PiKe said:
A friend of mine tried to get his 8 month old Xbox 360 replaced this morning at a city in Greece and failed, as all she could say it's store policy not to accept returns (which I believe you can counter with your Statutory Rights), she tells him to send it to Microsoft for repair, so off he goes home with the defective console. Later he rings customer services after my advice, and quotes the goods should be of satifactory quality line from the SOGA, to this they counter with that they accept returns within 6 months and after that time, it's up to the customer to prove the fault. Now I thought this was the other way around, with the shop being required to prove the fault.
Can anyone advise on how to get the Greece city to budge on this one? Is it going to require a formally written letter to head office to get things moving?
I will start by saying that IANAL ...although I did study law at college and also as part of my degree
.
The person from the CS dept of the store is correct - after 6 months the onus is on you, the customer, to prove that the fault was inherent, and that it developed through no fault of your own. How this is achieved is dependent upon the item in question. In the case of a 360, a qualified electrician's analysis could be deemed sufficient.
What your friend should do is phone back the store in question explaining the situation and outlining the problem, and giving the purchase date from the receipt he has got. He should note the name of the person he is speaking to, and record everything that they say to him. Next, follow-up this phone call with a letter (sent via Recorded Delivery) to the Customer Services department of their Head Office, making sure he follows the points made
here about specifying what he bought and when, what's gone wrong, what he wants done about it (repaired, replaced, refunded, etc...) and a reasonable timeframe to expect a response.
There is a template you can use
here.
The retailer has a certain amount of time to respond to his request (usually a month). In the case where they ignore his letter, he should follow it up with another one after 28 days, declaring his disappointment in their lack of response, and saying that he is now referring the matter to his local Trading Standards office.
Next, he should go and see his local Trading Standards office and explain the situation to them... if he's not confident about doing the steps above first, he might want to go to see these guys beforehand and get them on-board, although they'll be reluctant to do much until he's been in contact officially with the retailer.
Once letters have been sent to the retailer without receiving any response on their part, the Trading Standards office will be able to intervene, and will help your friend with taking the retailer to the Small Claims Court.
He doesn't have to involve the Trading Standards office - he could initiate legal proceedings on his own, as explained
here. However, if he's never done this sort of thing before, speaking to his TS or Citizen's Advice Bureau will be a better option.
One thing you forgot to mention is whether the 360 was bought using a credit card or not. This has ramifications as, if one was used, the credit card company are also jointly liable and is another avenue to consider.
Lastly, this is all pretty pointless anyway, as the console is still under warranty, and to be honest it'll be quicker and easier to get it replaced via Microsoft rather than taking the retailer to court. If it was outside the warranty then I'd say go for it... but as it is, he should just use the warranty he's already got.
