Scans RMA with "no fault found"

[razer121]

As i'm pretty sure scan may alter my response to my orignal thread i've chosen to open this new one and look for some input, long story short, i have a dvd drive that can read disks, but some disk it will REFUSE to read, for instance, my l4d2 disk, i tried it in anouther pc, worked fine, as with 2 other laptops and my pc with the spare drive, so def the dvd drive, this is the orignal message left for scan,

""No fault found, of course how did i not exspect this from scan? seems to be a common problem!

Well send it back, and take note i WILL be proving that this drive has a fault, i will record it NOT reading my disk, then put the disk into my second drive and maybe then id like to see you say no fault found, you have ticked me off. ALOT

And i'm in no way about to let you walk over me, i know my rights, i can get the proof and i will be damned if your going to keep me as a customer.

It's true what they say, as long as you dont need to RMA anything scan are great otherwise useless""

Now as i've said to them im very intent on getting an independant local shop to take a look at the drive, will get my proof and then when i do (and i will 100%) prove scan wrong i want them to pay the cost's i;ve incurred for their ignorance.

Can anyone shed any light on where i do stand? the item isn't that old either, bout i believe, 10/11/2011 not even 6 months yet....

thanks!

[blueball]

Have you tried the drive in another PC?

[razer121]

Yes! this is just it i tried everything, cleaners, different rigs, a dvd drive in my pc, i will upload a video when (if) i get it back to prove it.....i just cannot believe it, will be the last time i use scan unless they buck up their ideas

[jim]

The problem is with Scan, if you send it back, they test it and find it to work, then you're absolutely stuffed. The idea of something working intermittently just doesn't have any effect.

On the plus side, seeing as it's probably not too valuable, they seem to give in after a while of arguing the toss on the forums.

[razer121]

Oh im intent on arguing the hell with them, i mean come on you have seen my work related threads right XD thing is the drive does not work correctly, i wouldnt have sent it back otherwise, it would be stupid!

[Saracen]

You ask where you stand.

Well, where you stand is that you can either negotiate with Scan, or you can take legal action against them. And it's pretty common knowledge that if you take legal action without having taken all reasonable steps to sort the problem out without going to court, it will NOT impress the court.

So, step number 1 - negotiate with Scan.

I have to say that the tone of your post above comes across to me as rather antagonistic and, if I were Scan and on the receiving end of it, it would not enthuse me with the spirit of kindness or unnecessary cooperation. It seems to me you do yourself no favours with that tone.

Of course, if it is just frustration after considerable discussion has taken place and you've got nowhere, then that may be different, but if that is the case, it's not reflected in this thread.


So, back to where you stand. If you negotiate, in whatever manner, with Scan and you and they ultimately cannot agree, then you have two choices - give up and write it off, or taken legal (small claims track of county court) action against them, and it looks that the grounds for that would be a claim for Sale of Goods Act breach.

Basically, goods must be of reasonable quality and fit for purpose. That implies that they should last a reasonable time, etc, BUT .... if they do not last a reasonable (however long that is) time, the really big question will be "why not?"

In this case, if the drive fails, is it because of a fault that existed when it was sold, or for something that's happened to it since. That suggests one of three possible situations :-

1) The drive is fine, and the problem with it not working is your end.
2) The drive was fine when shipped, and something has been done to it since, such as abuse or misuse, etc.
3) The drive had some inherent fault that existed at the time of supply and has taken a little while to come to light.


Item 3) is what you're claiming. Something with the drive lasted a while, but not a "reasonable" time. Maybe it was a faulty or substandard component, or maybe a defective manufacturing, or the wrong value component fitted in error by the manufacturer (that happened to me years ago with a Dell motherboard), or .... etc.

So if item 3) is the situation, the product fails the SoGA tests and, as the seller, Scan are liable. After this time, they're liable for replacement or repair but it's (IMHO) legally dubious that they're liable for a refund. That may end up being what they offer, but you probably aren't entitled to demand it, or not a full one anyway.

However, what about 1) or 2)?

If Scan have tested the drive, and done so in several machines, and it works perfectly, it wouldn't be surprising if they concluded that the drive was fine. And if it is, they aren't going to be liable for it not working in your machine, because the problem could be all sorts of things at your end, from hardware clashes, to driver issues to peanut butter sandwich residue on the disks you're trying to read, or badly scratched disks where your two-year-old used them for a Frisbee or your dog chomped on them to get some roughage in it's diet.

Item 2) adds a level of trickiness which is that the drive may have been fine when shipped, and damaged by something you've done, knowingly or unknowingly. Now, you may KNOW you haven't damaged the drive, either intentionally or accidentally, but take it from me, retailers have to put up with a lot of customers trying on all sorts of shocking stunts just to get a replacement or refund for some moronic thing they've done and know they've done. No retailer can afford to blithely and unquestioningly take a customer's word for it that they are telling the truth.

So how do you decide whether it's 1), 2) or 3).

Well, the short answer to that is that you don't. The court does. That's the bulk of the reason you go to court. Someone will have to prove their case, and that means produce evidence. As it's a civil court, the standard of proof is going to be "on balance of probability", not the more famous "beyond reasonable doubt" standard that applies in criminal courts.

So who has to prove what?

In SoGA cases, if the product is less that 6 months old, the presumption is that any defect was inherent at time of sale, and therefore a SoGA breach, unless the retailer can prove otherwise. After 6 months, the presumption is that it was NOT inherent, unless the buyer can prove it was.

What constitutes proof, and what evidence? Whatever the court requires.

Suppose you take it to court, and Scan were to show up with 10 PCs, and install the drive into each and demonstrate it working perfectly in each? Would that be "proof"? Probably (if the court were to allow such a demonstration which I highly doubt). But if Scan were to have the drive independently tested by a an "expert" approved by the court, and that expert did those tests and wrote a report accordingly, then that very likely would be accepted by a court, and the likely outcome is that you'd lose the case.

Are you prepared to take it to court? Are you prepared to fill in the forms, pay the fee (which you should get reimbursed if you win), and potentially pay for an engineer's report (which again you should get reimbursed if you win)? Are you prepared to put in the time to actually go to court to argue your side, over this drive?

Financially, I'd suggest it's not worth it. But it might be worth it to you on principle alone. I've certainly gone that route more than once on principle, and if I got wound up enough by a company would do so again, even if I ended up out of pocket as a result.

If you are prepared to go to court, I'd suggest a less aggressive tome with Scan, as copies of the communications from you may well end up as part of their case if they defend it, and a moderate tone will go down far better.

And if you aren't prepared to go to court, then about your only option is to sweet talk Scan into seeing it your way, and again, I'd suggest ramping down the attitude, because it won't help your case. Honey, as the saying goes, usually works better than vinegar. Getting angry and frustrated with them won't help you get your way, and may prevent it.

Even if you do end up going to court, it's always better to do it with an attitude of "I've tried everything to be reasonable, but seeing as we can't agree, I feel I have no alternative but to ...." rather than "see you in court you <bleep> <bleeping> <bleeps>". The latter, while it might feel good at the time, is counter-productive.

And that's where, IMHO, you stand.

[directhex]

It's worth noting that sometimes there really are absolutely bizarre disc/drive incompatibilities. My old work laptop would not read my Civ 4 DVD, and my wife's desktop won't read her Fallout 3 GOTY DLC disc.

If it's just the one disc of yours that won't work, then it's entirely feasible that they HAVE taken all reasonable steps to test the drive, and it DOES work for everything they've thrown at it. I wouldn't start getting antagonistic unless there were multiple misbehaving discs.

[razer121]

But the disk worked in the drive before, i know damn well it is the drive, and i can only believe that scan just threw a few disks in it and said it worked, ye of course that would work, that isnt the problem with it, it's select disk it will not read, no matter what system it is in it wont work, but its ok i can prove this, and damn well will. not to mention i will also pay for a tech near me to do an independant test. no way am i being fobbed off. its drove me nuts

[this_is_gav]

Either you didn't read Mr. Hex's post, or you entirely glossed over what he said.

If the drive reads multiple other discs, then it's just an incompatibility with the disc you are trying to use. It happens, and I'm sure most of us have or have had drives which won't read certain disks. Likewise not all drives will write to all discs. It's a pain, but there's not a lot you can do about it, short of using two drives.

If it fails to read multiple discs which other drives read perfectly, then you may have a foot to stand on.

[jimborae]

Either you didn't read Mr. Hex's post, or you entirely glossed over what he said.

If the drive reads multiple other discs, then it's just an incompatibility with the disc you are trying to use........

If it fails to read multiple discs which other drives read perfectly, then you may have a foot to stand on.

I think he did read it & took note

But the disk worked in the drive before......

not to mention i will also pay for a tech near me to do an independant test. no way am i being fobbed off. its drove me nuts

The only thing I can suggest is to use a lens cleaner and see if there's a firmware update for your drive. But as everyone else has said, as annoying as Scan's RMA process can be at times and beleive me I've experienced it, a more concillatory tone may get you further.

[this_is_gav]

I think he did read it & took note

Perhaps, but directhex said what I repeated - if it's one disc, then it's incompatibility and of course Scan will unlikely be able to replicate the issue. If it's multiple discs the drives fails to read, then it's more likely a fault and you'd hope Scan's testing would pick that up.

Razer's comeback suggested "it's one disc that worked in the previous drive", and if so, then he feels Scan's testing wasn't strong enough, but short of sending them the disc in question, they're not going to do much outside of a goodwill gesture, and from what I've read, they've no reason to do so.

[sadbuttrue]

Have you asked Scan to test again, this time more extensively? I see no mention of such a request in your post.

I used to work in returns at one of the lesser known PC companies. The testing department was always swamped, despite having plenty of staff. Due to the nature of testing, each member of staff would test many items simulatneously, going through a pre-defined checklist. In such an environment you can easily see how a dvd drive would only get "reasonable" levels of testing. Now, when an item was tested not faulty, the customer would be notified. As in your case, they would often insist the item be tested again. This triggered a more extensive test. Most of the time it came back as no fault found, but not always.

[razer121]

Well, the disk that have had problems in the drive are l4d2,FFX (dont ask why ) and CODMW2 disk 2,

These all worked fine in this drive when i orginally got it so odd that it now has a incompatability issue.

This morning i was in a foul mood, and maybe i was abit forward with the way i handled the news, Anyway Chris P is looking into it, lets hope he can replicate my issue...dont fancy having a drive that wont read my disks....

[Kumagoro]

If it comes back as OK again then what you could do is buy another drive of the same model
and like you suggested video it working in one and then not working in the other.

[BobF64]

Sometimes this sort of thing is caused by updates to the OS, sometimes its updates to the DRM used on the disc.

Either way, its just one reason why DRM on the discs is damned annoying, it can work fine, then just suddenly stop.

EA annoyed me with this on Sims 3, their answer to "my pc cant read the disc" was "replace the DVD drive", a tricky task when its built into a laptop.

[Lucio]

Incidentally, thanks to DRM technologies, you can no longer be sure that it's the drive per se at fault. It's entirely plausible for a particular drive, or model of drive to suffer from issues when loading one or more discs all secured with a particular version of a DRM software.

Might be worth asking someone nicely to borrow their copy of LFD2 to see if you still get the same issue.