This is wrong isn't it?

[finlay666]

I was told today that to RMA a graphics card (still under warranty) to a certain well known ATi/AMD card manufacturer would cost me £25.80 (or around that) for a replacement as a 'service fee'

Now I was 99% sure that if it is under warranty all I am required to pay is postage (if that), and I think the company is trying to stiff me as I am 99% sure they will have to upgrade my card (X1900XT is no longer made by them, so would have to be an x1950xt as it had to be of equal or greater value, and the gt's/pros are not as good) and get away with it.

Already tried contacting the retailer who have said of the 2 year warranty the first is provided by them, the 2nd through the manufacturer (was Scan so I can trust them there) and to contact them about it.

I'm just a tad miffed

[Bluecube]

Depends on the T&Cs but yeah, I would feel I was being stiffed as well.

[finlay666]

Well it is still under warranty (as verified on the sapphire page )

I'll need to check the manual I still have though for fine print

[Saracen]

The retailer (Scan or whomever) may well be right that the second year of a warranty comes from the manufacturer, and if so, whether a service fee applies or not depends on whether the warranty T&Cs say it does. But regardless of any manufacturer's warranty, you still have possible rights under consumer protection legislation, in addition to any warranty. Whether they're any use to you depends on several things, not least of which is how long you've had the card. If, as implied by the question, it's over a year, you still have some rights but they're MUCH weaker than they would have been for, say, the first 6 months.

[finlay666]

well the card is about 15 months old

But I need another copy of the warranty info as I cannot find mine currently, this is turning into a right nightmare (aswell as missing a screw from the HSF)

And does anyone know what a 'reasonable length of time' is for electronics to last? some say it is 3 years, some say 6

Either way 15 months for a £300 card isn't

*grumble*

[mcmiller]

why would they be much weaker saracen ? i thought that if you spent over £200 on gfx (im not saying he did) you could reasonably expect that card to work for over 2 yrs obviously not have everything on full but for it break within 15 yrs Im prity sure would still covered by the consumer law. I doubt how they can justify this charge, you need speak to trading standards

[coco]

As said before talk to trading standards, having spent £300 on a card that only lasts 15months and then having to "pay" for a replacement does not sound right at all.
I was wondering who the manufacterer is so i can avoid buying

[Ruggerbugger]

Your statutory rights protect you for up to 6 years of use. So they say on Don't Get Done, Get Dom anyway. Good luck

[JPreston]

Can anyone link to Sapphire's T&Cs where it says that?

I got a Sapphire 1950Pro when it came out (~6months ago?), the card that according to several threads here needs to have the fan speeds increased for it not to keep crashing so arguably is faulty by design.

After fiddling with the fan speed I get about 99% perfect operation (it still blanks the screen for a second or so every now and then on warm days) and I'm not planning on returning it, but if Sapphire are saying that I would to have pay £25 to return their shoddy products under warranty then I'll never buy one in future. What's the average card worth towards the end of its 24 months warranty anyway?

[finlay666]

i thought that if you spent over £200 on gfx (im not saying he did) you could reasonably expect that card to work for over 2 yrs

I spent nearly £300 on it in fact (mind at the time it was the mutts )

I will have a word, going to call them again, as said it is Sapphire, And I do not feel it is fair at all (possibly against trading practices) as there is NO way to view the warranty without actually purchasing the product, at which point it is seen as a legally binding contract AFAIK

The T&C:
UNA-FRICKING-VAILABLE!

I still have not found was a copy of it online

http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/suppo...q_subcat_id=15
^^^^
I did find that though, the wording of which is VERY different:

Q: How long is the guarantee on my Sapphire graphics board?
A: The period of guarantee for our products is 2 years effective from sale. This [b]guarantee[b] is only applicable if you have the original bill as proof of purchase.

AFAIK that is legally binding as they have not provided a proper link to their warranty

Not only that but I am going to print it out now for proof for them to do it for free


As for average worth, my £300 card is worth bout £100 max now

[Saracen]

why would they be much weaker saracen ? i thought that if you spent over £200 on gfx (im not saying he did) you could reasonably expect that card to work for over 2 yrs obviously not have everything on full but for it break within 15 yrs Im prity sure would still covered by the consumer law. I doubt how they can justify this charge, you need speak to trading standards

The rights would be weaker because a consumer's rights come from several different places, and different things apply after different points in time.

For the first few days (or perhaps months), anything bought by a "distance" method (i.e. not in person) is covered by the Distance Selling Regs ... or rather, almost anything is covered, because there are some exceptions. But for any half-awake retailer, that period will be 7 working days from the day after the date of delivery, so it's not relevant in this situation.

After that, the Sale of Goods Act (as amended several times) kicks in. That provides two points at which rights change. The first is when goods are "accepted". When you buy something, you have a period in which to ensure they comply with the contract, and if they don't, you can reject the goods and get a full refund, as the seller is in breach of contract. You can "accept" goods in various ways, including any act which is inconsistent with the seller still owning them (such as modifying them, or selling them on), OR by the mere passage of sufficient time. How long that period is will depend on the nature of the goods, and perhaps on your personal circumstances. It can be quite a long period in exceptional circumstances, but generally, will be from a few days to about a month at most. Part of this is to do with how long the product should reasonable take to check for compliance with contract. A toaster probably takes 10 minutes, but a grand piano or a computer system may take longer.

After "acceptance", the right to total refund is (with a rare exception or two) lost. You are then limited to repair, replacement, partial refund, compensation, etc. But, to be eligible for those, the goods must be faulty and the fault must have existed at the time of supply. But how do you go about establishing if it did exist at the time of supply or not? Bear in mind, this doesn't just mean that the goods didn't work, but may mean that a weakness existed, such as a low-grade component in electronics, or a design flaw, or a defective piece of material in clothing, or a weld that wasn't welded properly, etc.

As of a few years ago, the burden of proof as to whether the fault existed on delivery shifted from the buyer to the seller, but only for the first six months. For six months after delivery, statute now states that the fault existed at delivery unless the retailer can prove otherwise. After six months, it's assumed not to have existed at the time of delivery, unless the consumer can prove otherwise. In either case, establishing that the fault lies other than where the law assumes it does is likely to require independent evidence, such as a third-party test lab.

So they're weaker, because after six months, in order to enforce legal rights, you may have to prove that the fault existed on delivery, rather than the retailer proving it didn't, and that may not be easy to do. Bear in mind that I'm talking about what you may be able to legally enforce. The vast majority of consumer complaints never come to that, because either the retailer accepts liability, or because they satisfy the consumer for customer relations purposes even though the consumer may well not have been able to legally force them, or because the consumer gives up and doesn't pursue the matter to the end.

As for whether a card should last for two years, yes, personally I would expect it to do so BUT ..... what I would expect from a card I own, and what I would expect from a card I'd sold (if I were a retailer, which I'm not) may well be different. As a retailer, I have to consider how the card (or whatever the product is) may have been used. Has it been pulled out of a slot with the PC powered up, by a consumer that is technically clueless? Has someone been poking inside the PC, while powered on, with a screwdriver and shorted something? Has the card been used outside manufacturer's specs, perhaps by an over-enthusiastic clocker who's had voltages too high? Has the standard fan been replaced by a better one, and if so, was the job done competently, or has the chip cooked itself? And so on.

I'm certainly not suggesting Finlay would do any of these, but retailers have very little way to assess the skill level, or honesty for that matter, of customers, and they have to be somewhat sceptical, because far too many are basically dishonest, and if they can get something they scragged themselves replaced free of charge, a lot will be totally unscrupulous in doing so.

The principle of civil law is to establish a balance of probabilities. Consumer protection legislation tilts that in favour of the consumer, for a couple of reasons; the business is assumed to have a level of expertise and knowledge of the products they sell while the consumer is not, and the business is generally better equipped and financially able to afford to fight legal arguments if necessary. So the balance is tipped a bit towards consumers, but contrary to popular conceptions, consumer legislation doesn't tip the balance totally, and most businesses are nowhere near as intimidated by the Sale of Goods Act (etc) as people think, partly because they know it's a rare consumer that will actually go as far as court, and partly because it doesn't give anything like the level of protection many people think it does.

For instance, as Ruggerbugger says, you have consumer protection for up to six years. True enough. But that's because (in England and Wales, at least) the time limit on civil actions (with some rare exceptions) is six years. That does NOT mean that you stand the same chance at 5.75 years that you do at 366 days, in no small part because the "reasonable life" of a product comes into question.

[Saracen]

As said before talk to trading standards, having spent £300 on a card that only lasts 15months and then having to "pay" for a replacement does not sound right at all.
...

That rather depends on why it stopped working. Many manufacturers may well replace a faulty card without question, but if someone sends back something that's been damaged or abused, they'll charge just to test it. And they'd be right to do so, in my opinion.

[Saracen]

........

And does anyone know what a 'reasonable length of time' is for electronics to last? some say it is 3 years, some say 6

Either way 15 months for a £300 card isn't

*grumble*

The "reasonable" period is however long a court says it is. It is not a time period that is defined in statute, because too much depends on circumstances, and it can be different from case to case. But personally, generally, and assuming there's nothing else going on (like overvoltage clocking, etc) I'd say 15 months is likely to be an unreasonably short time for a card to be expected to last. But what I think won't influence a court much (), and that "reasonable time" is only really relevant to your chances if it gets as far as court.

[finlay666]

Well according to a few sites, "big ticket items" (including things such as ipods, washing machines etc) are to last up to 6 years

Although I think it is plain to say 15months isnt a satisfactory length of time

Another thing they want is the original invoice (a copy is the best they will get so far lol)

And the card was not overclocked/overvolted in any way

[Saracen]

Well according to a few sites, "big ticket items" (including things such as ipods, washing machines etc) are to last up to 6 years

Although I think it is plain to say 15months isnt a satisfactory length of time

Another thing they want is the original invoice (a copy is the best they will get so far lol)

And the card was not overclocked/overvolted in any way

There's two aspects to the time limit. The first is that the Limitations Act 1980 imposes the time limits on actions of various classes. For the type of action we're talking about, that limit is six years, and is defined by statute. After that, you may have a claim, but you can't take court action over it so it becomes unenforceable.

The second aspect is that the nature of the goods themselves impose a limit on how long they can be expected to last. You would expect, for instance, for a motor yacht to last longer than, say, a banana. For that reason, there are no hard and fast limits in relation to the second aspect, save only that the Limitations Act puts an end-stop on it. So, for the second aspect, it's down to what the court decides in each case. If the court decides that a "big ticket" item should last for six years, then that's how long it should last. But it varies.

Bear in mind that after 15 months, any right to a total refund is almost certainly lost, leaving you with repair, replacement, compensation or, under some situations, rescission, and if any money is coming your way, it may well be reduced by a usage element.

So if they decided that a graphics card should last 6 years (72 months) and you've had it in use for 15 months, then you'd get a 15/72 element taken out of any refund, etc, for the use you've had. If they decided that 36 months was "reasonable", then you'd get 15/36ths usage .... etc.

I agree that 15 months isn't reasonable. But the court might not see it that way. They won't be looking at what you think is reasonable either, but at what the average "reasonable" man would think. The point I'm making is that while the six years is a hard, defined limit for taking legal action (after which, you're stuffed), the expected life of a product is a moving target and not defined. You might get guides, or expectations, but not hard rules.

As for overclocking, you know it hasn't been, and I certainly take your word for it (not that it matters if I do or not), but the retailer may not. They have to consider what customers might have done, which is why they might dispute liability on the grounds that they think you damaged the card. Whether you did or not is almost irrelevant - if they decide you did and refuse to repair/replace, then the ONLY way to force them is legal action, and if you do that, because it's more than six months old, you will have to prove your assertion that the fault existed at the time of the contract to win. All they need is for you to not be able to prove that, and the law makes the assumption, in the absence of such proof, that they're right.

In order to prove that, it may be necessary to get an independent test. There's a procedure for this, and you need to follow it or the court will probably not accept the evidence. Both sides get to comment to the tester, and the tester is responsible to the court, not either party. Guess who's likely to be paying for it, though.

All the above applies to your statutory rights, though, not to the manufacturer's guarantee. For that, the time limits will be whatever the guarantee says they are, which may well be (and usually are) a lot less than six years. There are restrictions on what guarantees can say, and they certainly can't restrict your statutory rights, but again, if the manufacturer refuses to repair/replace under the guarantee, you'll need to be sure exactly what it says because the only way to force them is pretty much the same route as above - i.e. sue for breach of contract, because the guarantee is a contract.



I guess what I'm saying is that you can resolve this either with the retailer (Sale of Goods Act rights), or the manufacturer (under the guarantee), and you can either do it in a spirit of cooperation, or via the legal route. But be aware, once you go down the legal route, all goodwill is likely to evaporate. If the retailer or manufacturer digs their heels in and tells you to sue, will you? If you do, you'll have the hassle and aggravation of bringing the case, quite possibly the cost of the expert (which you won't get back if you lose), and the possibility that you may lose if you can't prove the fault existed at delivery.

And on the other side of the coin, you can stump up the £25.80 fee and, it seems, get it sorted. Are you prepared to go to the hassle, and risk of cost, of court action for the sake of £25.80? Maybe, as a point of principle, it's worth it. That's your call.

Personally, the £25.80 would irritate the hell out of me, and I'd probably try to discuss it with either the manufacturer or retailer (who, incidentally, can't just wash their hands of it after 12 months, because the Sale of Goods Act won't let them). Scan's policy makes clear that their extended coverage is in addition to your legal rights and you can always revert to the latter. But I'd want to discuss it reasonably and pleasantly, because while you have some legal rights, it'll be inconvenient in the extreme if you're forced to stand on them, and with no guarantee that you'll win. And for £25.80? I'd probably grit my teeth and pay it. But it's your call.

[SHare]

Its safe to say that Sapphire's aftersales is appaling then. Most manufacturers would happily replace it or send you back to the retailer to get a replacement with a "if there is a problem tell them to call us" message to pass on.

I would avoid argueing legality with them and take the 'this is appaling customer service' route. Point out what you spent and do the 'its put me off purchasing your version to the 2900' and see where that goes. Otherwise bitch, moan and ask for someone in charge