Scan sent faulty GPU, refusing to refund in full

[rallfo]

I purchased a graphics card (GTX 980) from Scan that turned out to be faulty (basically dead on arrival).

Returned within the initial 14 day period, Scan confirmed the fault. Issued a refund for the value of the card, all good so far.

However they are refusing to refund the cost of carriage both to me and back to them.

According to Which? consumer rights:

If you receive faulty goods and wish to return them, The Consumer Contracts Regulations are in addition to your other legal rights.

So, if your goods are faulty and don’t do what they're supposed to, or don’t match the description given, you have the same consumer rights under the Sale of Goods Act as you have when buying in store.

Any terms and conditions that say you must cover the cost of returning an item wouldn’t apply where the goods being returned are faulty.

However they are refusing to refund the cost of delivery (which I paid for since I wasn't yet registered here! ) and the cost of shipping back to them.

So basically I'm £30 down for the privilege of having a broken graphics card for less than a week!

What's the best way to get them to actually abide by the law (see above)?

RMA number is 367342 in case anyone from Scan reads this!

[abaxas]

Which is lying.

The law is vague over the cost of returning faulty goods. There is no 'right' to the company paying for the return.

[excalibur2]

Strange as Scan paid for return of goods and supplying a new hard drive for my faulty one.

[kalniel]

Which is lying.

The law is vague over the cost of returning faulty goods. There is no 'right' to the company paying for the return.

Yes there is.

If the goods are faulty or do not comply with the contract, you will have to pay for their return whatever the circumstances.

[EzyRyder]

Send them an email referring to the law and if they do not comply start a small claims court proceedings.

[jag272]

It's also possible depending on how often you've tried that you're just getting unlucky with a less informed customer support rep. The Scan guys here on the forums are usually very helpful, I'm sure they can investigate and try to sort things out with you.

[KeyboardDemon]

May I politely request that we don't recommend legal proceedings, start citing laws and suggesting claiming through small claims courts etc... until someone from Scan has had the chance to look at the details provided, assess the situation and respond to the OP. The post was made at 1:50am, and it is currently just 10am, Scan's customer services have probably been open an hour.

Looking over the last few, recent Scan related issues, Scan have (to the best of my knowledge) resolved the situation to the OP's satisfaction. We really should give them the opportunity to do the same here before jumping to conclusions with this case.

[Mark@SCAN]

Hi,

The card was returned under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 14 day cooling off period to say the card supplied was DOA is simply untrue, I will quote your initial e-mail to us below:

Dear Scan.co.uk,

I wish to make a return of this order under the Consumer Contracts Regulations. I note that having received the goods on the 12th I am within the 7 working day period for no-quibble returns.

Specifically I would like to return the product LN59868 - MSI GTX 980 for a full refund.

The reason is to obtain an alternative graphics card (which I am considering purchasing from you) - I am happy with the CPU and cooler that also came with this order. However I can return these too if necessary.

Many thanks,

As such an RMA was issued and the goods returned at your own cost, which is a requirement of the CCR's if the terms of the supplier stipulate that you are responsible for the cost of the return of unwanted goods (which ours do)

Following the request for RMA you suggested before restocking the card be checked for an intermittent stability problem which on checking was found to be the case.

A full refund for the cost of the graphics card has been refunded. The delivery cost is non-refundable as other item's purchased on the same order were not returned.

It was agreed under the circumstances to provide free shipping on your new order for another graphics card when quoting your query number to our sales team.

I also note that the 2 free games supplied as part of the NVIDIA promotion which have a retail value of close to £100 have both been redeemed despite the card they were supplied with being returned.

Regards

[rallfo]

Following the request for RMA you suggested before restocking the card be checked for an intermittent stability problem which on checking was found to be the case.

Thanks for responding.

The "suggestion" was actually informing your colleague Gareth on 20/05 that the reason for the return was a fault with the card.
Since he was the person that actually issued the RMA while I was on the phone, at the time of agreeing to a return your company was fully aware that the goods were faulty.

You have just confirmed again in writing that the goods were indeed faulty.
Your testing confirmed the goods were faulty, the goods are logged as "Fault found: yes by bharat" within your own RMA system because the card will not run stably out of the box.

We are in agreement on this matter.
This renders the goods "not fit for purpose" within the scope of the Sale of Goods Act.

the terms of the supplier stipulate that you are responsible for the cost of the return of unwanted goods

The law itself stipulates that the supplier is responsible for this cost, in the case of provably faulty goods. In this case no proof is required because you have just confirmed in writing their faulty nature. As does OFT guidance as kindly mentioned above by kalniel. Additionally:

If you receive faulty goods and wish to return them, The Consumer Contracts Regulations are in addition to your other legal rights.

Any terms and conditions that say you must cover the cost of returning an item wouldn’t apply where the goods being returned are faulty.

And the Citizen's Advice Bureau say that any rights granted under the Consumer Contracts Regulations cannot supersede your rights under the Sale of Goods Act.
Any Terms and Conditions can only be in addition to your statutory rights and a consumer cannot waive them, whatever your company decides to put in them.

It was agreed under the circumstances to provide free shipping on your new order for another graphics card when quoting your query number to our sales team.

I also note that the 2 free games supplied as part of the NVIDIA promotion which have a retail value of close to £100 have both been redeemed despite the card they were supplied with being returned.

Any promotions and goodwill cannot be a substitute for honouring your actual monetary obligations under trading law.

The 2 free games were a promotional offer by NVIDIA, not a product purchased from you, with no monetary value in this transaction. "Offer may not be substituted, exchanged, sold, or redeemed for cash or other goods or services." I redeemed them before I was aware of the fault with the card. There is also no way to un-redeem and return them, if there was I would. Since I still need to replace my graphics card, I would happily agree to not redeem any promotional games associated with my next purchase.

I have not taken up the offer of free shipping, which I note you provide to members of this forum anyway, since I have not placed another order with you.

Again I'd like to repeat that in reality: I'm £30 down for the privilege of having a broken graphics card for less than a week!

[Disturbedguy]

Thanks for responding.

The "suggestion" was actually informing your colleague Gareth on 20/05 that the reason for the return was a fault with the card.
Since he was the person that actually issued the RMA while I was on the phone, at the time of agreeing to a return your company was fully aware that the goods were faulty.

You have just confirmed again in writing that the goods were indeed faulty.
Your testing confirmed the goods were faulty, the goods are logged as "Fault found: yes by bharat" within your own RMA system because the card will not run stably out of the box.

But your INITIAL reason for return was NOT because of a fault, it was because as you said,

The reason is to obtain an alternative graphics card

. Seemingly it was only AFTER the RMA was raised / requested that you decided to ask for it to be checked for a fault. If you intial reasoning is because you want to purchase a different card why do you suddenly change to a fault? I don't see why SCAN should have to refund the carriage because YOU initially logged / wanted the return raised as "..to obtain an alternative graphics card".

Dear Scan.co.uk,

I wish to make a return of this order under the Consumer Contracts Regulations. I note that having received the goods on the 12th I am within the 7 working day period for no-quibble returns.

Specifically I would like to return the product LN59868 - MSI GTX 980 for a full refund.

The reason is to obtain an alternative graphics card (which I am considering purchasing from you) - I am happy with the CPU and cooler that also came with this order. However I can return these too if necessary.

Many thanks,

[rallfo]

The RMA was only issued while I was on the phone to Gareth from Scan two days later, and in response to information I gave verbally over the phone. Not in response to my email, which actually went unanswered.

This conversation included a full description of the symptoms, specifically crashing under Furmark at stock settings. They later confirmed that the card was crashing in the Heaven benchmark with their own testing.

The reason for quoting the CCR was to get a full refund immediately as opposed to waiting for a lengthy RMA repair process with MSI, since that is my legal right within 14 days of the sale under all the legislation and guidance quoted earlier.

The reason why Scan should refund the carriage is they are legally obliged to. The goods were faulty on arrival and the legislation is quite clear on this matter.

When a consumer is supplied with faulty goods they have the right to a refund or a replacement at no cost to them. In this instance I chose a refund, but it has cost me £30 in courier fees.

[Disturbedguy]

The RMA was only issued while I was on the phone to Gareth from Scan two days later, and in response to information I gave verbally over the phone. Not in response to my email, which actually went unanswered.

This conversation included a full description of the symptoms, specifically crashing under Furmark at stock settings. They later confirmed that the card was crashing in the Heaven benchmark with their own testing.

The reason for quoting the CCR was to get a full refund immediately as opposed to waiting for a lengthy RMA repair process with MSI, since that is my legal right within 14 days of the sale under all the legislation and guidance quoted earlier.

The reason why Scan should refund the carriage is they are legally obliged to. The goods were faulty on arrival and the legislation is quite clear on this matter.

When a consumer is supplied with faulty goods they have the right to a refund or a replacement at no cost to them. In this instance I chose a refund, but it has cost me £30 in courier fees.

But whether the e-mail was, to your knowledge, answered or not that is what your initial request for an RMA said. Your claim that it was D.O.A also appears to be untrue in that from what you yourself have said it was not D.O.A it just apparently had an intermitent fault.

Why should SCAN foot the bill when it seems that you bought the card, then regretted it / changed your mind / did it for the codes (thats how it seems to me) and wanted to exchange it for another card (your own words)?

[rallfo]

Dead/defective on arrival simply means the unit had the fault on delivery. As opposed to developing it during the products lifetime or due to the customer.

In my case the machine would spontaneously freeze or crash randomly and unpredictably on the desktop and consistently during benchmarks or games.
Scan have confirmed the hardware had a fault, marked it as such in their RMA system

Additional transcript of the phonecall of which I have a recording:

Yes we have found a fault with it. It was a faulty card.

Do you know what it was? And how to avoid it in the future?

It looks to be... crashes during benchmark tests. Tested with Heaven.
To be fair, it doesn't look like anything you did. It just seems to have been a faulty card.
So I think what you've done is perfectly fine. And it just seems to be a faulty card in general.

A bad chip or something...?

Yeah if it's crashing during a benchmark and it's a 980 then at the end of the day, you wouldn't be expecting anything like that.
It might have just been a bad chip unfortunately and you was just a very unfortunate person to get that.

So clearly the card has been diagnosed as faulty and apparently returned to MSI.

At the end of the day my aim in all this is just to get a working graphics card. I did not and I am now £30 down because Scan sent out a faulty unit instead of a working one.
Notwithstanding what the law says, they should refund me so that consumers know they can shop in confidence, even if they're unlucky enough to get a faulty unit.

The message Scan are sending to me and other potential customers is that if you get a faulty item, you will have to eat the delivery costs.

I have no use for games that will not even run on my machine, and will return them if Scan can figure out a way for me to. Or alternatively I will not claim the free games when I finally do get around to purchasing a like-for-like replacement card from them (which will come with those same free games), assuming we can resolve this matter.

Just to compare the situation, a couple of months ago I returned a faulty ASUS motherboard to Dabs.com 2 years after I purchased it. I ended up receiving a full refund (I was only hoping for a repair). Their response was:

Hello X,

Thank you for your e-mail and the photo, I am happy to bring the item back for inspection.

I have now issued the return as below, please package the item up securely including all original cables & leads and remove any saved passwords. The parcel should be labelled as follows –

X

Please ensure you retain your proof of postage. If you send me a copy of the postage receipt I will be able to refund up to £7.95 plus VAT for the return postage costs.

Alternatively if you prefer that I arrange a collection for you please send me a suitable collection address, phone number and date, I will be able to arrange for Parcel Force to collect the item. The appointment is an all day one between 8am and 6pm.

Once the goods are received and processed (7-10 working days), you will receive a credit note which will refund back to your original payment method within 3-5 working days.

The result is that for the cost of refunding £10 in carriage, dabs.com have my confidence that if I do have a faulty item in future I will not be at a monetary loss in addition to the inconvenience of a fault in the first place. Scan unfortunately do not.

[Mark@SCAN]

The RMA was only issued while I was on the phone to Gareth from Scan two days later, and in response to information I gave verbally over the phone. Not in response to my email, which actually went unanswered.

This conversation included a full description of the symptoms, specifically crashing under Furmark at stock settings. They later confirmed that the card was crashing in the Heaven benchmark with their own testing.

The reason for quoting the CCR was to get a full refund immediately as opposed to waiting for a lengthy RMA repair process with MSI, since that is my legal right within 14 days of the sale under all the legislation and guidance quoted earlier.

The reason why Scan should refund the carriage is they are legally obliged to. The goods were faulty on arrival and the legislation is quite clear on this matter.

When a consumer is supplied with faulty goods they have the right to a refund or a replacement at no cost to them. In this instance I chose a refund, but it has cost me £30 in courier fees.

I am happy to provide a partial refund towards the cost of the postage costs you incurred as I do not dispute that ultimately a fault was found with the card upon it's return. Please upload a copy of the receipt for the postage costs you have incurred. We do not however agree to a £30 refund as this is wholly disproportionate given the other options that were available for return at a much lower cost to either you or us.

This could all have been avoided if originally you had reported the fault rather than to request the return of the goods as unwanted. In the event that a fault is reported a collection would have been offered via either UPS or DPD at SCAN's expense.

[KeyboardDemon]

@Mark: I think the costs being referred to by the OP are not just for the return of the card but also the cost of the original delivery to the customer in the first instance, unless I am mistaken. If not, then I agree, £30 to send back a GPU seems very excessive.

[rallfo]

Thank you.

The £30 figure came from adding the £11.50 (£9.58 + VAT) carriage charge you initially levied (which I understand is actually free for members of this forum) to the £19.19 cost of carriage back to yourselves.

£7.99 - Base Price
£8.00 - Extended liability surcharge for goods worth £455.98
£3.20 - VAT

This £19.19 figure is not excessive because:
- I used the same courier, DPD, that you do via their consumer-facing "Interlink Direct" service.
- This is the cheapest service they offer to consumer customers. They will not offer me the wholesale high-volume business rates you benefit from.
- I properly declared the full value of the goods that resulted in the £8 surcharge since they were considered "high value" electronic items. This was to comply with DPD's conditions of carriage and so the goods would be covered for loss/damage in transit.
- I took reasonable steps to reduce the cost as much as I could by repacking the product in a smaller DPD "expresspak" package - the full cost of shipping the original box you sent would have reached £27

I have PMed you a dropbox link to the original invoice since it contains personal details.

Many thanks.