Damaged upon retrieval RMA rejected.

[shagwan]

I purchased a monitor which came damaged and Scan are trying to get out of refunding me. Here is a copy of my latest e-mail to customer support which includes all the relevant details:

***
Dear ****,

I've found that my RMA has been rejected with the following:

"damaged to screen. box and packaging is fine.
Rejected due to physical damage. Photos on the RMA"

This is very frustrating because for one the box had a hole it directly in line with the damage I've recorded, and was pretty beaten up in general how is this "fine"? And two the picture included shows the monitor in EVEN worse condition then when it was in my possession, fortunately I can provide pictures I took as evidence of this which I will attach.

I would of refused the item upon delivery had I been given the chance but it was delivered to my neighbour WITHOUT consent, surely an issue in itself and a violation of the consumer rights act that you're culpable for.

For near £700 I expected to receive a working product adequately packaged, the monitor was sent without exterior packaging other than the product box it comes in and not even a fragile label, clearly an oversight of the warehouse and again unacceptable. What I received was damaged goods, I don't know why these oversights were made and it's not my concern, what is my concern is receiving reparation for goods that violate the consumer rights act.

I've bought many products from scan before and never had any issues, this is very disappointing and I expect to be fully reimbursed and frankly you (not you personally) don't have a leg to stand on. I apologise if I've come off as acerbic, I hope you understand my frustration. ***

Here are the images of what I received and the last one is of what scan documented in their RMA: //imgur.com/a/idDAO

Has anyone got any advice? Surely Scan can't legally refuse me a refund with all these blunders?

[shagwan]

I sent it back exactly the same as they sent it to me, if they're trying to say that's why it's damaged they're confessing to it not being good enough in the first place. What's also stupid is the repair job would be identical even if the crack spread the screen would still need to be replaced but they accepted my RMA before, so how is it any different? Not that any of it matters they still need to refund me because it got sent to the wrong place without my permission. Here is a reply I got today:

***Hi,

We can accept the pictures from you however it still wouldn't explain the damage to the monitor when we received it. We have looked at it and it doesn't look like the packaging has taken any big impact which could have caused the damage as such we are unable to replace or refund the monitor.

My response:

If you "accept" the pictures of what I received surely it is feasible that the nature of the damage was going to be made worse by another round in transit, but I'm afraid you do not address at all the main issue at hand, that this monitor was delivered elsewhere without my instruction, and as such I never had a chance to inspect and reject it. I would have *immediately* rejected the goods on inspection but I was denied the opportunity. Now I am stuck in this little interlude with yourself. It's your obligation to insure the goods were delivered to me, they weren't. I don't make a habit of buying £700 monitors and smashing them as soon as I open them so I can have this fun interchange in order to get my money back. If you look through my purchase history you'll see I've bought many things through you before with no issue.

I understand you do not want to take the loss, it's a high ticket item, however I obviously did not cause the damage myself and you are not only morally obligated to refund me but legally as well. Whether you, or a team of 100 of your best engineers believe that the box was not "damaged enough" in line with the monitor is absolutely irrelevant (and honestly, ludicrous, I would imagine it would not take much to crack a monitor screen that was so poorly packaged). Or it even could have even been tampered with by the neighbour it was delivered to, which I'd like to reiterate again, I DID NOT GIVE CONSENT TO DO, this is ultimately Scan's liability.

Scan's terms and conditions:
b) Delivery of the good

The goods shall be delivered by us to your address and the risk in the goods shall pass to you upon such delivery taking place.
You should note that our carrier requires immediate notice to be given of any loss or damage to goods and you should inspect the goods upon receipt and report any loss or damage to the carrier immediately.
Insofar as you report any transit damage to goods to us within 48 hours of delivery we will refund the price and carriage or replace the goods at no cost to you.

It wasn't delivered to my address, I gave no permission to deliver it elsewhere and I had absolutely no opportunity to refuse the damaged goods. I rejected what I did receive within a 48 hour period. You've already violated your own terms and conditions in your contract, how can the risk of the goods even pass on to me when the parcel was left elsewhere without my explicit consent, I suggest you take up this matter with DPD but as the retailer you're responsible for refunding me, that's the law.

"The Consumer Rights Act, which came into force on 1 October 2015, says that the retailer is responsible for the condition of the goods until the goods are received by the consumer, or by someone else they have nominated to receive them on their behalf like a neighbour.
This means that the retailer is liable for the services provided by the couriers it employs - the delivery firm is not liable."

I did not nominate anyone.

This is an unfortunate situation but you can have no other recourse but to reimburse me on these grounds, as I should of been as soon as the monitor was back in your possession. Please release my funds back to me as is your legal obligation. I recommend you take steps to insure your products are properly packaged and are delivered directly to the recipient in future. ***

They don't have pot to **** in but they'll probably jerk me around some more first, not sure I'll buy from them again.

[Lee H]

Shagwan.

Please can you provide me with your invoice number so I can get this checked out.

Best Regards,

[Mark@SCAN]

Shagwan,

Firstly apologies for the delay in replying to your post.

I'm a little confused as it appears the reason for the return of the monitor was not due to be it being damaged but moderate backlight bleed.

I have copied your initial contact to us below:

"Dear Customer support,

Unfortunately the ASUS PG279q I received suffers from moderate backlight bleeding so I'd like to swap it for another one if possible, I understand it's a common fault with this model due to ASUS' bad quality control but paying £700 for a premium product it's important that I'm satisfied with my purchase. What was slightly concerning was it seemed to be a return that had been re-taped and sold on so it wasn't even new, the box also had a big hole in it. Hopefully we can resolve this. Regards.

Shaun"

Additionally there was no mention of damage to the packaging or any complaint about where the goods were delivered prior to the monitor's return and subsequent rejection due to the screen being cracked. I will attach an image of why the monitor has been rejected below. Hopefully you will agree this constitutes a little more than backlight bleed.

How and when did you take delivery of the monitor as according to the POD provided by DPD it was signed for by your next door neighbour. If you didn't want to accept responsibility for the goods I cannot understand why you did not raise the delivery signature with our customer services team? additionally the monitor was ordered for next day delivery on the 29/03 it was delivered as requested the next day 30/03 why was nobody available at your address to accept the delivery knowing it was due to be delivered? DPD even provided text and e-mail notification on the delivery time.

Regards

[shagwan]

Mark,

To clarify I accidentally sent this first query to technical support rather than customer services, but as you bring it up I did mention the damage to the box that you have quoted above "the box also had a big hole in it". I sent two queries, the second mentioning the full extent of the issue. I also did raise the issue of the delivery signature with Carrie and later to Gareth.

The query you are referring to above was sent before I'd even unboxed the monitor. I had mostly pre written it in anticipation due to this model of monitor having notorious issues with backlight bleed and poor QC. I then sent this query because I presumed I'd have this issue due to a)the package condition and b)it seemed like a return, I sent it (to the wrong department) before fully unpacking, and planned to redact if it was acceptable (I was very busy at the time). After inspecting the monitor in detail I realized the damage was worse than I'd anticipated (a small crack in the upper right). I then replied with another query to customer services rather than tech support and documented photos of the monitor. This second query was the one that the RMA was granted for, it has the same query number. Query 1602279.

The images you are showing me now have a far worse crack than what I've returned to you, however due to going through another round of transit, this is not suprising. Even so the repair required is identical, the whole screen would need to be replaced, so it's irrelevant to be honest.

I am unsure why you've chosen to highlight this one piece of correspondence from me? Perhaps you aren't aware of my other correspondence with customer support, where I have since sent many more e-mails to ensure you were fully aware of the monitors condition before I returned it to you. Otherwise I can only assume it was posted to weaken my case against you? Luckily I have saved all later correspondence pertaining to this return, and I can assure you that your returns department were fully aware that the monitor was obtained by me with a crack in the screen, (and as I said in my further emails, not at all surprising, given the damage to the exterior box).

The reason why I wasn't home to sign for it doesn't matter; I did not consent for the parcel to go to any other address but my own, and gave no one permission to send it elsewhere. I know this isn't your fault but I was denied the opportunity to inspect and reject the package (which I would have given the chance) and unfortunately the retailer is accountable for the shipping and not the courier. The neighbour it was delivered to isn't my next door neighbour just so we are clear, and it's not out of the realms of possibility it was damaged in their possession. I can't possibly know. It should not have gone there and it should of remained with the courier until I arranged to pick it up or have it re-delivered.

Regardless Scan knew the condition of the monitor before I returned it and I was given no reason to think anything would be a problem as I'd contacted you within 48 hours, what's worse is I've been ignored for days and have had to correspond through a forum which is pretty disappointing.

As you can see I've been as in depth as possible so you have all the facts available to you. I've been a customer of Scan's for years and never had any prior issues, sadly I feel like I've had to jump through hoops to get a refund for what is a clear cut case. Please note as stated in my last e-mail to customer support I've been left with no choice but to open a claim with Amazon payments, though, as I've told Gareth, I would withdraw my claim if refunded directly by Scan and as a gesture of good will, I'll update all the forum/soc media posts with this outcome. Thank you for replying to my post, hopefully this can finally be resolved.

Shaun

[shagwan]

Lee,

Thank you for your message, my invoice number is 0AM46613.

Regards,
Shaun.

[shagwan]

To whomever at Scan,

I believe I have found the source of the confusion. After informing customer service of the damage to the screen I was issued an RMA under the 14 day cooling off period, I thought this terminology seemed peculiar but I trusted your customer service staff knew what they were doing, unfortunately it seems they may have issued this return through the wrong procedure.

As I had informed you of all the details in query 1602279, I assumed you had selected the right course of action, knowing your own procedures better than me, so the blame has to lie with your customer service rep or whoever processed the RMA. All I knew at the time was that my RMA had been accepted. I'm not sure why this wasn't obvious to customer service from the information I provided, but I am not responsible for knowing the inner workings of your company.

I hope this helps you better understand what may have gone awry within your returns department. Here is a copy of the e-mail I was sent:

Query 1602279 - {D1030663-5527-4559-991E-87F09C3E4AFF}

***Mr Shaun Hayler,

Good morning,

Thank you for your email.

We are able to accept the monitor back under the 14 day cooling off period for a refund. Would you like me to go ahead and raise an RMA?

Kind regards,

Carrie
Scan Computers***

[shagwan]

Update:

Scan have now issued me a full refund and apology. It seems that a series of unfortunate events lead to some misunderstandings and confusion, even though it took me a long time and a lot of explaining, Scan have acknowledged the error and fully reimbursed me, for which I'm grateful to them.

All in all I have to give them credit where it's due, they did come through for me in the end. So I'd like to thank Mark and anyone else who worked to resolve this issue. This outcome has brought back some confidence in purchasing from them in again the future. I apologise for any times I may have come across as abrasive, hopefully this was understandable.

Thank you.

Shaun