Be Excellent To Each Other

OK, fistly this matter ha already been resolved, but I'd really like to know what you think/know/suspect my rights in this situation would be if it had not.

Yesterday I bought something from the Laminated Book of Dreams (Argos). I paid cash, £40. The item was not a sale item, I paid full price.

When I got the item (a coffee machine, if it makes any diference) the item was faulty.

Today I took the item back to the store. I had my receipt, which promised a full 14 day money back guarantee.

So:

Faulty item.
Bought yesterday.
Full price.
Have receipt.

There are no more of this item in stock at the store, but as I have my receipt I am fully confident of my refund.

The person at the till says that 'the policy changes at Christmas'. This is displayed absolutely nowhere in the store, and was not told to me at the point of sale or at any point before or after. If the item is faulty they have to supply me with a working machine, but they have none. have no information on when they might have one in stock.

The manager is called and tells me that they are not obligated, at Christmas, to refund people who have bought faulty items. This is because the amount of returns of Christmas gifts they have to deal with.

I explain, again, very slowly, that this was not a Christmas gift, that I bought it only yesterday, for myself, and have the receipt. The manager re-states that they are not obliged to refund me, despite the '14 day money-back guarantee' displayed around the store and no notice displaying their change of policy.

So, they have no repacement item in stock, and won't refund me. The manager says they will supply me with a completely different machine, which I do not want. At this point I got a bit upset and said, quite loudly and feeling horibly shakey 'no, I bought this yesterday, with cash, it does not work, I have my receipt, you will give me a refund'. The manager then says: 'that is totally down to my discretion' to which I said something I probably shouldn't have, as there was a queue behind me, all listening in: 'you will give me a refund'.

The manager opened the till and gave me the money without sayinga word and walked off.

I was very much shaking now and had to go to Ryman's stationers to calm down.

So, would I have had to accept a different coffee machine if they said I had to, because they changed their 'policy' at Christmas without telling customers? The common sense part of my brain says this must be absolute nonsense, but what do you folks think?

Sale of Goods Act says goods should be of the quality a consumer expects. Money back, no problem.

EDIT: s14(2) is the bit.

But you done it anyways. I'm sorry you had to go to the Stationers.

Surely you're right under the sale of goods act.

Some random BBC site I googled appears to agree with me - http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/guides_to/law_goods.shtml

You're due a refund under their policy.

You're due a refund entirely separately because it's your legal right.

The sale/full price difference means nothing to the legal one.

To be fair they didn't mention anything about sale prices, I just added that in case sale price goods did mean there was a change of rights (although I think your rights should stand if it was a faulty item whatever the price), but anyway, it wasn't on sale and I just wanted to give the full information.

The stationers store was OK, Mali, I had to pull myself away from buying loads of Chrstmas gift bows, though.

You were 100% in the right, and unless the law's changed recently, even a 'no returns' sign in the store wouldn't have helped the manager, as it would have no legal backing. I suggest you write to head office and ask them for a clarification of the law. The manager might get a kick up the butt and you might get some vouchers...

A no returns would have had no legal weight yes, you can't agree be bound by illegal terms of a contract and that would have been.

Yep, the 14 day policy is over, above and separate from your legal rights and nothing they say or do can override the SoGA regarding faulty items, as opposed to unwanted - that manager is untrained or a cunt. Or both. Written complaint to head office* time.

* Alternatively - "port and telly".

Take a Mimi revenge (Meemvenge, if you will) and knit their doors shut.

He had absolutely no discretion to give you a refund or not - the item was unfit for the purpose for which it was sold, and therefore are entitled your full refund no questions asked.

The manager was being a Canute.

My story's infinite
Like the Longines Symphonette
It doesn't rest
Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch
Who watches over you

Also, RAAARGH at those bastards trying to take advantage of our Mimi, who knows her rights, dammit.

I can see 15 bexers turning up just as he leaves...

A mysterious man with an excellent beard says "We hear you messed with our meems... that makes us..... upset."

I have often thought about a business opportunity along those lines. There must be a market for a black van with untraceable plates containing assorted beweaponed thugs for just these sort of 'educational' visits.

Turn up looking menacing, then simply recite the appropriate passage from the law and leave quietly?

Can you please provide us with a list of other calming retailers?

I've always wanted to open a stressful candle shop. I would employ toddlers to run around all the time, and have all the candles delicately balancing on metal poles. The store music would consist of The Sound Of Yowling, and the counter staff would be grossly ugly with their makeup running from forced sobbing all day.

I just bought an eight-piece cup-and-saucer set from Woolworths for 99p. When I got home I found one of the cups was missing, so I took it back and a member of staff there got me a replacement cup from one of the sets that had been opened and plundered on the shelf. She didn't even ask for my receipt.

Woolies is closing in less than a week and she's losing her job, yet she still gave an excellent service which shames the Argos manager who doesn't even know the trading laws.

Not only should you write to Argos head office, but you should also complain to Trading Standards, Mimi. If you hadn't been as firm, you would have been defrauded.

Plus, write to head office and there's a reasonable chance they'll send you some kind of payment as well, unless head office is also staffed by arseholes.

Just as likely FTFY I suspect but either way you got sorted.

I hear what you're saying, but she - and several other assistants I've spoken to this week - was extremely polite and helpful, and a country mile away from not giving a shit. Besides, someone who no longer cared would be just as likely to be awkward as to throw freebies at you.

Never let them get away with anything, Mimi!

She almost certainly didn't care, as well as her managers not caring. There's a returns procedure to follow, and they just lost a set of cups they now can't sell and can't return the other ones to the manufacturer either. Having worked in retail for quite some time it's amazing the amount of faff involved in returning something )for the retailer) and that's why they'll try to get you to naff off.

Of course where I worked we couldn't give a toss about the company so we'd give you a box filled with sweets if it looked easier than doing the paperwork

I don't think Woolies will be returning anything to anywhere anyway.

What would happen if you bought somethng (let's say a kettle) from Woolworths on the last day of opening and then all the stores shut down but your purchase was faulty? What if it was a Woolworths brand kettle? Are you completely stuffed?

(I have not bought a faulty Woolworths kettle, this is just hypothetical).

is exactly right. You become a person with a legal claim on the remains of the firm, just like the shareholders. You would be unlikely to see anything. See also: Zavvi are currently refusing to honour gift vouchers.

Your statutory rights would still exist but like Ace said you'd just be a creditor like any other.

Gift vouchers are a form of debt, and so if the issuer is insolvent, voucher holders have to join the creditors' queue. The administrators can't lawfully accept them in exchange for goods, I think, while there are preferential creditors left unpaid. You have to wait until e.g. the tax man has had his share.

Which is of course yet another reason why gift vouchers are a really shit idea.

It's for people who would otherwise give you cash but who don't want to entirely admit they've put no thought into the present.

Or don't want you spending their hard-earned cash on a nice bit of brown.

They'll take book tokens, apparently.

My grandparents give my little brothers gift vouchers for a videogame store each year because I can get to the shop to buy them for my grandmother months in advance (as she is not mobile enough to go to the shops any more) and though she'd never know what games to getthem, she doesn't want to give them cash to be trickled away on sweets, nor where their mother could get hold of their cash.

She also give gift vouchers to my mother from Marks and Spencer in teh hope that she will buy some food or maybe clothing, and not vodka and motorbike parts.

These aren't just motorbike parts, though, they're M&S motorbike parts.

If you had a faulty kettle from Woolies, why wouldn't you just take advantage of the manufacturer's warranty?

Chances are the warranty on a WorthIt kettle isn't really honoured by Woolies, but from a manufacturer contracted on their behalf.

But who is not actually responsible to you, the manufacturers warranty is to the store not you legally and that's assuming they a)tell you know they are and b)man a line for Woolworth's products after woolies closes.