now, but its been a great one and so I thought ok.... So I sent off the agreement by post and I paid the £295.55 via my debit card on the phone ( They wanted the money up front as they had to order the parts ) .

So, a shoprt time later, they said that it needed some more work.

Then, the other day, I get another Email telling me that the Motherboard also needs replacing, and that I now owe them £512.39

Thyey also said that if I decided NOT to go ahead with the repair, that I will still have to pay for the LCD Screen as they have scrapped the original screen.

Now, I have told them that I wanted the screen returned with the laptop.

I knew that there was nothing wrong with the screen. They simply misdiagnosed the thing.

They are trying to charge me twice now. Of course if they assumed that I never paid the first £300 and thats an honest mistake, sure, after all I can prove it as I paid with my ddebit card, but can they do this to me?

I mean... The first quote of £295.55 was for it to be fixed, but I could have it returned to me but I would have to pay £45 for them looking at it...

But now it looks like if I dont pay this £200 more, that I will have paid out £300 for nothing and I will have a broken laptop.

Can they do this?

Is it even legal?

After all I was given a quote and I paid it and they were wrong to have given me the quote then arent they?

I am perfectly happy to have my laptop returned, but I will also want a refund of £250 too!

Or would it be best if I spoke to a solicitor about this?

 

[FatRakoon]

The Laptop is out of the ASUS warranty. I fully accept that I will have to pay. Thats not the issue.

Couriers came to pick it up, and it went to a compnay called letmerepair in scotland.

They quoted me 300 for a screen and I told them that its not the screen, its the BIOS.
But I do get confused and so I had to trust them.. After all I have fixed enough, but this was clearly beyond me.

I told them I wanted the screen back then when they return the laptop but they have scrapped it ( B/S )

But yeah ,its asking for more money on top after I paid their quote.

They misquoted me and they made the mistake, so why should I have to suffer?

The thing is, that it did not need the screen replacing, that was their issue not mine and it should not cost 500 quid.

Ah, Im absolutely sickened by it.

If this does not get sorted then Iabsolutely will NEVER buy ASUS again, and I will make sure that everyone I know avoid them too!

What is even more annoying, is that I own loads of computers, and most of them are ASUS, a few AsRock and some Gigabyte. Almost all of my DVDRW drives and Graphics cards are ASUS and my soundCards used to all be Creative but now I am only ASUS and I even got 2 STX cards and those buggers cost a lot of money ( to be honest, they are no better than any other card if you ask me )
But I have spent thousands over the years on ASUS parts alone, never mind all the other bits...

But yeah, if they dont sort this out, then Im going back to Gigabyte.

 

[FatRakoon]

Yes, everything was done over EMAIL
The ONLY time I did not email, was when I phoned them up to pay the original quote, but EVERYTHING I have in emails.

 

[FatRakoon]

Yes, I have a habit of waffling and so I tried to keep it as simpler as I can.

As has already been mentioned, I actually did this though ASUS themselves and they sub-contracted these bozos to do it for me.

I am usually more than capable of repairing laptops myself I have done hundreds and this one I was unable to ghet the parts for and so thats why I decided to go through ASUS.

Now, as to the price... The laptop is old for sure, but when I bought it, it was hellishly expensive, plus I was working out what kind of Laptop I could get for the price of the repair, and at 300 quid, I wont get a very good laptop at all... I have a few of them, and this one has 2 HD ports, plus I have converted the DVDRW to another, and so it has a 240GBSSD plus 2x2TB WD Blacks, it has 32GB RAM, and a nVidia 970 Graphics Card ( yes card ) and its an I7 ( 4 Core / 8 Logical ) running at 3.4 and so you tell me if I can find one for 300 quid?

Plus, I have owned it from new and so I have been 100% happy with it, and another one I simply dont know its past.

So yeah, I was a bit annoyed they asked 300 but I was also weighing up the pros/cons and I decided that its worth it.

tlrBeta.
Yes, thats a good one. Why didn't they diagnose it properly?
Now as for Small claims, I used them a few years ago when a shop sold me a Motorbike and they gave me a different one that was a death trap.
We went through mediartion and the mediator advised him that I will lose in court and so he should just sort it out... The guy was supposed to MOT it and fix the issues, but he just MOTed it and it managed to get about 300 yeards downm the road ant it seized up. I then took him to court and I lost because according to the court papers, he only needed to give it an MOT? - The mediation was supposed to also say that the other issues needed fixing. ( its a huge long story, but it cost me £78 to get small claims to een look at it, and theh another £150 to go to court... A Court case that it was simply not possible to lose... I never even got it into court as the judge said that I had the MOT.

So, even small claims will cost me
But, I asked my mother, who used to be a solicitor, although not in this sort of thing and she gave me some tips... among the tips, she said that they have broken a common law in that they have broken the contract "mid-contract". I have not found the actual law yet, but that is basically what they have done.

tlrBeta is also saying a great point but yeah, they absolutely should have done the diagnosis properly.

Not only that, but I told them what I did and I told them that the BIOS is locked, so they knew it was not the Screen and I also told them that whjen they are done, I want the screen and any older parts returned with the laptop, but they said they have scrapped it.

What else?
Yes, I did do all the usual checks. I would have fixed it myself, but all it needed doing, is resetting the BIOS. I went into the BIOS and there was some options that completely locked me out and had a display, but then when I got it back up and running, it then started up and just stopped displaying.

I did of course connect it to a HDMI cable, but that also failed to display... I did think that maybe its got the choice of LCD or EXTERNAL screen, as most do, but nothign would show, and it did NOT boot up either... If it was something to do with the screen, then it would still boot up, or sound like its booting up, you would hear the HDs whirring away and so on, but it did nothing .. just the fan stayed on.

So yeah, it was simply not diagnosed properly at all.

Heck I did say I waffle.

Anyway, I have now been in touch with CAB who have then taken some info from me, and they said that yes, the Common law mid-contract break is something I can perhaps look at, but they are going to contact trading standards for me, and they in turnm will be phoning me sometime.

I am also working on a letter to these bozos that I might send RECORDED DELIVERY, with my position on this.

Ok thanks guys. Its all appreciated it really is.

 

[FatRakoon]

It's at this point that I stopped reading. This is no cliffhanger, there is but one outcome and one alone.

And that is?

 

[FatRakoon]

Did you buy the laptop from Ocuk? I know it's not a warranty thing, but you seem to have been messed around and they might be able to help - contacts and all that. tag 5ub or gibbo on these forums and they might be able to help.

LOL Oh no, not from OCUK. A competitor, and no I am NOT going to say who.

But its NOT OC, so no worries there.

 

[FatRakoon]

If it's ASUS that you contacted first and they sub-contracted to this place, why not complain to ASUS?

How many years old is this laptop from when you bought it?

I got it brand new.
And yes, I could complain to ASUS, but I am going through trading standards and I will see what they say.

I have, for the moment, emailed LetMeRepair, and told them that I am disapointed with wwhat they have just done, in asking for more and kind of in al almost blackmail of having to pay even more or not having my money back, but I will seek legal advise first.

I could have course contact ASUS but when I did try contacting them before, they just kept telling me to contact the repair team.

--

Actually, I have already had a bit of a run-in with these morons a few weeks ago.
I had not heard from them and I was getting a bit concerned and they told me that they had sent out the quote.
I did not get one. They kept saying look in my spam folder etc, but why would every email from them and ASUS get to me and just that one quote go into the spam?
I also had to ask several times for the quote to be re-sent.. Had they sent me one then it should be easy to just resend surely?
Took a further 11 days to actually get a quote after all that!
I should have just cut my losses and ditched the Laptop.
After all, its only my Linux Laptop and not my main one at all!

 

[FatRakoon]

Dude, you "did something in the BIOS". So what? What did you do? Because if that's all you told the repair shop then you gave them enough rope to rip it out of you. Why oh why did you pay up front? I mean come on. Why post it to a repair shop anyway, that move alone is just increasing the cost of the repair. Was there no-one local you could have took it to?

You also said this...

I checked back through the previous posts and I couldn't see where you had provided that info? It's confusing, because if you did it though Asus then surely you would have posted it to them? Is it possible that you contacted Asus and they refused the repair as it's out of warranty, and an Asus Rep Googled a repair shop in what he thought was your area to help you out, and you've now attributed that to organising the repair through Asus?

Ok, I contacted ASUS

They organised a Courier and so it cost me NOTHING to get it sent off as the courier came to the house with a box... I did not even have to pack it up although I did, and I packed it up inside a Laptop bag ( just for extra safety )

The Laptop went to that shop and I did not know this until I got an EMail stating that. It was only than, that I realised that ASUS had sub-contracted that bunch of idiots and theives. Had I known this, I would NEVER have done this.

I knew that the Laptop was out of warranty.

Thats why I thought that ASUS themselves would be the best guys to fix it.

I am usually more than competent at fixing a laptop however, I was in the BIOS, and again I go into the BIOS every day one verious systems, but this had a page that I have NEVER seen on ANY machine before with some other things, and what I was trying to do, was get the Keyboard to work as I was installing MACOS onto it. When I came out of the BIOS, thats when I realised that the screen was not working.

What was wrong with it, was the BIOS had locked me out completely.

That company is the ASUS repair shop. They are sub contracted by asus.

 

[FatRakoon]

Chances are that if you pay the £45 return fee without getting it repaired it will come back with your original screen in.

I have now been in touch with them.

I have posted a letter ( Registered and Signed for ) to them telling my sutuation.
I have tried to phone them, several times, but they dont seem to want to answer the phone to me?
I have replied by email too and the other day I received an email with a reminder of the same quote of £512

I replied to that email telling them my position and that I have contacted Trading Standards ( Pretty much the same as I said in the letter ).

I feel that with the info I had from here and from Citizens Advise and the lady I spoke to in Trading standers, that they seem to have broken a Common Law that is a MID-CONTRACT BREACH.

I forget the exact law and so I am waiting for T.S to get bac kto me on this, they will also be contacting them about it all.

I guess they will work out some shady and pathetic excuse, but the fact is, that I did something in the BIOS and I could not fix it and so I decided that the best people to fix it would be ASUS... I never knew they would just take it to a shop, if I knew that I would have taken it to a local shop and let them sort it, but had I known they would just replace parts, again, I could have done that, but thats a detail. They charged me to repair it and I decided, ok, I will do it. I was a big miffed, but they have it now, so, I might as well do it.

I had an accident a few years ago and I have no use of one hand and little use of another and so its difficult for me to do these things now, so yes, they can do it.

But then they replace the wrong part and now want to charge me more to do the right part..

That is not fair.

I have told them that there is nothing wrong with the screen and they can put my screen back and replace the Motherboard... The Motherboard is £33 more, and so I said I will happily pay the extra, but now they are saying that they will take the screen back out and put the board in... Well what about my original screen? there was nothing wrong with that. They have screapped it so they should replace it.

End of the day, the yquoted me a price to fix my PC and I paid it, now they are changing their quote and as I was told on here... It was their error not mine.

So I am at this point right now.

The really irritating thing is that if I pay that extra £200 ( Its £212 but Im rounding off ) then are they going to then say " oh its something else ", and then, I will be down £500 and still have no laptop.

No, they quoted me a price, Ipaid it and so they should honour it. Its not my fault that they did not diagnose it correctly in the first place is it?

 

[FatRakoon]

You shouldnt be dealing with LetMeRepair tosh at all your contract is with ASUS not their 3rd party. You dont have any say over the 3rd party because your sales contract was not with them but ASUS. ASUS should be sorting it for you or giving you a working replacement.

Unless the above happened and you got sidestepped by ASUS who recommended a repair shop for you then you should not be speaking to LetMeRepair.

you know what... You are absolutely correct.

The repair is OUT OF WARRANTY. I knew this, there was NEVER any thought that the warranty still stands.
I only got ASUS to do it as I thought that they would be the best people I could think of.

I never knew it was given to those idiots until they themselves said they have it.

This is another point I can perhaps raise with Trading standards?

My solicitor is happy to have any info and he is more than happy to take my case on, but he did say that he will charge, so Im not going to use him unless I think I might win, and he is happy to hear all the info I have and then he will take me on once he thinks he will win... If you know what I mean? - so far, he says I have a really good case.

 

[FatRakoon]

This is now clearer. I don't think I would be talking to the repair shop at all, I would be discussing directly with Asus although it's a bit more complicated now if you've paid money direct to the repair shop. That's not how a sub contract works, the money should have been paid to Asus.

No, youre right, thats NOt how a sub-contract works at all, but is this a sub-contract though? I mean in the Legal sense?
Also yes, I should NOT deal with these morons, I should be doing it through ASUS absolutely but ASUS seem to have washed my hands of it because while they did indeed set it up, once they had my laptop they have not replied to a single email.
As for me paying the money, this can go either way really.

They gave me a quote and so I paid it.
This is my bonus point.

They were paid to do a job and they are breaking that contract mid-term and this is where they are in the wrong.

They did offer to return the laptop for a fee of £45 at the beginning if I was not happy with their price.

Now they are willing to re-do that, but minus my screen... They say they will take their screen out... put the new Motherboard in., But then what about my screen? There was nothing wrong with mine.

I need to keep in touch with the repair shop because they said ( and its kind of in the small print ) that if I do not reply within 14 days the work will be cancelled and all items will be scrapped... Now, I dont see how they can do that, but I would rather not risk it.

As for the paying up front, they said that because parts needed to be ordered, I had to pay up front. I fully agree that this is poor business, but they would not do it unless I did this.

 

[FatRakoon]

Wow. Crazy what some people do.

Your on a computer forum and you didn't ask here first?

I did. Why did you assume I did not?

Anyway... The Laptop has a few variations, and some have a BIOS reset button underneath... Mine does not. Some have a battery thats easy to remover... Mine does not.
I am not an idiot. 95% of things I can usually get around. This laptop while old, cost me a grand when I bought it, and I have upgraded it massively since, so I thought that I would send it to ASUS and even though it was out of waranty, I assumed that it would be the best place possible.

I assumed incorectly. I NEVER thought that a company such as ASUS, could have such a disgustingly cruddy bunch of idiots to fix their gear.

I also see that a lot of people hate them, but the thing is, that most of my stuff is ASUS or GIGABYTE. I have found that their hardware has simply NEVER let me down. That Laptop has been through hell with me and so yeah, I was happy to have it fixed but I have been strung along by these gits now and I am seriously rethinking my loyalties.

 

[FatRakoon]

@FatRakoon I live about 5 miles from that shop, and I feel like printing off your post and attaching to their windows with super glue dipped in melted smegma.

Funy thing is with me, is that I ride motorbikes and I have a weird issue of simply riding off for no reason and ending up in stupid places... Bristol, Shaftesbury, I did Lans End one day and a few days later after I got home I went to John O Groats, and when I got home, I realised that I did not go from one to the other and so a few days later I did that top to bottom, and then like an idiot, went back up just to say I did it both directions...Came home following the coast.
It was a few thousand miles in all.

So, yeah, Never been to Kilbride and so you have no idea how much I want to simply go for a ride. I been to Motherwell, and thats close I think ( Checks map so I dont look a divvy )

Only issue is, that I dont have a decent touring bike at the minute, Maybe the Fazer will be ok, but my legs are not fully happy with it.

 

[FatRakoon]

I can't offer any practical advice @FatRakoon but wishing you the best of luck.

Thanks bud.
Just see whether T.S consider what they are doing, to be wrong.
I mean, who the hell would pay £512 to have an old Laptop repaired? - £300 was a little OTT but then I thought I wont get a better Laptop for that price, so I went for it.
After all, its been a rock solid machine, plus its got 3 HDs in it and I upped the GFX card, so its a half decent system, that plays all the games I want it to, and more!

 

[FatRakoon]

Small update.

Obviously, Im not going to bore you with all the details of every time I email or talk to them, or they send to me, but I think I have got somewhere at last.

I have an updated Quote... My 7th quote might I add.

I said to them that I will happily pay the difference between the screen and the Main Board, but my screen was fine, so I want the screen returned as there is nothing wrong with the screen.

They finally said LCD REMOVED AND MAINBOARD REPLACED.

So, I decided to phone them up.

They said that the Screen will NOT be touched and that its only the mainboard that needs to be replaced.

Now, my only worry on this, is that they have sent me an EMail informing me that the screen has already been scrapped.
How can they put my own screen back if thewy have scrapped it?

Will they now put a broken screen in to shut me up?

Anyway in typical me fashion, I have recorded the conversation as I always do, Trading Standards have not said anything for a while and so I still dont know if they have contacted the shop or not, but as of this moment, they said they ARE going to replace the motherboard, however they are NOT going to remove the screen.

Interesting to know what is happening... For me anyway.

 

[FatRakoon]

Not the best of reviews at a glance....

You're not kidding... I did write one myself just now, then I deleted it as I still dont have the Laptop, so who knows... They might even come up trumps.

What the hell is a supposedly reputable brand such as Asus using cowboys like these for in the first place? - I feel for the OP, direct to the manufacturer whilst almost certainly wouldn't be the cheapest, you'd think would still be the ideal solution for an out of warranty product return & repair, to see this has surprised me.

Exactly. Its not new, its well out of the warranty, but its still a decent Laptop and I like it. Its never failed me, and its extremely upgradeable, as I have done to it.
Its got a new GFX Card, the DVD has been swapped out for another HD and so it has an SSD and 2x2TB HDs, and 32GB RAM, oh, its also had a new Keyboard so its lovely and looks the biz.
Its running Linux sweet as honey too!

So yeah, I wanted to know that if anyone is going to touch it, then Iwanted it to go to the best place I could think of, but these bozos have proven to me that they are nothing but idiots.

I can't see them keeping any old screen for that exact laptop lying around to be honest. They probably just said they binned it to make it seem like you had no choice but to pay up.

I'd expect to be paying for the motherboard and some sort of labour, no new screen and no labour for their **** up with that side of it.

They kind of had me to ransom.

I paid for Labour and for handling and for the screen, and I told them there and then for the second time, that there was nothing wrong with the screen, but they simply dismissed me. I paid anyway and then a week orso later, they said they did some more testing and the motherboard has also failed... I told them they should have diagnosed it initially and that I am NOT paying anymore and after some argueing, I then decided that I needed to contact My solicitor.. He advised me to contact CAB but he said that they have broken a Common law and its a mid-contract breach ( IIRC? ) and eve nthough they said in the fine print that the price may change, they cannot do that once you have paid up. I paid up and for that they need to fulfill the repair contract. He did say without reading the fine print, so he suggested speaking to CAB and they told me a few things and they have got Trading Standards involved but with this Corona stuff happening, its not going quickly enough!

I dare say I wont hear from them for another week or so, but I am not expecting them to give good news because everything they have done has shown me that they are absolutely useless.

This has also shocked me about Asus too! - I expected much more from a company that I have liked for a few years now.

I have AsRock, Asus, and Gigabyte Motherboards, Graphics cards, all my sound used to be Creative but now Asus ONLY... In fact I have my ZXR ZX and Recon3D on teh shelf above me doing nothing.. All my DVDs are ASUS - Im looking now... I have 14 PCs in the Computer room ( only 6 are actually plugged in ) but they all have at least one or two ASUS parts, and now, after this... I will NEVER buy ASUS again.

Oh yeah and my Main Linux Laptop is ASUS too - thats the one thats duffed.

 

[FatRakoon]

Cool. I had a great morning this morning.

Last night, I saw my solicitor while I was doing some shopping and we got chatting about the Laptop. I said that Im not really gtting anywhere with T.S because of this lockdown issue and they are taking their time, however I do seem to be getting place with the shop and they do seem to be fixing it or at least they seem to... I dont like how they are working things and so I have been recording every phone call and I have kept every email to and from them. He said can I possibly send him a copy of what I have, including the phone calls and so obviously,yes I can.

Anyway, he has looked over everything I have had off them, he has looked through the fine print etc, and he has read each quote very carefully and listened to our conversations on the phone and he said that it is fairly clear to him, that they are trying to pull a fast one on me. He has said that since T.S are taking their merry time with it all, he will help me out.

At this time, it does look like they are replacing the motherboard, however according to the conversations we have had, they have definitely replaced my screen and they have scrapped my original, but now they are saying that they are going to leave my screen on it. So, thatmeans that they may try putting a broken screen on the thing and that is where he will step in. According to the wording they have used, I should be getting a fully working laptop back.

My only issue is a 50-50 on whether my screen was working or not, when they had it.

It was working perfectly fine, and it has ZERO dodgy pixels and it was crystal clear.

Would they need to prove it was broken? No, they just assumed and replced it ( or not ) and realised it was not the screen and then replaced the motherboard.

I mean, I have had to fix enough Laptops to know that its a bitch... With PCs you can just trydifferent parts and you can find out fairly easily and quickly what part isbroken but with a laptop, its harder, I will concede that, so if the screen is blank, I will admit that sometimes you will assume its the screen, but then you consider other things... Does it work VIA the HDMI or VGA port? if it does then yeah, new screen should be it. But also you need to make sure that its still trying to go through the boot process, the laptop was NOT, it would come on but the Hard Disks would not spin up or it would not do anything other than you could hear the fans and they start up and then would slow down after a second or two if it was booting properly, but they never bothered to checkany of that!

So yeah, they are absolutely in the wrong and we have their own emails that will help us along.

Im just waiting got them to get the Motherboard and replace that, and hopefully they wil have fixed it.

But it better have my 32GB Corsair in it, and my 3 HDs and my Graphics card all back in it. ( Now I am wondering... Is it the graphics? LOL - no, that would be the same with it not booting surely ? hehe)

 

[FatRakoon]

Did they tell you up front that it was probably the screen that was broken?

Call me cynical, but my gut feeling is that they broke the screen when opening it up to get to the motherboard, and they're now trying to get you to pay for their ****-up...

Make sure you get the same spec screen and they haven't replaced it for a cheap inferior one.

Wont surprise me one bit. I am hearing nothing but horrible things about these morons.

As for replacing it with a naff screen, that does worry me, absolutely it does. The one on it is imaculate and crystal clear genuine article and not some ebay junk, so yes, it is a worry that they put some sub standard pile of rubbish on it.

I kept telling them that I wanted any and all replaced parts returned with the laptop. I told them that I wanted the screen returned as I knew it was a good screen and thats when they then told me that the screen had been scrapped. They then said that they will replace the motherboard and take the screen off, they then said that it will be returned without a scren, Its now concerning me that they have now said that they are leaving the screen on it.

I think that the people I talk to and the people who fix things simply do not communicate with each other?

So, does it have my own screen on or not?
Does it have a new screen or not?
If its my own screen, have they put it on properly?
Did they assume it was broken and knocked it about not knowing it wasa perfectly good screen?

Im no wiser on the screen, but one thing Ido know, is that if they give me a junk screen or the laptop is returned and not working, then I will be going nuts and Iwill be using the solicitor not CAB and I will be taking them all the way... I have their emails and I have the clever way they have worded everything to get around the screen issues and now teh solicitor has told me a few things and shown me their dirty tactics, I feel that this might get me a new Top of the line Laptop if they fail to get mine sorted.

Either way bugger it, Im up for a scrap. Its not my main laptop and so I am in no rush at all.

 

[FatRakoon]

Another update
This morning I had ANOTHER email telling me that they have discovered ANTOHER fault with the laptop.

These morons are clearly too stupid to know what they are doing!

Im done with it all

I am contacting trading standards ( for the third time now ) or perhaps who do I call when trading standards have not bothered to get back to me every time I contact them?
Some kind of ombudsman?

My solicitor has said I clearly have a sound case, so I might just have to bite the bullet and go with him, cos this is clearly some way for them to keep gettiong money from me and not actualy fixing the laptop at all.

Scum.

 

[FatRakoon]

You know. I just might...

i will see what other thing they are going to come up with next, and go from there!

They said it was the screen then the motherboard, and now its something else and they are asking me to cough up BEFORE they do any repair and they are as someone said in an earlier post on here, basically keeping my laptop hostage and making me constantly pay up.

I have already got a solicitor interested in it, ( talked to him for free theen saw him and chatted and the second time I saw him in the town it was not official but he did say that I could have a case ) and trading standards but they are slower than a clacier in getting back to me and after contacting them 3 times, one to setup the ccrud and the second two to ask wtf is going on and getting nowhere, so yeah, I might just contact these guys.