customer service

[Saracen]

Yes but the goods are NOT faulty, hence they were tested NOT FAULTY, we processed your RMA as a standard 7 day unwanted goods rejection as per your request.

I think jackdaniels' point is that the PSU was described as silent, and wasn't, and that therefore it was either faulty, if it should have been silent and that particular unit wasn't, OR misdescribed if all such units make that level of noise. In either case, he has an argument for rejecting them, because both aspects are part of whether the goods conform to contract or not.

If he chooses to take this to court, and the argument is about description, then it's a subjective assessment of what the description means. The standard definition is what a "reasonable person" would accept, given any descriptions of the product. "SuperSilent" or "ultra silent" is pretty suggestive of the level of noise that "reasonable person" would expect. It's anybody's guess how the court will see that.

If it's about a fault, then you'd have to be able to justify, to the satisfaction of the court, that they're not faulty and it's questionable as to whether an internal technician's word would do it or not. For the first 6 months, the presumption, by law, is that they're faulty unless you can establish otherwise and after that, the burden of proof switches. There are procedures that the court would normally expect to be followed.


One point I would make is that, if I'm reading this correctly, the dispute is about the £10 "fee"? Is it worth pursuing £10 in court? I understand the point of principle ..... but £10?

Also, if it does go to court, one thing the court WILL expect is that both parties have made all reasonable efforts to settle a dispute and that court is effectively the last resort in the case of irreconcilable differences. This seems to have deteriorated into discussion of court cases awfully quickly.

One possibility, of course, that perhaps both parties might consider is to split the difference - £5 each. It's just my opinion, which actually means very little of course, but if this does end up in court over £10 I rather suspect the court's perspective would be to regard neither side as being reasonable, and that it was wasting the court's time.

[SiM]

Lesson of the day:
Only buy PSU's recommended here.
IMO they are the only people to review them properly (no disrespect to any other reviewer out there) - they even have mp3 recordings of the noise that the PSUs make!

[jackdaniels4me]

Thank you for everybodys comments. There are people out there who understand the point i am making

I know its only £10, but for me its the principle. With regards to further action, I have taken on bigger fry than Scan and always won so ive got no issues there.

Ive now also got the backing of my credit card company, so as you can see I will leave no stone unturned to get this resolved.

[wesleyaldred]

jackdaniels4me

I am prepared as a gesture of goodwill and in the course of attempting to make reasonable effort to resolve this, I am willing to meet you half way on the collection cost and deduct only £5+vat instead of the usual £10+vat.

Wesley

[not_my_ip]

I can understand jackdaniels point , he bought a "supersilent" PSU and he can hear it. For me supersilent means , I would not hear noise from it. Personally I have Enermax PSU and it was described as quiet and it is, PC is located under desk and only fan I can hear is CPU fan. I usually work in silence, nop TV ormusic - and my Pc is most of the time quiet - CPU fan is set to work as "silent" in bios. If I would buy a new PSU and I could hear buzz from it I would be annoyed.
I don't know how loud this CM PSU is but "supersilent" name on it would suggest something - it is not a technical fault, but for me it looks like wrong description.
What exactly mean "supersilent"? Here I think is a problem.
If this would be a case for me, that's PSU loud I would ask for full refund, not based on refuse of item, but on basis that I was sold item which was not as described - Again I don't know how loud is this PSU. So maybe both sides should explain to each other, what they consider as "supersilent"
No other member would now who is right here and I', not taking a side. Just a personal view.

[pepsi_max2k]

>> then it's a subjective assessment of what the description means
>> So maybe both sides should explain to each other, what they consider as "supersilent"

Lucky for jackdaniels, there's no subjective about it on Scan's part.

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

as i mentioned earlier, under Special Features, although using the term "Ultra-silent", it also states an exact noise level of under 16dBA. now from the manual this doesn't seem to be true, which would be enough for me to think twice about putting the rating up in the first place, though i don't know if you could argue that by giving a correct product name from which you could find out further correct info would cover them if some of their description was wrong. then wouldn't help that cooler master also state under 16dBA so I guess scan could take CM to court over it.

and then how the under 16dBA was reached would be up for consideration. if it is 16dBA for up to 50&#37; load at a close distance, any further away would give you a slightly quieter sound which would then be <16dBA which then would correspond to CMs noise level ratings. Of course if jackdaniels says otherwise, and obviously he has good reason to given that the stats pretty much suggest it will be 16dB or louder, as saracen says it would be down to Scan to prove otherwise (and a tech saying "it's not loud" ain't gonne fill me with confidence). on top of that, the last review I saw of a CM psu gave much louder decibel readings than stated by CM anyway, so it would seem like a lost cause hoping to get anywhere near a 16dB reading. personally i'd lose that "<16dBA" from the description as quick as i could, and check all my other psu/fan listings too.

EDIT: some more thoughts on the issue... if CM have the "<16dBA" rating wrong, who's to say it's not the chart in the manual that's wrong and the "<16dBA" value is right?
And, regarding the product description, presumably CM have included the "<16dBA" rating on a few things, possibly including the PSU packaging and the manuals within. Therefore if Scan put up a description, and this described perfectly the description on the outside of the packaging, then presumably it would be a correct description of the product even if the eventual PSU did not conform to this.
And I'm starting to wonder just how much correct extended descriptions matter anyway. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a cross where there should be a tick, a tick where there should be a cross, something missing and something that shouldn't be there within a description, and this is on almost every site I've used. In the end, so long as the product name is correct I can figure the rest out myself, so I don't know how far someone would get in court over a slightly incorrect description.

[jackdaniels4me]

jackdaniels4me

I am prepared as a gesture of goodwill and in the course of attempting to make reasonable effort to resolve this, I am willing to meet you half way on the collection cost and deduct only £5+vat instead of the usual £10+vat.

Wesley

OK, I am willing to accept your offer, not because I think it is right but because I want to end this petty dispute before it escalates. I am however still dissapointed with Scan regarding this transcation. I have always used you in the past because you offered such good customer service, obviously things have now changed, which is a shame.

I do also think that you should really reconsider the description of this item on your website because it really gives a false impression of the actual performance.

[Giraffe]

because silent is also only a speculative value.

Silence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Silence is a relative or total lack of sound. An environment with sound below 20 decibels is considered quiet or silent."

'Sounds' like a kludge. I consider 'silent' to be not emitting sound; even if the sound is below the threshold of human hearing, it's not silent.

We really need better information with anything that moves - HDDs, fans of all sorts - and realistic measurements. Some figures seem to be at 1m whereas a lot of PC equipment is much closer than that.

[wesleyaldred]

OK, I am willing to accept your offer, not because I think it is right but because I want to end this petty dispute before it escalates. I am however still dissapointed with Scan regarding this transcation. I have always used you in the past because you offered such good customer service, obviously things have now changed, which is a shame.

I do also think that you should really reconsider the description of this item on your website because it really gives a false impression of the actual performance.

I can confirm this has been actioned for you.

Wesley

[Lucio]

I do also think that you should really reconsider the description of this item on your website because it really gives a false impression of the actual performance.

I belive that Scan basically copy and paste much of their information from the manufacturer's website, if that's the case in this instance, I would suggest contacting the manufacturer directly and complaining to them about their advertising.

[pepsi_max2k]

AFAIK it would still be scan's responsibility to ensure the info was correct as liability rests with the retailer in the case of malfunctioning or mis-described goods. May be CM's fault but that would be something Scan would have to take up with them seperately.

See
The Trade Descriptions Act 1968
Trade Descriptions Act 1968

Actually, this would mean that Scan have broken no law so long as they unknowingly added the misleading description to the goods. I do believe they should accept a return, and after an error has been pointed out then this must be changed right away otherwise they are breaking the law.

In other words, now that Scan employees have read this thread, if they continue to keep the "<16dBA" rating in the 850w Coolermaster Real Power description then they quite likely are breaking the law, unless they can otherwise prove that this is correct (which other documentation and common sense suggests otherwise). And I guess Coolermaster may also be breaking the law if this was pointed out to them and they continued to advertise/distribute the product with that rating.

[Saracen]

'Sounds' like a kludge. I consider 'silent' to be not emitting sound; even if the sound is below the threshold of human hearing, it's not silent.

We really need better information with anything that moves - HDDs, fans of all sorts - and realistic measurements. Some figures seem to be at 1m whereas a lot of PC equipment is much closer than that.

The quoted dBA figure gets round that, because dBA is a relative measurement, of sound pressure (not loudness, by the way) compared (logarithmically) to a reference level and measured using an A-weighted filter on a sound meter. That alone, by the way, means you can't judge compliance with 16dBA by a technician's "it isn't loud" because the A-filter doesn't "hear" with the same characteristics as the human ear, though it's designed to be a decent but easy to measure approximation. Just for the sake of completeness, that "relative level" I mentioned is the limit of the sensitivity of the human ear at the most sensitive frequency range.

However, in practical terms, 16dBA is so quiet you should barely be able to hear it at all. To give a few commonly quoted examples, it would be a little nosier (but less than twice the perceived noise) of a rustled leaf, and quieter than the background noise level in a TV recording studio ..... and quite a bit quieter than a quiet bedroom at night.

Whether "ultra-quiet" or "<16dBA", my expectation from that would be that at a working distance, most people would be barely able to hear it at all.


It's good to see this resolved, even if neither party is quite happy. But then, in a compromise, it's pretty much implicit that neither party will feel entirely happy.

[jackdaniels4me]

the description of the item I bought has now been altered

[SHare]

the description of the item I bought has now been altered

Be grateful your dealing with a company that listens and actions any issues you raise. Would any of the big etailers done that for you? Or would you just be fobbed off by folk in a call centre?

[Sprite]

I thought I might point out that companies measure db of fans from varying distances, e.g. some take a sound measuring from 1m but some may take a reading from 5m where the noise will obviously be lower

[Devlin]

the description of the item I bought has now been altered

Congratulations, you win the internet.