3yr WARRANTY isnt a 3yr WARRANTY

[AIstudio]

Hi all,
Well I have been a loyal scan customer for a long time, since they first opened.
I bought an Asus Striker 2 Formula some time ago and after just over 2 yrs i t died. This board was part of my Gaming/ Media centre which ran the TV, Satellite, games, movies and music in the front room and throughout the house. The warranty is for 3yrs so I contacted Scan to arrange an RMA to Asus.
Did all that and waited. After 7 wks i got an email from scan to say the board isnt going to be repaired OR replaced and that they were offerning me £33+Vat.
Now as far as i am concerned the board had a 3yr warranty and I asked them to do something about this. There is no way i can even buy a second hand board that will do the job for £33+VAT.
SO I am left with No motherboard to run the media PC in my house and the family have had NO TV, movies, music or gaming in our front room for 7wks already.
I am about to go to trading standards with this as I am a little suprised by Scans responses!!
So be ware that ANYthing you buy doesnt really have the warranty it states at all. Not saying all this is SCAN's fault but they are my first port of call as a customer.
I am totally dissatisfied with all this and feel that even though I bought goods that had a warranty, I have been left high and dry.
As I explained to SCAN if I was to buy a new motherboard from them that is Socket 775 and had enough slots to run all my gear then it will come with NO warranty (in effect as the socket 775 is an old system) so most manufacturers will probably come back and say that it is old and not repairable!!

ANOYED isnt a strong enough word i feel

Should i be happy with Scans £33 offer??

How would you feel under this circumstance?

Regards

Kev

[kalniel]

What are the terms of the warranty?

[AIstudio]

The only terms that i know of are here:
http : // support . asus . com/repair/repair.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Scan stated this to me:

Thank You for your email, unfortunately this board and its range have now been discontinued for some time, a refund is now the only viable option left. We offer all refunds inline with current legislation, we understand your item is under warranty that is why a refund has been offered.

Any refund at this stage would take into account the benefit of use you gained from the product before it failed, this is covered under legislation:

a partial or full refund, depending on
what is reasonable in the circumstances.
It may be the case that a full refund is not the reasonable option because the consumer will have enjoyed some benefit from the goods before the problem appeared. This needs to be taken into account before a reasonable partial refund can be assessed.

regards

kevin

[AIstudio]

They offered me £33+VAT, which i understand but £33+VAT doesnt allow me to even buy a second hand socket 775 board??
So that doesnt seem reasonable to me as I will be out of pocket

Regards

Kev

[Chris P]

AIstudio

To confirm we have offered a Market Value refund, which takes into consideration the period of use as this Model is End Of Life and we have no stock.

I have contacted ASUS directly for you to confirm if they have stock to replace this board for you.

Best Regards

[AIstudio]

Hi Chris,
I am very concerned now as I was dealing with one of your colleagues and it got a little heated. At one point i mentioned sending the board back to me. This person is now not responding to emails and I now received an order status of 3 of 4 followed by 4 of 4 imediatley after???? very confused by this as i thought the board went back to Asus? they wouldnt ship a faulty board back to the UK would they??

The order number that it has now been put on is: *edited*

The original RMA was: *edited*

I really dont want the board back as it is dead, no point in that.

Please can you look into this as i dont want someone turning up delivering a dead board??

Regards

kevin

[Chris P]

AIstudio

Wesley our Returns Manager has been dealing with this issue directly via your query. From reading the query you asked for the board to be returned to you, which has been actioned.

Best Regards

[AIstudio]

Yes that is the case as I was getting nowhere with Wesley!!!

I find this whole outcome TOTALLY unsatisfactory and I am going to take things through trading standards instead?

Thanks for nothing SCAN. I will not use you again and will certainly not use you to build any of my clients machines in the future!!!

Regards

kevin

PS so your telling me that ASUS sent the board back to the UK even though it is DEAD. or am i going to have to wait 7 weeks to receive it?? ( I get the feeling this board never wven went back to Asus)

[Chris P]

AIstudio

We are more than happy to speak to them directly and by all means if they highlight an area where they disagree with the options we have given you or they feel that the way in which we have dealt with your query has been unfair in some way then we will do everything we can to co-operate with them to resolve this issue as they advise.

Best Regards

[AIstudio]

Not a problem I will give trading standards your details and take it from there.
I suggest that you cancel the board being sent back to me at this stage as it wont be accepted at this end.

Regards

kevin

[Chris P]

AIstudio

We are attempting to stop the despatch as per your new request.

Best Regards

[wesleyaldred]

I can comfirm we have stopped despatch of this motherboard.

[AIstudio]

Ok, Just spoke to trading standards and have a ref for this case if need be.
What you have told me is correct upto a point.
Now comes the crunch point.
Your offer of £32+VAT. Can you tell me how that has been calculated??
Based on the price that i paid for the motherboard when new. I think that board was around £250 (maybe you can confirm that but i know it was around that figure)

To keep this thread a bit more profesional, as we are discussing legalities here, or will be. Would it be better that this thread goes to Pm, phone or scan email. I dont mind it all being on here as I dont have anything to hide at all.

regards

kevin

PS many thanks for stopping sending the board out as it would have been an unecessary cost

[wesleyaldred]

The value is calculated to compensate you for the remainder of the warranty you would have had if the item had operated normally until the end of the entire warranty period.

So benefit of use, minus warranty lost.

[wesleyaldred]

This is an earlier post from another Hexus member and explains quite well the legal side of things, this is not an official reponse from Scan:


When you first buy goods, you get a short period (and that's generally measured in days) during which you can insist on a full refund. This is because, during that short period, you have an opportunity to ensure that the goods conform to the contract. If they don't, you can reject them and insist on a full refund.

But that period will pass quickly. How quickly varies according to the nature of the goods, and also in rare cases to your specific situation. But it is often no more than a few days, will sometimes be less than that and outside of unusual circumstances, won't be more than about a month at the very most. There are also a variety of things you can do to implicitly "accept" goods, after which you've lost your right to reject them, and that generally includes anything not consistent with you not owning the goods, such as modifying them.

After that period, the extent of the refund you're entitled to will depend on any benefit you have derived from your use of the goods, because any retailer is entitled to make a deduction to reflect that you have had use of the goods, and even then you're only entitled to a refund at all if the goods have failed in a way which is covered by the various bits of consumer protection legislation, like the Sale of Goods Act (as amended). And that requires that the fault is one that existed at the time the goods were bought. For the first six months, it will be assumed that the fault did exist when you bought, unless the supplier can prove otherwise. After 6 months, it's for the consumer to prove that the fault existed or was inherent in the goods at the time of supply.

For instance, a 9 month old motherboard fails. Why did it fail? If it was a substandard component that should have lasted a lot longer than that but didn't, and you can prove that was the cause of the failure, then you're covered. If, then, the motherboard should have lasted 3 years (for example) and only lasted 9 months, you've had the benefit of 9/36ths of the expected life, and a deduction for benefit of 25% (9/36ths) from the refund would be reasonable.

If, on the other hand, the cause of the failure was that you slipped with a screwdriver, or that you'd overclocked it, or that PSU failed, or that you installed it incorrectly and shorted something, or that a mains surge fried it ..... etc .... then the fault wasn't inherent and the Sale of Goods Act doesn't protect you.

So .... If goods fail after the buyer has had them for a while, the concept of a partial refund provided the deduction is reasonable in light of the benefit derived from the goods, is within the scope of consumer law. In fact, it's very likely to be what would happen if you took such a case to court. If you win, the court will award damages for the loss you suffered, which will be roughly the cost of the goods, less any benefit derived up to the point of failure. So the shop partial refund follows the same principle and, generally, amounts to more or less the same amount.

[AIstudio]

Ok read all that and it ISNT quite correct.
Under the sale of goods act ALL electrical items are EXPECTED to last 6yrs. Providing there is NO missuse or damage intentionally caused, which there hasnt here.
The failure has been confirmed by yourselves and ASUS.

The compensation here is this:

New payment price (at time of purchase) devided by 6 (the amount of time the goods are EXPECTED to last) Minus the amount of time that the goods have been owned until they failed.

So upon the above, which has been quoted to me by trading standards & consumer watch.

Like i say if need be I have a contact name, phone number & reference number for this case.

If you dont agree with that and unless we can come to an agreement then my next stage will be to put all this in writing and go the usual legal route.

I dont want to do that but what else can I do. What can I replace my motherboard with with £32+VAT (sorry I said £33+VAT before but just checked my emails).

I know that the socket 775 system is old but to replace my motherboard with a newer derivative also means changing my CPU and ram. Now that is going to run up a bill. All from a faulty motherboard, which had a 3yr warranty that Asus dont want to honour!!!

Obviously most of my gripe is with Asus here. If they are going to change products so fast then they shouldnt give a 3yr warranty!!! period.

Regards

Kevin

PS Wesley, not any relation to Austin Aldred are you?? (Blackpool)