SCAN bad for RMA's?

[firsttimebuyer]

so any warranty is basically a 6 month warranty if the retailer/manufacturer wants it to be? (when the burden of proof changes from them to you).

I guess like you said Saracen if the retailer/manufacturer tries to be unreasonable by doing this you can always threaten them with court action. I guess also if word got about that the retailer/manufacturer constantly did this they would start to see less and less sales/business so hopefully this wont ever become the "norm", even though it could be considered legal.

EDIT just want to say thanks to those who have contributed to the discussion of this thread and to those who are keeping me informed on which products i should/shouldnt spend my hard earned (and on rare occasions my not so hard earned) money on.

[Tiver72]

Gents:

I have been following this thread with some interest the last few days. Like Saracen I have a vested interest in matters such as this. I do not work for Asus but I work for another MB factory and would represent the person the board would get sent to for the "second opinion" if it was one of my own. What Saracen has related throughout this thread is pretty well spot on, but perhaps I can provide you with even further clarity.

Scan is essentially stuck between a rock and a hardplace. The board has been found to have physical damage (the burned out chip), and as a result your RMA has been rejected. Firsttimebuyer is obviously not entirely in agreement with the rejection as he claims that the damage was caused thru no fault of his own. In that regard there is some merit to the claim, hence Scan offering to send the board to Asus for a "second opinion". Nothing new under the sun up until now. Lets look at this "second opinion" part thou.

What is happening is that the board is actually being sent to Asus to see if it can be repaired or not. This is all that matters. There will be no investigation as to the cause, as the cause is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because it can never be determined. The damaged component will be removed and the contact plates and surrounding PCB examined. If the contact plates are still ok, and the PCB is undamaged, then the board will likely be repaired and returned to you via Scan. If the PCB is too damaged then the board will be rejected and sent back to you via Scan. This is how it will go. It is a very black and white process. To understand why Scan wants you to sign waivers of liability you need to understand the situation they are in. To you it appears to be corporate butt covering. Which is exactly what it is from your standpoint. To anyone who has ever owned a business it is good corporate sense. It depends on your viewpoint.

Why does Scan feel the need to take these measures you might ask? The answer is they have been is this market for a long time, and this is most certainly not the first time something like this has happened. If Scan was to take in your board without you signing a waiver that "accepting of the board for service" then this constitutes an indirect admission of a fault. If they accepted your board, sent it off for repair and it comes back as rejected from Asus then they are then liable. They have no idea what the outcome of Asus's repair attempts will be anymore than you do. As a safeguard they are asking you to sign a waiver incase Asus rejects the board as unrepairable.

While I know it doesn't seem like it, Scan is actually going out if it's way to help you. Remember the board has already been rejected by Scan. It was rejected because Scan knows full well that if they send this board off to Asus for repair it will likely come back as unrepairable. That they are sending it for a "second opinion" is not something they have to do.This is an important point that one shouldn't forget.

The bottom line is that whether it is fair or not when a board becomes damaged in this way, motherboard makers are only concerned with one thing. Can it be repaired or not. If the PCB is damaged the board is unrepairable. These are simply the risks you take when assembling your own system. If something goes wrong (even catastrophically like this) then no one is responsible but you. If you are looking for ability to return the product for service for any reason then one should consider purchasing a pre-built system. Lets be honest here. Dell and other OEMs are not multi-billion dollar companies for nothing. Their big advantage is that they can offer a much greater level of security incase something goes wrong. I have worked at a number of different MB makers for a long time and the policies on these matters were the same at all. Asus is no different.

[firsttimebuyer]

Thanks for your input Tiver72

if what you say its true then the outcome should be satisfactory for me. All thats damage, well as far as i know is 1 chip, no PCB damage. The chip made a bit of a black mark on the white fan header thats about it, the fan header actually still works, the fan just wont spin at its full speed, no matter what you set in the BIOS.

I am a bit confused what you mean here
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"While I know it doesn't seem like it, Scan is actually going out if it's way to help you. Remember the board has already been rejected by Scan. It was rejected because Scan knows full well that if they send this board off to Asus for repair it will likely come back as unrepairable. That they are sending it for a "second opinion" is not something they have to do.This is an important point that one shouldn't forget."
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I am hoping you mean the reason the sent it to ASUS even though they rejected it was because they think ASUS WILL repair it, that would make sense. If not the only reason i could see for them to want to send it to ASUS even though they think they will reject it would be to either hammer me with a bill for their time/postage and/or possibly so they can say "see we were right". They had however offered to send it to ASUS before i made this thread so i am hoping thats not the case and it would not make much sense for SCAN to do this, unless they did want to make a bit of extra money out of me, i hope they are not that shrewd .

You point a about the pre-built system i dont agree with, a warranty on a £260 motherboard should be just as valid as a warranty on a £6000.00 fully built system. If a retailer disagree's about this it says alot about them as a company and its not anything good. Not all retailers think the same, i have been quite happy with the outcomes i have had from other companies when it comes to RMA's. They dont all consider us "cheap skates" and think we deserve to be treated differently just because we paid less than someone else did for a full system. Its a bit insulting to think that the reason i am being treated badly (as i see it) is because of a mistake i made by not spending more money on a pre-built system. How much money should be considered enough so that you deserve your warranty even though legally they dont have to give it to anymore.

As for saying all motherboard manufacturers operate the same, your wrong, EVGA are probably the only true customer friendly manufacturer/retailer. They understand that keeping your customers happy can pay dividends in the long run.

I had a EVGA 680i motherboard, i had it for 3 months and no matter how i tried i just could not seem to get the board to operate 100% stable and without quirks. I could however not pin it down to anything definate. in the end i got a series of BSOD's i put down to the motherboard as the memory seemed to work fine in my old motherboard. I sent it off to EVGA and they tested it. They could not replicate any of the problems i was having but you know what, the replaced the motherboard anywa, just incase, and not only that it was a brand new retial boxed motherboard still factory sealed. After putting me memory back into it i realised the problems came back, so it was the memory, even though it appeared to work fine in another motherboard. I had changed the memory before just incase, the RMA was a last straw, so some of the issues must have been down to the motherboard as i never had any similar issues with the new 680i. Now thats what i am talking about, they dont roll over on every decision, they are a business after all but EVGA have a loyal lifetime customer in me.

I will never make the mistake of not buying my motherboards from EVGA again, it seems its just not worth the risk if something goes wrong. Its great to see EVGA make an Intel chipset based motherboard and the even better news it can run SLI, so we are not forced to use Nvidia motherboards. If i could have bypassed SCAN and thought ASUS would have been easier to deal with i would have went right to ASUS, but we all know how ASUS like to operate.

Hopefully they have the waiver and we can get this RMA moving along.
appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this issue and your insights.

[Tiver72]

Interesting points that need some answers.

Scan initially rejected the board based on it's past experience with issues like this. Believe me I know as they have been a customer of mine throughout the years . They rejected it as experience has told them that the board will be rejected inturn by Asus. They have no more idea than you do if it can be repaired or not. They have only experience to guide them. Given the situation they are basically offering you a chance That is all they can do.

Regarding the difference between the self assembled system and the OEM system I can only say that your perceptions are wrong. In a perfect world the 2 would be equal, but they are not. I could write you an essay as to why, but it just isn't. Keep in mind my comment that all things are not fair.

Lastly with regards to EVGA the service they offer is made to appear as the nirvana of service to the outside world. A very good marketing tactic and I must take my hat off to them in that regard. You would probably be rather shocked to know the reality of the situation thou. They have a number of mitigating circumstances in their favor that the rest of the market does not have. Apples vs oranges if you will.

[Saracen]

so any warranty is basically a 6 month warranty if the retailer/manufacturer wants it to be? (when the burden of proof changes from them to you).

I guess like you said Saracen if the retailer/manufacturer tries to be unreasonable by doing this you can always threaten them with court action. I guess also if word got about that the retailer/manufacturer constantly did this they would start to see less and less sales/business so hopefully this wont ever become the "norm", even though it could be considered legal.

EDIT just want to say thanks to those who have contributed to the discussion of this thread and to those who are keeping me informed on which products i should/shouldnt spend my hard earned (and on rare occasions my not so hard earned) money on.

Well .... sort of, but not quite. I can see why you conclude it amounts to that in practice, but it isn't quite like that.

Your statutory rights are about equivalent to a 6 month period, unless you can prove that the fault existed at the time of sale, yes.

A warranty given by a shop (or manufacturer) is a bit different.

For example, that warranty given by my tailor. That's only for 3 months, but during those 3 months, it's a VERY comprehensive warranty, and includes damage caused by me, like the cigar burns and claret stains I said they specifically cover. But after 3 months, it's back to statutory rights. Having said that, with clothing, you really ought to be able to detect anything that would reasonably qualify as a warranty issue within 3 months. I think that's an extremely generous warranty they offer.

When I bought a TV a few years ago, I got it from John Lewis because they offered a free 5 year warranty, and that same level of cover from some major electrical outlets would have cost me about £180. and to be honest, I feel more inclined to put my faith in John Lewis' ethical trade practices than some major electrical box-shifters.

Scan also give a decent degree of cover, in addition to what they are obliged to do. Clearly, though, it's not a 100% guarantee that they'll replace any product.


Essentially, what I'm saying is that the statutory rights (Sale of Goods Act, Distance Selling Regs, etc) gives the minimum standard all consumers will get, and it can't be taken away from you. Under that, it more or less amounts to 6 months, but both within that 6 months and after it, it's still a judgement call.

If the board had been a week old, ftb, Scan might still have rejected it because of physical damage. And, if they could prove the fault wasn't inherent at time of sale, they'd be legally entitled to do so ..... like that bloke I mentioned that had bent the pins of that CPU.

Similarly, after 11 months, or perhaps a lot longer (potentially up to 6 years), you might STILL be entitled to a remedy (partial refund, repair, etc) for your board, even if Scan reject it. But, you'd have to be able to prove the fault was inherent, and while that might be possible, it might well not be easy.

It might be that if you took it to an independent engineer, they could track the problem back to, for example, a failed voltage regulator, or it might be that there's a component on there that's part of an identified faulty batch. You'd be entitled to that remedy, but you might have to go to court to get it, and if you do, you have to prove to the satisfaction of the judge, that on balance, you're more likely to be right that it was inherent than Scan are that it isn't.

The situation is basically the same as if I take you to court saying you owe me £100. Can is prove, on balance, that's it's probable you do? It's effectively down to the opinion of the judge. It might be that if I can prove I lent it to you and you can't prove you've repaid it that that would be sufficient, on balance of probability, to be "proof".

Or .... if I;m a really shifty character that and judge doesn't believe me when I said you didn't repay it, and you have a couple of witnesses (one a senior policeman and the other is the Pope) that swear they saw you pay it back, that he wouldn't believe me and I wouldn't have proved it.

There's no way to know,in advance, what would be "proof" that was sufficient the establish the decision one way or the other. That's why the statute specifies the presumption goes one way for 6 months, and then the other way after that.

The whole thing is supposed to be about balance. It's supposed to protect consumers, but only up to a point. It puts a fair bit of legal muscle behind consumers, but only in as far as it's reasonable to do so. The logic is that companies are expected to have a degree of expertise, they're expected to be competent exercising that expertise, and they have the financial muscle to use lawyers when they need to. So to balance that, the consumer protection legislation gives consumers a considerable degree of extra protection. All the stuff about fitness for purpose, satisfactory quality, and you Distance Selling regs actually works by forcing those provisions into the terms and conditions of every retailer/consumer contract, and stipulating that the business cannot to anything to void those conditions. Effectively, it weights the contract in favour of the consumer, to balance the dominance of power the supplier would otherwise have.

So, all the consumer protection stuff is about tilting the balance in favour of you, the consumer, but it only tilts it so far. After that, the balance tilts back a bit. Logically, most faults that exist at the time of sale will show up fairly quickly, and probably well within 6 months. But not all will. So the law lets you challenge that for up to 6 years (in England and Wales), just so long as you can prove it.


So yeah, up to a point, you have a pretty strong statutory warranty for 6 months, but ONLY if the retailer can't prove to a court that the problem was inherent.

After that, you have a warranty for a total of 6 YEARS, but only if you can prove the fault was inherent, and even then, things like the reasonable life of the goods will be taken into account. Just because you can sue for 6 years does NOT mean every product must last 6 years. If you bought a banana in Tesco, you can hardly expect it to last as long as if you'd bought an SL60 from Mercedes.

The law is phrased fairly vaguely in some respects precisely because it might be used in cases over everything from a banana to a Mercedes. It has to be fairly vague, which is why a lot comes down to a judgement call, and that's why judges are called judges.


But your shop (or manufacturer) warranty might be a lot better than your statutory rights, or you might not have a shop/manufacturer warranty at all. They don't have to offer one, but they do have to live by the terms if they do offer one, and they can't get out of statutory rights.

If a shop or retailer does offer a warranty, though, that burden of proof doesn't switch after 6 months. That burden of proof relates to statutory rights given you by virtue of national laws. The shop warranty gives you, basically, whatever the terms of the warranty say they give you. Typically that'll often be 12 months coverage for faults, but excludes accidental damage, failure to comply with usage instructions, no cover for commercial use, etc.

For instance, if you buy a dishwasher, it may give you a two-year fault warranty, but only for domestic use. If you use it in your restaurant, you aren't covered by the warranty. Why? Because if you use it at home, it'll probably be run once every day or two. If you run it in a restaurant, it may be used 8 hours a day, non-stop, so it'll wear out a lot faster.

So you need to distinguish between statutory rights, and warranty. The 6-month burden of proof applies to statutory rights, not your warranty, but your warranty might be lot a lot longer or shorter (like my tailor's three moths or John Lewis' 5 years), and may well have very different stipulations as to what's covered. My washing machine, for instance, has a warranty that gives me 12 months full cover, and after that, a further 9 years of parts cover but I have to pay a call-out charge (about £75) to cover labour. But still, my last call-out cost me £75 in total, but I ended up with a new drum, bearings, motor and programmer. And it was about 8 years old at the time, and came close to having what's effectively a new machine, all bar the chassis and a few hoses.

Warranties vary a LOT. Statutory rights don't, and the 6 months burden thingy relates to rights, not warranty.

[Blackbadger]

I think many are confused to what the real situation is.

The Asus motherboard in question is supposed to work for at least 5 years, as are any other non physically moving components, This is a reasonable time frame for any electrical item purchased.

In this situation scan are 100% responsible for repairing/replacing or if they can not do this, refunding the op. If the faulty components have caused irreparable damage to the pcb, this in no way effects the op's right to have a working unit. Just because it cant be fixed makes no difference to the consumer.

Scan do have the option to ask asus for assistance, as they have done (scan are not allowed to reject the rma for no reason as they have done, just beacuse they dont know what the exact damage is or what caused it is not a valid reason.)
Scan should address the rma procedures, sure have a letter to ask permission to send the component to a 3rd party if needed, however rejecting the rma at the same point is not acceptable.

Even if asus say it cant be fixed, a replacement will be issued, unless they have proved the op damaged the unit himself. The financial implications will be sorted internally by asus and scan.

To the Op, don't let anyone try and hoodwink you. You are fully covered. Scan know where there responsibilities lie, sure it makes good sense to try and avoid any costly procedures, however they are treading a very fine line on avoidance/evasion on there liabilities. You have a warranty with Scan which you purchased, which was 12 months which you are inside, in no way are they doing you any favours by passing the buck to asus. The mention of the 6 month period is really only relevant if you didn't have the 12 month warranty or are after the 12 months.

Things have got tense on both sides, made worse by scan continuously providing misinformation (maybe not on purpose), and the op obviously responding in a frustrated manner.

Scan will do the right thing in this case, sit back relax. 28 days is the maximum you must wait for a resolution.

[Saracen]

The Asus motherboard in question is supposed to work for at least 5 years, as are any other non physically moving components, This is a reasonable time frame for any electrical item purchased.

That time period is not defined. Ultimately, it's what the judge says it is when it gets to court. That might well be a rough guide, and common practice, and it might well be what a judge decides, but it ISN'T laid down anywhere. It's at the court's discretion.

In this situation scan are 100% responsible for repairing/replacing or if they can not do this, refunding the op. If the faulty components have caused irreparable damage to the pcb, this in no way effects the op's right to have a working unit. Just because it cant be fixed makes no difference to the consumer.

If, repeat IF they are faulty components, at time of sale, then yes. But the issue is whether they are, and who has to prove what. And after 6 months, it's for the buyer to prove that the product was faulty, not the other way round. That's the statutory position. As for any warranty, well, that depends what the warranty itself covers. If the damage is caused by some external factor, be it user error, power surge, accidental damage, abuse or misuse, etc, nearly every warranty will exclude that. So if the seller says that's what they believe has caused the damage and the buyer says it isn't, and the parties can't agree, then ultimately, it'll be down to a court. Again.

Scan do have the option to ask asus for assistance, as they have done (scan are not allowed to reject the rma for no reason as they have done, just beacuse they dont know what the exact damage is or what caused it is not a valid reason.)
Scan should address the rma procedures, sure have a letter to ask permission to send the component to a 3rd party if needed, however rejecting the rma at the same point is not acceptable.

As it's older than 6 months, Scan don't have to know, or even prove what caused it. It's for the buyer to prove it was faulty at the time of sale. Perhaps more detail would have been a good idea from a PR persepctive, but all they actually need to do is what they did.

Even if asus say it cant be fixed, a replacement will be issued, unless they have proved the op damaged the unit himself. The financial implications will be sorted internally by asus and scan.

Nope. Unless the Sale of Goods Act applies, or the shop warranty does, then a manufacturer warranty is the manufacturer's liability, not Scans. If either apply, then yes, who pays for it between Scan and Asus is between them and not the buyer's problem. But if they don't apply, Scan have no liability because a manufacturer offers and optional warranty - the manufacturer does.

To the Op, don't let anyone try and hoodwink you. You are fully covered. Scan know where there responsibilities lie, sure it makes good sense to try and avoid any costly procedures, however they are treading a very fine line on avoidance/evasion on there liabilities. You have a warranty with Scan which you purchased, which was 12 months which you are inside, in no way are they doing you any favours by passing the buck to asus. The mention of the 6 month period is really only relevant if you didn't have the 12 month warranty or are after the 12 months.

Scan are liable either for their Sale of Goods Act (atc) liabilities, or their warranty. Their warranty says (among other things) :-

We are not able to establish why the goods have failed to meet your expectations without an opportunity of inspecting and testing the goods.

In any case where the goods fail to meet your expectations we invite you to return them to us with an explanation of the problem.

In any case where we agree that the problem has arisen because of a defect in the goods at the point of delivery to you:

- we will refund the cost of the goods to you if returned within 28 days of the date of delivery;
- in any other case we will replace the goods or provide you with a credit for the cost of the goods.

In every case where you return goods upon the basis that there was a defect in the goods at the point of delivery to you we will inspect and test the goods.

Insofar as it may be established that there was no defect in the goods at the point of delivery to you, we reserve the right to charge you £10 as a contribution towards the cost of inspecting and testing the goods.

In any case where it is established that there was no defect in the goods at the point of delivery to you

• we will nonetheless try to assist you in resolving the problem
  
• depending upon the age and condition of the goods, we may be prepared to accept the return of the goods subject to a restocking charge and refund or credit the balance of the costs of the goods.
  
• insofar as the age or condition of the goods is such that we are unable to accept their return, we will redeliver the goods to you. You agree to pay to us the reasonable cost of re-delivering the goods to you.

The red emphasis is mine. But as you can see, Scan's warranty does rather labour the point about the fault existing at the time of delivery.


As I've said again and again, the crunch is whether the fault existed at point of delivery or not. If it didn't, then Scan's warranty is that last bit .... they will try to help (hence the offer to return to Asus), they might be prepared to accept goods back subject to a restocking fee (such as new, unused goods that are outside DSR time limits), but it's at their discretion, or they'll return them to the buyer at the buyer's cost.

It all comes down to HOW damage occurred - is it a fault that existed at time of sale or not? If it did, Scan are liable. If it didn't, they aren't. And if Scan and the buyer can't agree on that, it takes a judge to decide. Whether statutory rights or Scan's warranty, the crunch is when and how any damaged occurred - inherent fault, or something else?

[Clanger]

It all comes down to HOW damage occurred - is it a fault that existed at time of sale or not? If it did, Scan are liable. If it didn't, they aren't. And if Scan and the buyer can't agree on that, it takes a judge to decide. Whether statutory rights or Scan's warranty, the crunch is when and how any damaged occurred - inherent fault, or something else?

Maybe you have more idea of what happens in practice, but it seems to me that a customer taking the court route can't prove a negative - that they didn't misuse the goods. They can only say 'I was using it normally and it failed'.

Secondly, semiconductor failure rates follow a bathtub shape. There's a high early failure rate (which I've always thought was supposed to be up to about a year), then a flat "random failure" period, followed by a rise as they all get knackered eventually. Now, all semiconductors have "inherent" faults when manufactured - impurities, size/shape defects etc. which determine how soon they fail under normal use following the bathtub. (as opposed to falling in the bathtub). It's perfectly possible that an inherent fault in a circuit component could cause it to fail well after 6 months for apparently (i.e. ignoring how these things are made) no reason.

But being the magnanimous fellows we are, we can cut the retailers some slack (otherwise we'd have nowhere to buy anything ) and just say only if it fails within an atypically short period do we want a replacement. And I think that a judge would likely agree that if 98% (pulling a figure out the air) of the devices at issue don't fail in the first year, then that inherent (albeit unavoidable) manufacturing fault constitutes evidence of not being of satisfactory quality. Basically, a reasonable person would expect this device to last longer, and is proof of breach of contract by failure of durability.

Otherwise, in practice, the SOGA, wouldn't be much use beyond 6 months because nothing's really provable with electricals - short of spending thousands on a material scientist with an electron microscope to find a few wrong atoms in a semiconductor. And since I know of a couple of cases where retailers have changed their tune dramatically once notice of court proceedings arrived, in practice it does seem to work.

[Saracen]

Maybe you have more idea of what happens in practice, but it seems to me that a customer taking the court route can't prove a negative - that they didn't misuse the goods. They can only say 'I was using it normally and it failed'.
.

Well, quite. Which is why I keep saying that, to all appearances, Scan aren't liable. And in all probability, in the absence of an expert opinion, like an independent engineer's report, that the burden of proof after 6 months can't be met. But it's possible, as I said, that an engineer could establish a failure in a specific way, like a breakdown of a component, or even that a component that was used wasn't of the correct rating or quality.

Of course, there's no telling what a court would require to satisfy the burden of proof. My suspicion is that clearly visible burn damage would need to be explained adequately, if the appearance is that it's superficially suggestive of something other than straight component failure, and from their reaction, that appears to be Scan's opinion. As I said, it happened to me with that PSU of mine that failed and that took out multiple devices, including several hard drives, one of which had a chunk physically blown out of the chip. I'll see if I've still got it laying around and if so, take a picture of it. But I wasn't even in the country when it happened - the PC was sitting, quite happily running, when I went away, and when I got back, I had a stink of electrical burning, a (very) dead PC and a hard drive controller chip with a hole in it.

What caused it? Dunno. My presumption is PSU failure, but it could have been a mains surge or spike. Partly, I'm guessing at PSU because :-

- whatever it was, the PSU was well dead
- the nature of the damage suggested hugely excessive voltage (and/or current) when through that chip
- the PSU was about three weeks old at the time.

But I can't prove what it was, and it might not have been the PSU.

Secondly, semiconductor failure rates follow a bathtub shape. There's a high early failure rate (which I've always thought was supposed to be up to about a year), then a flat "random failure" period, followed by a rise as they all get knackered eventually. Now, all semiconductors have "inherent" faults when manufactured - impurities, size/shape defects etc. which determine how soon they fail under normal use following the bathtub. (as opposed to falling in the bathtub). It's perfectly possible that an inherent fault in a circuit component could cause it to fail well after 6 months for apparently (i.e. ignoring how these things are made) no reason.

Indeed it is. And I guess that's why, often, shops will take their best guess and replace stuff even if, technically, there's no absolute need to do so. But there's a line to be drawn somewhere, and it may be that the physical damage suggests where it is in this case. And ftb, I'm NOT suggesting that implies Scan think you're lying, merely that it could be that moth I mentioned, or a power spike or whatever. And, of course, I don't know what Scan are thinking oe why they rejected the RMA beyond what's been said in this thread.

But just as it might have been an inherent product fault, it also might not, and after 6 months the legal presumption, in the absence of proof to the contrary, is that it wasn't inherent.

But being the magnanimous fellows we are, we can cut the retailers some slack (otherwise we'd have nowhere to buy anything ) and just say only if it fails within an atypically short period do we want a replacement. And I think that a judge would likely agree that if 98% (pulling a figure out the air) of the devices at issue don't fail in the first year, then that inherent (albeit unavoidable) manufacturing fault constitutes evidence of not being of satisfactory quality. Basically, a reasonable person would expect this device to last longer, and is proof of breach of contract by failure of durability.

If you could get expert evidence to the effect of that 98%, and if that physically burning didn't change that opinion, then that might do it. The burden of proof required is "balance of probability", after all. So if a credible, independent expert gave a report putting it at 98% likely the fault was inherent and existed at time of delivery, my strong guess is that ftb would win such a case if it went to court. Even a 51% chance might well do it.

So yes, a reasonable person would, I'd expect, assume that a product of this type wouldn't fail that quickly through normal wear and tear, and that therefore something caused it. That something, presumably, is either an inherent fault, or something else. But if it's something else, Scan aren't liable. I can only assume that Scan regard whatever they found with the board, such as the burning, to indicate that it's something else, or they'd not have rejected the RMA.

Otherwise, in practice, the SOGA, wouldn't be much use beyond 6 months because nothing's really provable with electricals - short of spending thousands on a material scientist with an electron microscope to find a few wrong atoms in a semiconductor. And since I know of a couple of cases where retailers have changed their tune dramatically once notice of court proceedings arrived, in practice it does seem to work.

Well, the SoGA obviously isn't just about electrical items. And yes, retailers have been known to change their tune when a credible threat of court action arrives. I seem to remember making exactly that point earlier. But you can't read too much into even that. It might be that the retailer concerned didn't want to face being wrong in court. Or it may just be that they worked out the numbers and decided that it was cheaper to give in than to fight it in court, even if they were sure they were in the right and would win.

In this case, if ftb decided to go to court, it's an argument over, what .... a £100 or so. It might well cost Scan a lot more than that in time and costs to fight it, so it's cheaper to just give in. On the other hand, the cost isn't the only reason for fighting such a case and if they felt that they were right on principle, they might decide to argue their case even if sheer economics suggested it wasn't worthwhile.

And while it's certainly true that sometimes retailers will give in rather than face court, it may well also be the case that sometimes, consumers use that fact and start the court process not expecting to win or even knowing they're in the wrong, relying on the fact that a business might well give in rather than fight it.

And businesses will also know full well that for every 100 times an irate customer says "see you in court" it'll be 1 in 10, or 1 in 100 or whatever, that actually go that far.

So whether people take court action or not, and whether retailers give in rather than go to court of not, doesn't actually tell us much at all either about who was actually in the right, or who would win if it goes to court. Only if it does will we know who would have won, and even then, we won't know who was actually in the right. ftb could be trying it on (not saying you are, ftb, just that you could be) and still win, or he could be absolutely in the right, but if he;s unable to prove it, could still lose.

Even winning the case, therefore, doesn't tell us who was right, but merely who won under the laws as they stand. After all, Il haven't said I like the laws as they are, just that as I understand it, that how they are. It might not be fair, and ftb might end up not getting what he really ought to, but that's life I'm afraid. Things don't always work out how true, actual justice would demand, merely how the law ends up deciding it.

[LORD DAVROS]

OMG this post has gone way past my understanding ......

As far as I knew if you bought an item that carried a 12 month warranty which also was my understanding that in the UK was by law 12 months as a minimum and it went wrong inside that period and that it was not by malicious damage Ie screwdriver or something like that then you were entitled to a replacement. I also understood and this happened to me as i had a monitor that took 3 months to get sorted(teach me to buy online and not from a reputable source) that the item should be replaced or repaired or if neither was possible your money back with in 28 days or 1 calender month upon receipt of said faulty item buy the manufacturer. Thats what trading standards told me any way. As for the monitor i had trouble with, i said to them that i was going to trading standards about it as it had been over 2 months and i had heard nothing it was returned repaired in less than 1 week...

Any way I don't want to get dragged into this one as its too complicated for me to follow ........ But one thing i will say is that I run my own business basically removing reconditioning and refitting car cylinder heads. I do work for the public and for other garages and I give a 6 month or 6000 mile warranty on the work that I carry out. but the gaskets and the other parts carry a 12 month warranty on them BY LAW. so unless I can prove that a car owner has done the damage them selves, either buy negligence or some other part that was on the car to begin with failing I still end up doing the job again either for free as in one case, or giving the customer some of the re repair for free.
And even if a job is just outside of my warranty I will in most cases help towards the cost in some way as a good will gesture purely because these things should last longer than 12 months or a certain mileage say 10000 miles.



ANY WAY ON TO A LIGHTER NOTE

The new Nvidia EVGA 280 came from scan this morning So in my lunch break I fitted it in.

And to say that I was pleased with the results would be a slight understatement LOL
With out even clocking the card at all just as it came out of the box going into CRYSIS and standing in exactly the same spot as i mentioned earlier the FPS was up to 50 FPS. thats a whopping 12 frames up from my 9800 GTX and a staggering 18FPS up from the 4870x2
These tests I have done were all performed at 1440 by 900 resolutions and with crysis on the second highest settings for all the graphics.

the 3D marks score was down a bit from the 4870x 2 but that was to be expected and to be honest in game frames is way more important than a 3D score.

So in my experience and testing the Nvidia 280GTX is at the moment the best card on the market and there is nothing close to it.

As for ATI either their drivers just aren't up to the job yet OR game producers are still backing and writing games for Nvidia.

Any way I just though I would let you know what I had found the best on my system

And I would also like to give LEE P at scan a big thanks for all the help he has given me this year with all the advise and help with the RMAs which must have been most of his work over the last week or so LOL untill I managed to find the right bits for my system..

Hope what I have found out helps you with the card choices firsttime buyer..

[Saracen]

.....

As far as I knew if you bought an item that carried a 12 month warranty which also was my understanding that in the UK was by law 12 months as a minimum .....
...

There is no mandatory or fixed period for guarantees in the UK.

Think about it. How long should a guarantee be on a new house or double glazing? Twelve months? 10 years?

What about a banana? Does that get 12 months too? And how many bananas would last 12 months?

Neither retailer nor manufacturer are required to offer a warranty/guarantee at all, let alone for 12 months, or any specified period. But if they do offer one, they can be held to it by a court .... though generally, in relation to manufacturer's warranties, that's pretty new (five years or so), before which they were largely regarded as just promises not contracts, and therefore largely unenforceable. Now they are enforceable.

However, for many items, 12 months is common. A free guarantee is often offered because it's expected, and because if they didn't offer it, people would buy something else. So on many items, particularly things like TVs, washing machines, computers, DVD players, etc, 12 months is common and you won't find many that aren't at least that long. But there's nothing mandatory abut offering them.

...... I also understood and this happened to me as i had a monitor that took 3 months to get sorted(teach me to buy online and not from a reputable source) that the item should be replaced or repaired or if neither was possible your money back with in 28 days or 1 calender month upon receipt of said faulty item buy the manufacturer. Thats what trading standards told me any way. As for the monitor i had trouble with, i said to them that i was going to trading standards about it as it had been over 2 months and i had heard nothing it was returned repaired in less than 1 week ...

Then either Trading Standards told you wrong, or you misunderstood what they said. There is no 28 day/1 month period. That is a judgement of what's probably about right, generally and in most circumstances, most of the time, but :-

- it's not always the case
- it could be longer than that ore a lot less than that depending on circumstances and product,
- it is not for Trading Standards to determine how long anyway.

That decision lies with a court. The law that gives rise to that is the Sale of Goods Act 1979, as amended by the implementation of the EU directive referred to earlier, which added S.48B(2)(a), which says :

(2) If the buyer requires the seller to repair or replace the goods, the seller must -

(a) repair or, as the case may be, replace the goods within a reasonable time but without causing significant inconvenience to the buyer;

(b) bear any costs incurred in doing so (including in particular the cost of any labour, materials or postage).

There's more to it than that, and it goes on to make stipulations about the seller not being able to be compelled to do either of those if it's either impossible or disproportionately costly, and so on. So that quote is not the whole story, but it's the relevant bit. And it relates to statutory rights not to guarantees or warranties, and it's only available where a fault existed at the time of delivery, etc.

.....

Any way I don't want to get dragged into this one as its too complicated for me to follow ........ But one thing i will say is that I run my own business basically removing reconditioning and refitting car cylinder heads. I do work for the public and for other garages and I give a 6 month or 6000 mile warranty on the work that I carry out. but the gaskets and the other parts carry a 12 month warranty on them BY LAW. so unless I can prove that a car owner has done the damage them selves, either buy negligence or some other part that was on the car to begin with failing I still end up doing the job again either for free as in one case, or giving the customer some of the re repair for free.
And even if a job is just outside of my warranty I will in most cases help towards the cost in some way as a good will gesture purely because these things should last longer than 12 months or a certain mileage say 10000 miles.
...

What you do out of goodwill is, of course, entirely up to you. But you say you're compelled to do these things "BY LAW"?

Okay, what law?

I've stated again and again which laws I'm referring to. So if that law exists, educate us (or just me) and tell me what it is, please. I'm not a lawyer (though the friend I asked about this is), so I could be wrong. What law?

[LORD DAVROS]

oops i KNEW i SHOULD A KEPT MY BIG MOUTH SHUT.

But let me get this right...

1/ so no warranty on anything has to be given by law. But what grantee is given if any is then legally binding.

as for me in my trade if a head gasket fails after 7 months and I can find no cause for it to fail is the burden of proof on me as i sold it or on the manufacturer to prove that it was not faulty, or is the burden of proof on the customer to prove that it was faulty.

surly it would be very hard to prove that an item be it electrical or a head gasket for example was faulty at the point o sale ( which I think I saw you had posted some where in this post ) some 6 or 7 months after the point of sale as for the last 6/7 months it had been working correctly.

But things do fail due to anomalies in manufacturing processes making materials have a lower grade than they were meant to have .
and wouldnt a warantie be against failure during the warantie period ????? providing that the component was not caused to fail by an outside force ie powersurge from a psu acidental damage with a screwdriver or in my case overheating due to lack of water as my customer might not have kept the water toped up.

Sorry if I am making you repeat anything here but would like to clarify this point as it would obviously affect the way i operate my business

[Tiver72]

It all comes down to HOW damage occurred - is it a fault that existed at time of sale or not? If it did, Scan are liable. If it didn't, they aren't. And if Scan and the buyer can't agree on that, it takes a judge to decide. Whether statutory rights or Scan's warranty, the crunch is when and how any damaged occurred - inherent fault, or something else?

And in all probability, in the absence of an expert opinion, like an independent engineer's report, that the burden of proof after 6 months can't be met. But it's possible, as I said, that an engineer could establish a failure in a specific way, like a breakdown of a component, or even that a component that was used wasn't of the correct rating or quality.

These are interesting points as situations like this often lead to these sorts of discussions. You have hit the proverbial nail on the head when you say it all comes down to HOW the damage occured. What you might be interested to know is that the task of determining how such damage occured in a user built system is impossible. There is no such thing as an "independant engineers report". This is a notion cooked up by those who feel they have been wronged and used as a threat to cajole IT company X into action. It is nothing more than fantasy. The only party that may make a binding judgement to a products fitness is a certified technician from that company. The oft heard cry is that a judge can appoint an "independant expert" In my 10+ years of being an MB tech and having dealth with 100s of cases like this one I have yet to meet such an "expert". They simply don't exist as the only parties with 100% technical insight are the designers. Judges and courts work with facts. Any appointed "expert" would not be able to determine the facts but rather offer a reasonable summation, or in otherwords a "best guess". The nasty circle is that the parties involved in the dispute have gone to court to seek that very thing. Clarity. A judge handing down a "decision" based on such guesswork is thereby undermining the sought after goal. Clarity.

There is no court in any land that would even touch a case like the OP has stated with a 10 foot pole as they would have no ability to determine any sort of fact. Drummed up experts would be ripped to shreds on the stand by the certified techs from the company whose product was in question.

In all my years of being a tech I have been threatened with various forms of legal action and to date only one fellow went so far as to get his lawyer to send a threatening letter. That is as far as it went. The class action nonsense we read about in the States would lead one to believe that such "Court cases" are a dime a dozen, when in fact they simply don't exist.

The bottom line is that the manufacturers make the ultimate decisions on these matters, and they are binding and final.

[firsttimebuyer]

well SCAN are treating it as physical damage for whatever reason, i just wish they could give me an explanation why but i guess since they dont legally have to they wont, it could be they dont have an specific reason other than now the proof of fault is with me. This to me looks like the retailer looking for a way out, even though they dont have to, they could atleast try and explain why in this occasion they decided to send it to the manufacturer on the ground of physical damage, when supposedly with similar situations they have just offered a replacement, atleast according to Saracen.

All i am talking about is treating the customer right, being respectful, understanding we get upset since the small amount of money means alot to some of us, i am sure SCAN is nowhere near going bust and they just cant absorb the cost of my board, this being the reason they are so defensive. I guess since they are not legally obligated to treat you in any manner they are not too bothered how they come across.

I love SCAN's CODE, i wonder how often they actually go by their SCAN CODE, i am sure its been amended also, it used to be longer than that, or atleast i thought it was, maybe they have not changed it since a year or so ago.

Well thanks for keeping this discussion alive, it may do nothing for me but it may make SCAN think twice before doing this to someone else or just when dealing with RMA's in general.

SCAN said my motherboard may have to go to ASUS, but what they did not tell me was this could only happen if they rejected it and then got my permission to send it to them. They made it sound like if it needed replaced, ASUS would be the one to issue the replacement board. I guess i just expected them to have to give me a good reason why they could not just replace it themselves since the board is advertised with a 36month Return to Base warranty but i was wrong. Maybe if i did not get the initial mail saying it had all been dealt with and a replacement was being issued i could have taken the rejection news a bit better.

this could be the way all online retailers work but i must say SCAN is the only retailer i have had any problems with when it comes to RMA's and this is on 2 seperate occasions. Make of that what you will.

I am not going to say whether i think SCAN is a good or bad online retailer, all i know is i stopped buying from them due to one of their employees attitude on the phone and this experience has not changed that.

[Saracen]

These are interesting points as situations like this often lead to these sorts of discussions. You have hit the proverbial nail on the head when you say it all comes down to HOW the damage occured. What you might be interested to know is that the task of determining how such damage occured in a user built system is impossible. There is no such thing as an "independant engineers report". This is a notion cooked up by those who feel they have been wronged and used as a threat to cajole IT company X into action. It is nothing more than fantasy. The only party that may make a binding judgement to a products fitness is a certified technician from that company. The oft heard cry is that a judge can appoint an "independant expert" In my 10+ years of being an MB tech and having dealth with 100s of cases like this one I have yet to meet such an "expert". They simply don't exist as the only parties with 100% technical insight are the designers. Judges and courts work with facts. Any appointed "expert" would not be able to determine the facts but rather offer a reasonable summation, or in otherwords a "best guess". The nasty circle is that the parties involved in the dispute have gone to court to seek that very thing. Clarity. A judge handing down a "decision" based on such guesswork is thereby undermining the sought after goal. Clarity.

There is no court in any land that would even touch a case like the OP has stated with a 10 foot pole as they would have no ability to determine any sort of fact. Drummed up experts would be ripped to shreds on the stand by the certified techs from the company whose product was in question.

In all my years of being a tech I have been threatened with various forms of legal action and to date only one fellow went so far as to get his lawyer to send a threatening letter. That is as far as it went. The class action nonsense we read about in the States would lead one to believe that such "Court cases" are a dime a dozen, when in fact they simply don't exist.

The bottom line is that the manufacturers make the ultimate decisions on these matters, and they are binding and final.

In terms of ascertaining fault from a technical perspective, you are no doubt right that the manufacturers are the best people, and certainly should be. But they aren't exactly impartial and legal liability isn't determined by needing absolute proof. It's determined by balance of probability. I don't know about the US or about mainland Europe but these cases certainly are determined by "independent experts" in the UK, most especially in the sort of case we're talking about here.

You are, in my opinion, quite right about the difficulty or indeed perhaps impossibility of a 100% determination of what happened, and we end up with a "best guess". BUt you're wrong about manufacturer's opinions being binding and final. If this gets to a court, the court's opinion will be binding and final, unless overruled by a higher level of court, and the standard they require isn't 100% certainty but a balance of probability ... at least, in UK civil cases.

Remember the example I gave of a PSU failure .... or what appeared to be one, and the damage that resulted? I also made the same point there that you do .... it appeared to be a PSU failure that had caused the damage, but it could be that something caused damage to the PSU that then directly or indirectly caused the damage to the system.

If that happened today, in the UK, I wouldn't have to prove that the PSU failed - the supplier would have to prove (on balance of probability) that it didn't. And if they couldn't, the law specifies (by Act of Parliament) that it is presumed to have been an inherent product fault as the PSU was less than 6 months old.

The point is that, for the first 6 months, the legal impact is that the fault was inherent unless the supplier can prove it wasn't. After that, the burden reverses.

I did indeed say that it all comes down to "HOW" damage occurred .... though you need to take that in the context of everything else I've said. It's not the technical "how" that matters, but whether there is sufficient evidence, either way) to prove to the standards required by the court how it occurred.

I don't know where you're based, Tiver, but it seems from what you've said it isn't the UK. If it isn't, then things there may well be a bit different (though if it's Europe, that bit about 6 months and the presumption of fault shouldn't be because it's mandated EU standard by directive all EU states should have implemented by now). But if you're not UK-based, you might not have the "small claims court" we have here. In that court (more accurately, the small claims track of the High court), small (in value) and relatively simple (in legal terms) cases are dealt with on a very informal basis. If, for instance, the OP sued Scan, the ONLY expert testimony allowed would be that approved by the court, and that's usually going to be a result of the court getting Scan and the OP to agree on an independent assessment from an engineer, and it is, as you say, precisely his opinion that will matter. If, given the facts both parties can present, and that opinion, the OP was able to prove (on balance of probability, mind, not certainty) that the fault was inherent, he'd win. But could a mutually-agreed "expert" give that opinion, and what would other facts be?

And it may well be that manufacturer opinion would never be heard. For a start, it would need to be mutually agreed, or appointed by the court, and secondly, as the manufacturer could well end up being the one that was ultimately liable, it's hardly independent, is it?

.... The bottom line is that the manufacturers make the ultimate decisions on these matters, and they are binding and final.

It might well be the manufacturer that has the ultimate opinion on what caused the problem, but at least in the UK, it certainly isn't them that has a binding or ultimate say on legal liability. That is the sole prerogative of the courts. One reason is that for any product that's more than a very short period old, a major factor in whether liability exists or not, and if it does, how much it amounts to, is an assessment of what is a "reasonable" product life, and that is not determined by what the manufacturer says, but by what a mythical "reasonable person" would expect, and by the overall circumstances of the contract for sale, much of which the manufacturer has no say in ..... such as in second-hand goods.

[Saracen]

oops i KNEW i SHOULD A KEPT MY BIG MOUTH SHUT.

But let me get this right...

1/ so no warranty on anything has to be given by law. But what grantee is given if any is then legally binding.

as for me in my trade if a head gasket fails after 7 months and I can find no cause for it to fail is the burden of proof on me as i sold it or on the manufacturer to prove that it was not faulty, or is the burden of proof on the customer to prove that it was faulty.

surly it would be very hard to prove that an item be it electrical or a head gasket for example was faulty at the point o sale ( which I think I saw you had posted some where in this post ) some 6 or 7 months after the point of sale as for the last 6/7 months it had been working correctly.

But things do fail due to anomalies in manufacturing processes making materials have a lower grade than they were meant to have .
and wouldnt a warantie be against failure during the warantie period ????? providing that the component was not caused to fail by an outside force ie powersurge from a psu acidental damage with a screwdriver or in my case overheating due to lack of water as my customer might not have kept the water toped up.

Sorry if I am making you repeat anything here but would like to clarify this point as it would obviously affect the way i operate my business

First, let me just stress, this is a discussion forum not a lawyers office and I'm not a lawyer, so all this is opinion, not legal advice. If you're going to make business decisions based on it, get proper advice.

Having said that, yes, as I understand it, there's no legal requirement to issue a guarantee. It might be a dire business decision to not do so, though, as it could cost you a lot of customers.

If you DO issue a guarantee, then as the direct supplier, you can be held to it legallly and always have been. But, until relatively recently, manufacturer's guarantees/warranties weren't enforceable in a court.

The logic went like this. With a few specific exceptions, you need to be party to a contract to be able to take legal action on it. When you buy goods in a shop (or your customers buy goods/services from you) you are creating a contract, and a contract requires specific elements, mainly :-

- an intent to be legally bound
- offer
- acceptance
- exchange of value/consideration or the promise thereof.

So, a customer comes in, says "how much to service my car", and you say £100. The customer has effectively made an offer when they say "okay, do it", and you then "accept" that offer by doing it, or booking the car in. The exchange of consideration is that you supply parts and do work, and the customer either pays or, much more likely in that case, promises to pay. So you have a contract, and if you muff things up, can be held to it by a court, if necessary.

If you fit a new head gasket, and either it fails or you fitted it badly, you're likely to be liable, ad probably not just for the gasket, but for any damage that resulted directly and possibly for indirect damage .... though that latter is more tricky. By "direct" damage,I mean if it wrecks the engine, you'd be liable .... which is why you have insurance, I hope. By indirect, I mean that if the consumer suffered loss as a result (such as having to get a taxi to and from work because you messed up their car), you could find yourself paying that, too.

But it will come down to WHY that gasket failed ... and legally, when it failed, and what can be proven.

Now, the consumer has a contract with YOU, but not directly with the manufacturer of the gasket. If the problem is that the gasket was faulty (but your work was not), the consumer can still go after you for the damage. You, in turn, can go after the manufacturer, of course, subject to whatever contract you had with them.

In circumstances like that, you don't have to have issued a guarantee or warranty. The consumer will be relying on statutory rights, like the Sale of Goods Act, etc. And accordingly, for the first 6 months, you have to prove that whatever caused the failure wasn't down to either the parts you used or the work you did, or you'll be liable. If you could show, for instance, that another garage working n the car after you and did something ... say, had the remove the head to change a timing belt, and didn't put it back together properly, or replae a gasket (if it should have been replaced), or didn't tighten the head bolts down properly and hot gasses burned the gasket, etc, then you aen't liable, even within the first 6 months.

But after 6 months, the consumer has to be able to prove that either the goods were faulty when you fitted them, or that your work was to blame.

If I've brought my car in, you've done the work and 9 moths later, the gasket fail, I'll come to you and complain. You say "nothing to do with me, it's more than 6 months old", and I say "see you in court then", you run the risk that I actually do take you to court. It then turns out that the court authorise an AA inspection, they take the head off and find you used the wrong gasket, or fitted it upside down (if that's possible) or some such, then you're likely to find yourself held liable if whatever it was that you did was likely to have resulted in the damage .... and you'll end up paying for the work, and damages (such as those mentioned above) and legal costs, not to mention footing your own legal costs.

So ..... denying liability can result in things being much more expensive in the long term if, someone takes you to court and wins.

If the gasket was defective, you THEN might have a claim against the manufacturer. But remember, a fair bit of the Sale of Goods Act etc doesn't apply to you. It's called "consumer protection" because it applies to consumers, and as you bought as a business buyer, you aren't a consumer. Some parts of the SoGA (and similar legislation) apply to both consumers and non-consumers, bit not all of it does.

So check out the T&Cs you have with you suppliers about liability, because that'll be MUCH more important than it is with a consumer.


Finally, in response to that EU directive I mentioned a few posts back, manufacturers can now be held liable for guarantees by courts. The logic used to be that since the manufacturer has no part in the contract between seller and retail buyer, they couldn't be sued on it, as their was no consideration. Effectively, the legislation now says that the "consideration" is implicit, in that the manufacturer only sells to you, the retailer, because the consumer buys from you, so there's an indirect, if you like, consideration. In any event, statute now says that manufacturers can be held liable for guarantees. Not that they automatically ARE liable, but can be. And there's conditions placed on them they MUST fulfil if they offer a warranty, such as it being available for inspection, and written in clear English, etc.

I hope that clears it up a bit for you. But it's still just opinion.