The last thing anyone wants with a new piece of technology, such as a gaming console or TV, is for it to break soon after you’ve purchased it. Here is what you need to do for them to get repaired quickly, allowing you to continue with life.
What Makes A Product Faulty?
For a product to count as faulty, it will need to meet specific criteria. The Consumer Rights Act means that any product you buy must be as advertised, made satisfactory and fit for purpose.
It will cover a wide range of goods and services, both physical and digital. Goods should be in satisfactory condition when you purchase, with no damages or faults in any way. Consider what you would think to be a satisfactory condition, in regards to new products or used.
The retailer or seller will be the one responsible for ensuring that a product meets the qualifications of a fit for purpose, advertised, satisfactory product. If a retailer sells a product that doesn’t meet any of these criteria, then they will be in breach of the law. You can speak to the retailer in question to resolve the issue, which will be easier If it is within its warranty time.
A Warranty Agreement
In most cases, you will find that a business offers a warranty agreement as part of a deal when purchasing a product. They will provide the legally accepted one that businesses provide as part of the Consumer Rights Act, but they may offer an extended warranty that you can purchase at an extra price.
You do not have to purchase an extended warranty, as typically a standard manufacturers warranty will suit your needs for as long as you need. However, it may be better to be safe rather than sorry, depending on the nature of the product you’re buying.
Legal Advice
In some cases, it may be in your best interest to seek expert legal help to resolve any commercial issues you’ve experienced. Ashwood Solicitors can offer you consumer legal advice to help resolve complaints you’ve had about a product that a business has refused to solve for you in a way that you find satisfactory.
Consumer law is in place to ensure that customers are getting good value for a product or service that they pay for, but it goes further than that. There are laws in place that protect customers and ensure that they aren’t paying for a broken product or falsely advertised service.
You should inform any business or individual that is refusing to refund you for a product that has broken within its warranty time that you are informed of your rights and that you are willing to take legal action within your rights.
As a consumer, you will have various laws that are aimed at consumer issues, such as purchasing faulty goods, being a victim of fraud, mis-selling of a product and just experiencing an unsatisfactory service in general.
Identifying Faults
You should look at the product as soon as you’ve bought in, if it was in a box, to find if it has any issues straight away. It can be difficult for you to prove that the fault within a product was present at the point of purchase if you bring it up later on.
That’s why it may be worth your time to take your product to a separate repair expert, who may be able to identify any issues and pinpoint how long they’ve been in place. There should be several local repair places around you that could do this, or you can send it off to an online repair shop.
Alternatively, you can try to identify the issues yourself, by searching online to find if it’s a common issue that people have run into before. You may find that the more people that have run into this problem, the easier it will be to resolve with the seller, especially If it’s in warranty.
Paying For Repairs
To determine whether or not you will be the one that needs to pay for any repairs to a product you have purchased, will largely depend on how long you have had the issue, and what you want resolving in the end. If you are planning to send back a product for repairs or a refund, then you should have the delivery cost paid back to you, or have the pre-paid packaging sent to you.
However, if you’ve had the product for a while, with a problem only just showing up, then you may end up having to pay for delivery costs because of the benefits you’ve received from owning the product for a long time.
Some businesses may just want to look at the product themselves to find if any issues arrived later on or when it was created. In that case, they will likely pay for this themselves.
